This is in answer to the three questions that reveal everything from Inc.com by Jeff Haden (@Jeff_Haden). I thought it was interesting as a professor for my students to see what I had done, but more importantly as a $consultant for people to see what I have done. Besides this is a good reflection exercise.
I know that having people read about me and me writing about myself is narcissistic. I hope it is not taken that way but haters are going to hate. I also know that it tantamount to career suicide. By writing these kinds of blog posts, I am knowingly giving future companies every reason to not hire me. I also knowingly am providing every possible hiring agency the fodder to skip me if I want to leave academia. It is what it is. Then again, if somebody somewhere reads all of this and wants to offer me a job. It is likely going to be a great fit for everybody involved.
So answering the questions of “how did you find out about the job”, “What did you like about the job before you started”, and finally “why did you leave” follows starting from the beginning. Like I have said before not all my jobs are in even my CV, but this list reflects a diverse and scattered career.
Washington State Army National Guard: June 1983 – August 1983
How did you find out about the job?
I was sitting in the cafeteria of my high school. It was early in the spring semester and a friend named Thomas Swan walks up to me and says he has the best deal ever. We could shoot automatic weapons, drive tanks, and get paid for it. I was hooked.
What did you like about the job before you started?
What is not to like about automatic weapons, tanks, and cash to a 17 year old teenager?
Why did you leave?
I chose after Army basic training in Fort Knox Kentucky to go active duty. I thought at first I was going to be active duty in the Army. Go to Germany, drink beer, drive tanks, and see the world. I really hadn’t thought a lot about it. I turned in my forms and ended up going active duty Marine Corps. I usually engage in a mythos of how this happened. It really was pretty simple. My request went in with four other aspirants and we all were selected in to the Marines.
United States Marine Corps: September 1984 – October 1986
How did you find out about the job?
The pretty standard way. I was contacted by a recruiter and he talked to me quite awhile. I was in the National Guard. He did a buddy program and the four of us went off to MCRD San Diego.
What did you like about the job before you started?
When I was going through basic training at Fort Knox I spent some time with the Marine Corps tankers testing the M1 Abrams. I liked their professionalism. I liked the fact their bosses said “break shit” and it was mission priority where my bosses said if I broke anything they’d take it out of my pay. I was 17.
Why did you leave?
I broke my neck (C5, C6) and back. My child was killed, and my wife of that time was severely injured, and all in the same car accident that I was injured in. I was a partially paralyzed, emotionally traumatized, and not a wholly lucid Marine. I wanted out of the Corps almost as much as I wanted to stay in the Corps. I was broken, humiliated, wholly unsatisfied, and dealing with emotional regret and loss. I was medically discharged due to my back and neck injuries.
Kitsap County Sheriff Department Corrections Officer – October 1987 – August 1989
How did you find out about the job?
Between getting out of the Marine Corps and taking this job I worked a series of jobs including working as a Tribal Police Officer. When the testing for this job came up several friends said I should try and see how I did. I passed and was offered a job.
What did you like about the job before you started?
I really liked the idea of serving my home town community. I would later regret this after booking my former best friend for DUI, arresting my ex-girlfriends brother, and other associated small town craziness. The job looked like a real adult big people’s job. It looked like a job that you could do for life.
Why did you leave?
The police academy administrator for Washington State Myrah Wall was helping Pierce County Washington repopulate their Corrections Bureau after a major scandal rocked the department. Several officers from around the state were brought in at senior levels to help fill in the now vacant slots. I was recruited to fill in one of those slots. I saw this move as furthering my career.
Pierce County Sheriff Department: Corrections Officer -August 1989 – December 1993
How did you find out about the job?
I was recruited by Myrah Wall from the Washington State Law Enforcement Academy. After her initial contact, I talked to a sergeant at the correction facility in Tacoma Washington. I was offered a slot a few weeks later. As a lateral into the job I did not have to have a civil service exam though I did need to do a polygraph.
What did you like about the job before you started?
There were three things that I liked most. The first, I liked the idea of moving up the ranks and with a larger pyramid above me I could move up much further than I could at Kitsap County. The second, I was taking a 25% increase in pay that just starting at Pierce County was much higher than a supervisory role in Kitsap County. Finally, I looked forward to not having to book, jail, or supervise people I had grown up with.
Why did you leave?
I did my job well. However, I did not do well when told by administrators to do things I felt were ethically or morally abhorrent. I was brought in to the department because they had issues in their history. Feeding in or falling in to those issues I felt was not in my or the publics best interest. People who worked there or still work there would likely feel I was not getting along. I was difficult or truculent in my way of working with other officers. Some would say I violated the blue line by walking away from law enforcement entirely. I had no plan when I left. I just knew that I needed to get out of a bad situation.
Basec.Net: Network Engineer – December 1997 to June 1998
How did you find out about the job?
I was in college and had been doing projects with various professors. One of my fellow students needed somebody to fill in and help him at his day job. He saw a project I did with a professor as a side job and took me to see his boss. They hired me on the spot.
What did you like about the job before you started?
Before the interview I did not know much about the job. I did not need the job when I interviewed so my fellow student/friend and the owner of the company sold it hard. The thing they offered me to get me to join them was unfettered access to the network to do magic, and substantial flexibility on the hours and schedule I worked.
Why did you leave?
I did not want to leave. To be honest the owner of the company at the time was a great boss. She went overboard to make us feel welcome and pushed us hard to be our best. My friend who nominally supervised me was a great partner and colleague. Some of the people I hired to work for me were also awesome. I got offered a chance to get my masters degree for free in another state and that was too good of opportunity to pass up.
MCIWorldcom (Contracted Services): Senior Program Manager – February 1999 to September 1999.
How did you find out about the job?
I was sitting in a graduate class minding my own business checking out the sexy young lady sitting next to me. She would later become my wife. Student sitting behind me tapped me on the shoulder and asked to talk to me after class. He later explained he was looking to get a bonus from his contracting company (Volt) and if I got the job he cashed in. I got the job drinks were on him.
What did you like about the job before you started?
I took the job because it fit my location desires (Colorado Springs), it met my hierarchy requirements (Director level management), and it was within a major telecommunications provider. The project was high stress, high reward, and because of the nature of the problem set would be very flexible and dynamic. You could not get there from here without a lot of risk. I took the risk.
Why did you leave?
The project ended. I balanced continuing to work with great leaders like Bruce Walker with continued dismantling of the organization. When Bruce said he was also leaving I knew I should leave. It was a given that the project would end and I chose to leave a few weeks early even though they wanted me to stay through the sustainment phase. I had met every metric and goal I had entering the project. I grew the project, learned from some great leaders like Bruce Walker and Dan Brooks, and felt I had done enough.
Litton/TASC (Now just TASC): Senior Member Technical Staff – September 1999 to April 2000
How did you find out about the job?
After I finished up graduate school, a fellow student Radar Torres started recruiting me in to a job with his company. We discussed the job. When I was leaving MCIWorldcom he made me another offer. It was not at the level I wanted but it was definitely in an industry I would like. I took the job based on the relationship I had with the fellow student.
What did you like about the job before you started?
I liked the idea of working engineering problems like network security for the deep space network. I really like the idea of fundamentally impacting national security. The job was with a company that valued education so I would likely be able to continue my studies. The person recruiting me embodied many of the traits I tried to emulate.
Why did you leave?
I did not end up working with Radar on his project. I ended up working for some retired Lieutenant Colonels who were project managers (MBAs) while I was a senior member of the technical staff. At each step I was stymied by hierarchical and organizational malaise that left me less than thrilled to be at work. Contradictory requirements to produce results with managerial barriers artificially crated along with cultural barriers (they were formerly officers and used to be an enlisted) created many impediments to success. Though, I was rated highly by the customers (when I announced I was quitting the customer offered to hire me direct if I wouldn’t leave) and appreciated by many in the company (they offered to move me somewhere else) I felt I needed to grow some more.
Access Data Consulting Corporation: Senior Technical Consultant – April 2000 to August 2000
How did you find out about the job?
A recruiter contacted me and offered me substantially more money.
What did you like about the job before you started?
I knew nothing about the job other than they wanted to hire me. I thought the job would allow me a chance to grow my technical expertise.
Why did you leave?
This job was a classic, annoying, and highly disgusting mistake in self reflection and career choices. I made every mistake I swore I would never make and use this job as proof we can all make mistakes. The organization was morally corrupt, the expectations of the job did not fit my skills, what they hired me to do was not what I was tasked with, and investment in individuals was non-existent. This was an organization that had many cogs and gears and people were fed to the machinery as grease.
NCR Corporation: Senior Consultant 1 – August 2000 to August 2003
How did you find out about the job?
The hiring authority was AVP Joseph Stork at NCR who had been my vendor contact at MCIWorldcom. There was a little shuffle in this job as I was contractor (contract to hire) and employee, but I always held the same title and same office. The AVP and I had dinner and asked if I would work with him on a contract. This meant working for a friend and colleague who I implicitly trusted. I called him and took the job a few days later.
What did you like about the job before you started?
I trusted my boss implicitly to take care of me and give me the straight scoop on requirements. I knew having worked with these people I would always know what I needed to do to be successful. The job involved networking, security, and consulting to customers across a wide breadth of the world.
Why did you leave?
I was unskilled in work life balance. Where Access Data Consulting Corporation sacrificed people against their will into the machinery of business. I threw myself into the machinery at NCR heart and soul. By June of 1993, I had traveled every week making profit for the company. I had never taken a real vacation in the time I worked at NCR. I on numerous occasions cancelled family activities. I burned out. A friend said I should look at academia and step out for one or two years from business. Therefore, I started looking.
Purdue University Calumet: Associate Professor August 2003 to March 2011
How did you find out about the job?
I started hunting through the classified of Higher Education Jobs and the Chronicle of Higher Education. I found four universities that had jobs open in information technology and information assurance and security that would accept a masters degree towards tenure. I applied and was tentatively offered jobs at all four.
What did you like about the job before you started?
When balancing my choices I liked the tenure track job, the idea of doing research, I really liked the idea of teaching information technology and security topics. The location near Chicago would allow me drop out of academia at any time, but I would also be near lake Michigan during the summer. The job was a great balance between work and life while being interesting and open ended.
Why did you leave?
They changed the rules. Every single boss I had in my chain of command changed while I was there and with each change adherence to previous agreements selectively decreased. I was offered, and then it was demanded, that I take doctoral classes at the main campus. All of this without support and often with conflicting mission requirements. Basically, they said get a PhD on my own dime, and while working a full time teaching gig (60 hours plus work weeks). To put this in context of work-effort the classes were 100 miles away and required travel 3 or 4 days a week. Plus the normal duties of being a professor.
When assistance with funding courses and travel was not forthcoming. I went entrepreneurial and sought outside financial assistance and scholarships. When it came time to pay back the scholarship requirement of a years service to the government my organization refused to let me take a sabbatical and said I had to quit rather than take a leave of absence. This with a high level of chaos for the sake of chaos in my teaching schedule meant I was unhappy. I couldn’t afford to not go and when you owe the government money or service it is a no brainer who wins.
National Defense University: Associate Professor March 2011 to July 2012
How did you find out about the job?
I expressed to several friends my angst about finding a job that met my salary requirements and goals in federal government. Numerous friends and colleagues came out of the woodwork to help me transition from Purdue Calumet to a federal government job. Several people worked to get me on staff at National Defense University but Irv Lachow was the one that made it happen.
What did you like about the job before you started?
The people were the number one reason I wanted to work at NDU. Irv Lachow (who would leave for MITRE before I arrived), Dan Kuehl, Dan Ryan, and several other scions of the information security world worked at NDU. In the interview process, I met people like Gil Duvall, Mary Carroll, John Hurley, and Michael Donohoe. I liked the mission of the organization, I really liked the people, and the students I knew from the organization were fantastic.
Why did you leave?
I did not want to leave. I knew I should leave. I liked the job. The big bosses said the job was ending. I wanted to keep getting a paycheck. There were several external change agents operating upon the NDU environment. These were the dark days of sequestration. Admiral Rondeau the NDU(P) had a big meeting with my entire college about cessation of operations possibilities. It was December and prime academic hiring season for the following school year. I asked her, “Should I be looking for a job?” She said, yes you should be looking for a job… If you leave somebody else might get to stay. I started looking for a job. I got several offers in government contractor organizations. I decided to look primarily at academia and only take a contractor organization job if I failed in my third bid for an academic job. I still miss many of the people in that organization.
Purdue University: Associate Professor August 2012 to Present
How did you find out about the job?
My colleague and doctoral advisor Marcus Rogers was looking for a partner in his lab. Several of the West Lafayette faculty were colleagues, friends, mentors, and co-conspirators in various academic hijinks. They strongly suggested I apply and then managed me through the process.
What did you like about the job before you started?
I liked the atmosphere of cool headed professionalism. The people I worked with at the West Lafayette campus were unperturbed professionals with an excellent view of exceptionalism for the current mission and superior success for the future. The person who hired me, Jeff Brewer, was one of those professionals that shows leadership and consistent empathy. The numerous faculty I knew from before I interviewed and after I arrived all confirmed my thoughts about a professional academic organization.
Why did you leave?
What would make me leave is a better question. The Computer Information Technology Department has been in flux, the College of Technology is having an identity crisis, and several faculty have left my department in the last two years. Change came with the first semester I arrived and it continues each semester with radical departures from what is reportedly the norm. It is not a stable environment at this point. That should not be a surprise to about anybody viewing the number of people applying for jobs outside of the university itself. It also is evidence of externally imposed change.
So, I look for a job that provides some level of security, is interesting, does not involve sales, but involves being relevant to customers and the corporation, and finally has a great work life balance. I do not want to do sales. Did I mention that? I do not want a job where I do eight and hit the gate (all my cop jobs were that way). I do not want a job that is 24X7 burn and churn. I refuse to work all the time and yet I work late some times and less some times. I try to hit all the metrics of success or exceed them, but if they are constantly moving there is no way to plan.
I like being a professor, a researcher, and relevant.
I find chasing grants is too much like sales. I have been greatly successful at sales work in the past but find that anything like it kills my soul. I know this is a weakness, but every sales team needs somebody to back them up with results. I am willing to give up the big commission check for the success of engagement kudos. I like teaching a lot. I am supposedly good at the engagement and enrichment levels of teaching, but my job never defines who I am. I am me and that includes motorcycling, running, parenting, eating, and having fun. If a company or organization defines me by my tasking than it is likely not a good fit.
There was a bonus question!
The bonus question from the Inc.com article deals with leadership and how they brought people into an organization. It is in some ways about how you motivate staff and get staff to motivate each other. The question is silly simple in all but the incredible complexity of the answer. My answers might surprise you.
How many people have you hired and where did you find them?
First, I have to make a caveat. To me people I am going to hire are created by the jobs the have had, are focused on the next job they might have, and to me are a reflection of their next job. People I have interviewed in the past to work for me and passed on have gone on to manage organizations that were later my customer thereby making them my boss.
Rule 1, Never ever under any circumstance screw with people on the interview process
Second, I have directly and indirectly hired a lot of people. I have at some jobs had complete hiring and firing authority. I have been a good boss and a bad boss. I can reflect back on that and know that with more experience today I could have had better things in my quiver of tools. The result was I did not want hiring authority unless I had firing authority. One without the other is stupid.
Rule 2, Never accept somebody in to your organization unless you are willing to escort them out and have the authority for both
I have hired in excess of 200 people over my career. At Basec.Net I was given the responsibility of filling out the helpdesk. I hired around a half a dozen people in to that job. At MCIWorldcom I hired in to the project several hundred people both directly and indirectly. At NCR I was given the job screening and hiring recommendation task. However, I did not have firing authority. That is where I came up with Rule 2. At Purdue Calumet I was the hiring recommender (screen, interview, and recommend 3) for several jobs. I have served on several dozen search and screen committees. I would put the number of direct responsible hiring’s in my past in the couple hundred category.
Where did I find recruits into my projects or corporate structure? I don’t like to adverstise for jobs. Since I have predominately staffed projects with consultants my answer might vary on the job or opportunity nature. I maintain a fairly vast social media network of people I can throw work at and get good results from. I also have a pretty deep bench of technical talent that would take any job I offered them. Former employees both curse and love working for me. The job is always interesting and I always make sure they are taken care of. I never take easy jobs so the work is always devastating difficult. Might be one reason I burned out in 2003. Since I left the consulting world in 2003 that has reduced as previous employees have mellowed. I filled those gaps since 2003 with students I have placed into projects or found jobs for in the real world.
At MCIWorldcom and NCR I leaned heavily on talent agencies. I believed in the one throat to choke concept. If a talent agency switched out my contact their call number instantly became last. I told them this up front. I wanted to build relationships that span multiple projects. Consulting companies were told to take care of their recruiters and managers (keep their own house clean) or they would see zero business from my projects. Close ties and personal attention to the details meant a much higher quality of candidate and better fit into the job requirements.
If somebody came to me from within the project or company with a name to fill a slot that entity got immediate attention. If you hire good people, and reward good people, they will only bring you good people to look at. If I felt that person was not a good fit I told them in detail with evidence of why they weren’t a good fit. Always keep rule #1 in mind. I depending on time would look around the corporation and my network to see if I could help that person.
Rule 3, in the information technology and security world it is better to have friends than enemies so treat people right
Arrogance is for idiots. On a few occasions, I found myself at odds with my mangers. On the MCIWorldcom project I had all three mangers come to me with a hiring recommendation. I looked at the individual and was unable to see why they thought this person was the best individual for the job. They were adamant that I hire this specific person. The paperwork was not matching the interview and this person interviewed awesome. Especially considering the triumvirate of manager’s input saying hire the guy. My boss Bruce Walker (who would later officiate my wedding to my second wife) said I should follow my gut. My guts said trust my managers. We hired the individual.
We had to fire the person two weeks later. He simply was not a good fit. All in all the risk was worth it. I helped the guy get a job more suited to his skill set. The managers were very happy that I listened to them. They respected that I was able to make the call, express my disapproval, and they were able to make their case. In the end I had little contact with the person, and the person agreed the job wasn’t a good fit. The managers worked out the mistake as a team and informed me of the actions needed to rectify it. I spent a small fortune on the hiring cycle but it was money well spent on educating myself and my managers on trusting each other. Talk is cheap, but action is proof. I backed my managers, my boss backed me, and that meant we had a lot of trust going around.
Final note on where I find people. Sometimes the best place to find somebody is under your nose. If you need somebody for a very specific task it is almost always better to grow somebody into that position organically. If the job tasks will be part of the organization for any length of time. Investing in your own people I find bares a lot of secondary and tertiary good will and duty within the organization. This question didn’t seem to trend the way of grow your own. It did seem to be the right answer only in very specific situations.