On the 3rd
of November, a few years back, my wife, my son and I were on a Boeing 727 on
final approach into Elmendorf Air Force Base for my initial assignment in the
United States Army. I had orders to join an Infantry Brigade stationed at Fort
Richardson, Alaska. Alaska;
ya, that’s right, Alaska.
We had departed from McChord Air Force Base, just outside of Seattle, WA
earlier in the day. Now we were circling around to align with the runway for
final approach. Didja happen to catch the fact that we were flying into Alaska?
Initially, I had
been assigned to Fort Hood, right back ninety miles from the home I had just
left. Some advisors and the Army had convinced me during my Officer’s basic
Class that my particular specialty was needed in Alaska. I wasn’t guaranteed to
remain there longer than a year but that was six months more than I was looking
at staying at Fort Hood. What was stated to be a three-year tour, or less,
depending on how things went elsewhere in the world, turned out to total just
under four years as it so happened. That elsewhere was primarily the field
exercise being conducted in South East Asia at the time. The world situation
changed continually during those four years causing both the Army’s and my
plans to change back and forth with the winds almost. For the three of us this
was to be our first trek completely on our own, away from home, parents,
in-laws, friends, college—just about everything we knew and had provided
somewhat of a security blanket to us during our early marriage.
Excluding the
six months we had just spent on temporary duty at Fort Lee, Virginia for
initial officer training courses; we hadn’t been outa shoutin’ distance of
family or friends since we were married just a little over two years earlier.
We were finally on our own; little did I know what was ahead for us. A lot of
changes were to take place—mostly to my situation.
I had recently
graduated from Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas with a degree
in marketing. My summer work and college experiences had given me a decidedly
different viewpoint on the roles of employer and employee, including the
interaction between the two. Roughnecking during my summers as a young high
schooler and college underclassman throughout Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Dakota, and Wyoming had taught me what hard work really
was and confirmed that I didn’t want to spend my future in the pursuit of an
advanced degree in manual labor.
Now I was preparing to land in Alaska, a far stretch
from any kind of career in marketing. But because of my education, a contract with the United States Army and
the correlation between marketing and Quartermaster supply and services, I now
had a chance to become part of management naïvely never realizing that
management positions could require a lot of hard work. Although most of
management work might be more mental than physical, the long hours that are sometime
required can take a physical toll also?
As our aircraft
circled over Fort Richardson, the pilots began to lower the landing gear and
the closer we came to the ground, the more we began to take notice of the place
we would soon be calling home.
Watching out the window over what I was later to learn was the ammunition
storage area; I saw three of the largest Bull Moose I was to ever see. Oh I
might have seen one or two in a zoo maybe once before; but I had never seen one
in the wild, ever. They were huge! Both my wife and I were amazed that a large
and wild animal was just strolling around the area so close to was gonna be
home. I would eventually get to know these guys
much better over the next few years.
This
is where my career started but a long way from where it would eventually lead
me. For the next forty years I would work with well over several thousand
associates in many varied assignments and assorted organizations.
We
exited the aircraft via the tail by climbing down a rollaway ramp. Waiting for
the three of us were two First Lieutenants: Ken Johnston and Jim Wheeler. They
calmly greeted us in just fatigues and field jackets while we shivered in the
cold. Ken was to be my platoon leader and he had drawn the assignment to be my new guy sponsor. Jim was an Aggie buddy
who just so happened to have been in my same unit at A&M for the two
previous years and lucky, for him, had drawn an earlier reporting date at Fort
Lee. Jim and I spent a lot of time together during our mutual time in Alaska
and subsequent to that, have remained friends our entire adult life.
It
might be appropriate to state here that I was the beneficiary of some Bad Deeds; allowing me to move into the
leadership position that cut my teeth on what leadership was all about. I was happy doing what I was doing previously
but found myself thrust into a situation for which I was not fully prepared. I
had to alleviate that un-preparedness as quick as possible or I might have found
myself taken under by the culture that doomed my two predecessors. They were
done-in by their lackadaisical attitudes and a belief they could do little or
nothing and get by solely because they were officers. Their inattention to
detail and a lack of support and understanding from higher management also had
not helped their situation.
Early
editions of the anecdotes and incidents that took place were somewhat
affectionately called moose stories
as more than several of them included a moose in one way or another. I now
refer to them as simply adventures in
leadership or what I took away essays
from those experiences.
Well, not
everything can revolve around a good moose experience. I found over time that
it was the people who work with you and for you that tend to step into,
instigate, or cause the troubles that take up the majority of a manager’s day.
During the forty years I spent in the management, supervision and consultation
of operations, both in manufacturing and the military; I continually found
myself in the study of these people who caused the situations that happened to
and around me. While a good deal of the stories are somewhat military in nature, largely due to the
fact that I worked at more than sixty posts, camps and stations; they are
primarily just stories of people, the situations they find themselves in, what
got them there and how we//they sometimes resolved the dilemma(s) that we found
ourselves in.
After working
with an organization for a few months, I easily recognized the point in time which
required me to relate one of these adventures and its association with a
particular problem currently requiring a solution. I might start in only to
find myself interrupted by one of those that had been there longer than the
others: “Is this gonna be another moose story Howard?” Realizing that I had to
watch out for was this guy primarily because he knew that I enjoyed telling the
stories maybe even more than they enjoyed listening to and learning from them.
“Tell us another moose story Howard.” was a sure bet to lengthen many a
meeting’s duration—not always the right solution.
A little
background might be appropriate at this juncture. I have two Master’s degrees
in addition to my Marketing Degree from Texas A&M University that I
previously mentioned. The first Masters is from Central Michigan University and
is concentrated in Management and Supervision and the second Masters is from
the United States Army Command and General Staff College and is in Command and
Logistics.
During my
military career, I spent time leading such varied operations as supply—petroleum,
ration (food), ammunition, general supplies, major end items, construction and
barrier material—and services—bakery, decontamination, shower operations, water
treatment and distribution, air field operations, data transmissions, computer
input//output, software development, procurement and graves registration
services.
During my
civilian career, I held positions as varied as stockroom manager, warehousing
manager, production and inventory control manager, manufacturing systems
manager, purchasing manager, materials manager, both director of materials and
manufacturing and finally as vice president of manufacturing. I found myself
employed in range of industries from automobile engine re-manufacturing to industrial
gas compressors; computers; process-flow manufacturing of plastic netting that
included jet fuel filters, parts protectors, blood filtration membranes,
premium pipe threading for the oil and gas industry; and eventually library and
school furniture manufacturing.
Throughout the
years I spent in management and leadership positions, the one constant was people. Leaders and managers deal with
people and their problems every day. There is no way you get around this fact.
People and their actions make up the majority of a manager’s time and efforts. Leaders
lead people and Managers manage people: those people that staff the processes.
Those leaders, managers and supervisors that become sufficiently skilled in
their product or career of choice have mastered only half of the sphere of
their required expertise. People are the other half and quite frankly: the
bigger half.
I was fortunate
enough to figure this out early in my career; more by being forced to do so by
those reporting to me than a burning desire to do so because of some external
motivation. I fully believe the experiences that I took away from my
interaction with people adventures
are the very reason that I was as successful in my career as I eventually
became.
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