Military Leadership Circle's founder, Naval Lt Commander Matt Driskill (Pawtuxet River Naval Air Station in Maryland) discussed at a military-leadership breakfast, organizations helping veterans transition into the civilian workforce.
U.S. Army Major Kelly McCoy (JointBase
Langley-Eustis, Virginia) joined him in this interview with Democracy Broadcasting News. Transcription follows video:
Transcription of interview:
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| Military Leadership Circle's Army Major Kelly McCoy (right) and founder, Navy Lt Commander Matt Driskill (left) speak at Milken Institute 2018 Global Conference> |
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Lt Cmdr Matt Driskill: We represent an organization called the Military Leadership Circle and that is an organization sponsored by the Milken Institute which is founded for the professional development of military officers from our various service branches, as well as to inform Milken programming with military and veterans perspectives and topics.
Question by DemoCast: What are your roles within this initiative?
Driskill: I founded the organization about
four years ago and so and then I guess
we have members like Kelly that have
applied each year to be a member of the
organization.
Q DemoCast: What's the the goal the objective
of the initiative?
A Driskill: It really first and
foremost is focused on the leadership
development of our different military
officers by putting them in
non-traditional forums, such as this
global conference. Military members can
be often isolated and the places that
they live from large population centers
and the larger corporate culture. And this
is an opportunity to get them into
places where they can interact with
leaders from fields very different and
outside of their traditional military
rank (and structure) as well as to
provide feedback on military veterans
perspectives. And also learn be in
receive mode first and foremost so that
they can hopefully take back some
lessons learn, best practices, new
approaches, innovative ideas, to adopt in
their day jobs and and the organizations
they lead in the United States military.
Q: What sort of reception kind of
reaction reception have you received
from these business leaders from around
the world?
A: (Driskill): People usually treat the Navy pretty well, I don't know how they treat the Army.
A: (McCoy): It's very
similar across they pretty much
obviously all services with the and and
how it generally has been in America
that people are very friendly they thank
you for your service and they're very
interested whether it's finding more
about you know the medals that that are
on your chest and what that means or you
know what what your mission is and and how you serve your country and why.
Q: And why / how is it manifested so far has it turned into practical results thus far or how new is it?
Driskill: You mean the initiative and the organization yeah we're four years old and I would say every year we've sort of built on our past successes and so meaning that we have more people usually apply every year the quality of our applicants is improved the events that where we put on different we put on different events for education and inspiration and to connect different groups over different initiatives involving veterans issues and so forth those have just multiplied every single year, but again I think you should also ask Kelly because he's now seen at two years in a row . . .
Q: I mean, Kelly, what kind of steps for do you think we've taken from last year this year?
A: McCoy: Well, this year that the
programming has been pretty significant
in terms of what we've been doing and
then engaging with the private sector. The year prior was definitely a
development year where we we're really
kind of just taking it all in - but then
this year really felt that we were part
of that conversation we're part of that
dialogue. And it you could really tell
the difference in terms of the people
that you talk to and what they were
taking away from it. It wasn't just oh
it's nice to be here nice you know nice
to see people in uniform I really truly
felt that people saw value in hiring
veterans and that you know it's not
military leadership circle alone, but
kind of the collective effort to help
transitioning veterans get the the
needed leg up that that they deserve
with the job training and everything
that they've gotten from service and and
to have the companies who are out there
hiring recognize that and that's been
one of the primary things I've seen this
this time that has some positive steps
positive comments have really unfolded.
Driskill: I would say one more metric that
I've seen change kind of complementing
what Kelly said is there are veterans
organizations and foundations - there are
companies that want to partner with us
for the purpose of having an event to
educate groups sort of in their network
to enable and empower their work. So you
can see a demand to work with us, you can
see a demand from people to come and be
a part of those events, (and therefore be
a part of the conversation and the
dialogue that we're trying to promote)
and if you think about it I think that's
significant we're at a finance business
economic focused conference and we've
carved out a pretty significant niche
for military and veterans issues that
relate to to the corporate world and
relate that our economic issues, if you
will, human capital issues is like as
Mike Milken likes to talk about.
So I
think that's definitely a metric of
success that you can see has improved
over the last couple years in our
participation here the global conference
I would just like to say I guess if
there's somebody that hasn't been a part
of this global conference and they don't
aren't familiar with the military and
the challenges of going from military
service into the civilian sector in the
private sector to be patient to listen
have a dialogue get to know veterans get
to know people that serve the United
States military and figure out how we
can help those veterans transition from
a meaningful service on behalf of the
nation to meaningful work in a company
and therefore a meaningful life outside
of the United States military service
because I think that's what every
veteran desires is to go from meaningful
work wearing the uniform to hopefully a
meaningful work outside of military
service that that really builds our
nation into a stronger one in our
communities as well.
McCoy: I just like to add that this isn't just the US military we do have a member that's that's from the the British military and so it is a open international program and we encourage international participation the application process so if there's people out there watching this and and and are interested in growing themselves and helping bring that conversation back home to where they're from we'd love that leadership circle comm is our website and they can find out about, for example the the London Milken conference which is in December where there are applicants and opportunities for applicants from other foreign militaries to be a part of that dialogue as well in terms of bridging the civil divide.
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