Military Leadership Leads to Civilian Leadership

From rowhouse to executive office, a career path utilized military experience in an unusual way

VA grew up in a rowhouse in Philadelphia, the middle sibling between two sisters; father was a bored, career accountant for a utility company (Bell Telephone), who valued steady employment after living through the Great (Economic) Depression of the late 1920s – early 1930s; mother was an enthusiastic math teacher. 

The family were devout Catholics; the older sister became a nun. VA attended Catholic schools from grade school through graduate school, where he was consistently devoted to achieving high grades and class rank. 

Initially VA was drawn toward a career in teaching as a result of his mother’s passion for the profession and a few inspirational teachers, one of whom taught college level French and lived the adventurous life of a bachelor traveling internationally. 

Due to his foreign language proficiency, VA was offered the opportunity as an upperclassman in college, to teach a course in the French language to first year students, who were less than enthusiastic scholars while required to enroll in an entry level language course. This experience led to VA’s rejection of a career path in teaching. His father’s suggestion of an accounting career was similarly dismissed as a boring life. So through his college years, VA had not yet found a career path to follow with enthusiasm despite his broad based academic achievements in both writing (which he loved) and math (at which he was more than merely proficient). 

VA’s college years coincided with two years of military service required for all young men following their high school years. Accordingly, he volunteered to participate in a college training program for military officers (R.O.T.C.) which involved regular meetings during the academic years plus two week training camps during the summer. Nearing college graduation, VA considered options within the military for how to meet his service obligation. On the one hand, he could follow whatever path the military chose (including leading troops into combat) or he could try to match his academic skills with a military specialty. VA chose the latter option by seeking acceptance into the law branch of the Army: the JAG Corps (Judge Advocate General), whose Army officers provided legal representation of soldiers during disciplinary hearings (Court Martials) while others drafted and negotiated contracts and provided legal advice. VA was accepted into the JAG program which required an additional (third) year of military service. 

As a fresh law school graduate within JAG, VA was assigned to defend soldiers in Court Martials, which he did to the best of his ability but found he more enjoyed dealing with real estate and contract issues while serving in Viet Nam and negotiating with local landowners to assemble acreage for US troops to use for placing artillery. His officer rank also required leadership of US soldiers from varied cultural, religious and ethnic backgrounds. 

VA’s military experience commenced his career path involving both simple and eventually complex real estate matters. This enjoyable subject matter remained consistent throughout his career, which involved employment initially at a large law firm, followed by a large land development company and finally by a multi-state food convenience store chain. 

VA credits his military experience with providing the opportunity to gain confidence dealing with people and real world issues beyond his earlier passion to study hard within his school curriculum. 

All during VA’s adult activities, he enjoyed building friendly relationships with co-workers (including informal, company sports teams) and sometimes realizing that his path to professional advancement and respect would be better achieved in a different business setting. So always working hard as a dedicated employee while recognizing who was a supportive business friend and who was not, were important keys to VA’s professional advancement. 

Looking back, VA has enjoyed financial success but that was a coincidental benefit from his dedicated work at various jobs and finally finding the type of work which was both interesting and challenging while concurrently building personal relationships within every business in which he was involved. 

VA considers himself “lucky” but an old adage here applies: “Luck is the result of hard work meeting opportunity. “