The Construction Veteran Podcast
Welcome to the Construction Veteran Podcast. This is a podcast connecting and celebrating veterans in construction, those who have the desire to be in the industry, and those who support them to create the built environment.
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The Construction Veteran Podcast
From Gulf War Veteran to Real Estate Leader: Jack Sipes' Journey of Resilience and Mentorship
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What happens when a West Point graduate transitions from military life to a career in commercial real estate? Join us as Scott Friend sits down with Jack Sipes, a former client and decorated veteran, to discuss his incredible journey. From growing up in Dayton, Ohio, shaped by his father's World War II service, to enduring the rigorous challenges of ranger school and a deployment to Korea, Jack's story is one of resilience and leadership. He shares poignant and humorous memories, including the tense moments during the 1988 Olympics and his unexpected deployment to the Gulf War.
In our conversation, Jack delves into the intricacies of his military service, revealing the lessons he learned and how they shaped his post-military career. We explore his transition from the artillery unit in the Gulf War to the corporate corridors of Archstone in the real estate sector. Jack candidly discusses the challenges veterans face when leaving the military, particularly in high-stress industries like construction and real estate. His story underscores the importance of community, mentorship, and maintaining connections with fellow veterans to navigate the often isolating journey of civilian life.
As Jack approaches the twilight of his distinguished career, he reflects on his passion for mentorship and his commitment to supporting other veterans in their professional journeys. He offers invaluable advice for those considering a career shift and emphasizes the significance of leaving a legacy. Whether you're a veteran, a professional in the construction industry, or simply someone seeking inspiration, Jack Sipes' experiences provide a rich tap
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If you're a military veteran in the construction industry, or you're in the construction industry and support our military vets, and you'd like to be a guest on the podcast you can find me at constructionvetpodcast@gmail.com , or send me a message on LinkedIn. You can find me there at Scott Friend. Let's share the stories and motivate others!
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I think the leadership of people and how to connect with people and how to influence others to accomplish things is largely from my family.
Speaker 2:This is the Construction Veteran Podcast, connecting and celebrating veterans in construction. Now here's your host, scott Friend. Welcome back to the Construction Veteran. I'm Scott Friend. I'm excited to bring to you guys Jack Sipes, a former client of mine, a West Point grad, with an amazing story of how he came up in commercial real estate. Let's dig into it. Let's dig into it, hey.
Speaker 1:Jack, how are you, sir Scott, I'm fantastic.
Speaker 2:How about yourself? I'm good. It's good to talk to you again. It's been a few years now.
Speaker 1:It has been a little while. You know, time flies and things change. It's been an odd time anyway, with you, anyway with the kind of post-COVID and we met each other post-COVID. But it's just been a different sort of last three, four years than any other time of my career.
Speaker 2:Yes, sir, yeah, so Jack and I know each other. He was a former client of mine with a former employer and I got to say that you were up there with one of the top three customers I've worked with. Uh, jack is in our industry as well. We'll go into a little bit of that and it's always a pleasure having somebody that understands the struggles, uh, in the construction industry when it comes to material or delivering a project exactly how people want it. Um, so that was really refreshing, jack.
Speaker 1:Thanks, it was the good and bad. The bad is that we are developers, we develop apartments and we do a lot of our own design work. We've done a lot of probably 20,000 units now at this point that we've done, and so we think we know a lot too. So that's good and bad. It's good we have a chance up, but it's bad that we try to tell you what to do sometimes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and it's, I think, a good thing too. If you have a bad contractor you're working with. You know there are tricks, right.
Speaker 1:Right, that's very true.
Speaker 2:Very cool. So, jack, let's talk about your service background. You have a really cool story. I want to talk about where you're from and what got you into the service, and your pathway through West Point.
Speaker 1:Right, well, I'm one of 10 kids I grew up in Dayton Ohio. My dad, the story was he enlisted on December 8th 1941. So he and his buddies were out playing, were out bowling, and they got the word that the Pearl Harbor was bombed, and so they stayed out all night and then enlisted the next day. Now just a quick aside. So, um, so I tried to get his service records for a long time. He's he passed away in uh, in 2001.
Speaker 1:I tried to get a service records for a long time and and uh, if you didn't know, most, most of the service records from the seventies and earlier were stored in a warehouse in St Louis and caught fire and so they were destroyed, or at least you know, in a spot where people couldn't figure it out anymore. So I would, every few years, would ask to try to get his records, and finally they've digitized most of it, and when they digitized it it's all sort of sortable now. So I was able to get his records and so that's really cool because I could see where he was and what unit he was in and what he did. But it did put the myth he did not enlist on December 8, 1941.
Speaker 1:He enlisted like January of 1942. So he still served and he was an artilleryman which influenced me and I was a gun sergeant and had a 105 howitzer all through and had a 105 howitzer all through kind of battle. He landed about 30 days after D-Day and fought up through the Ardennes into Germany and the surrender. So I'd say I have some military influence, although not really. He got out in, you know, late 45. But I went to West Point.
Speaker 1:I was really good in school, I was a good athlete and I was involved in a lot of leadership things and those are kind of the three legs to the stool that West Point's looking for in candidates and so my interest aligned with West Point's what they were looking for. So I went to West Point and clearly, if most people know, but when you graduate you're a commissioner and officer officer and then you have a six-year commitment afterwards and so it kind of set me on the path to my time in the military. This would have been I went to West Point in 83 to 87 and then graduated in 87, went to airborne school, went to artillery basic, officer basic, then went to ranger school and went to Korea for my first year. So I had a real, that first, uh, the first about year and a half uh, post-graduation, I I was just a whirlwind of of going places and doing, uh, you know, exciting things that you only dream about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's awesome man. It was go, go, go for you. Then, right after school, airborne ranger school.
Speaker 1:We hear a lot of the horror stories of ranger school.
Speaker 2:Did you make it through in one pass?
Speaker 1:I did, I uh, you know, and uh yeah, it's.
Speaker 1:I think um, about a third, I think, of my class made it through on the on on straight without having to recycle anything, but just over 50% of the people that started ended up graduating. So, um, yeah, I was, I was a winter ranger too and it was, uh, it was pretty cold. I, I'd I've been cold, but uh, you know, being really really cold and really really wet was uh, was you know something? I, yeah, I think my, my toughest spot was in uh, in florida, we, we walked for a couple days in the rain and you know it was in the 40s and 50s out, and uh, had a ranger buddy that made me a cup of coffee and basically saved me because I was, I was fading fast yeah, wet, tired, cold and hungry yeah geez.
Speaker 1:Well, and so you were artillery, you said correct yeah, so I, I was a, an artillery officer and uh started off in in korea and uh as a fire support officer for a tank company. So you know, very interesting. I thought of all the places I would go that might, you know, have some sort of a real. This is, you know, late 80s again, and we hadn't fought as a country since. I mean, we, you know there was Grenada in 83, but we hadn't really fought as a country since Vietnam and there weren't really any prospects of fighting again. You know, my mom used to tell me how scared she was I was going to go to war. And I'm like mom, unless, you know, unless the Soviets attacked the full gap in Germany I'm not, I'm not going to war, and you know.
Speaker 2:And so the world the world changes A lot of your time in. Was it mostly training then, or did you guys do um like a training deployment, or how did that go, since we were in peacetime in korea?
Speaker 1:now we have. You know, there's a real war mission there. So we, you know we were, we would do alerts and go to our battle positions and uh, you know, I was about 10 miles from the from the north korea border and and, uh, it was a real world mission and we had live ammo. That that we would, you know, take, take war ammo with us whenever we go, go to the field, just in case.
Speaker 1:And the kind of other interesting thing is I was there for the Olympics in 1988. So about the first half of the Olympics we were on sort of alert because there was some speculation that North Korea would do something to just try to disrupt the Olympics. But in the second half, when it was clear that wasn't going to happen, I got to go down and went to probably 10 different events. I just went to track and basketball and boxing and wrestling and gymnastics. It was a really neat, really good experience. Oh man, that's the kind of things in the military that you would have, those opportunities to do, sort of odd things that you never think you'd ever do, and then you get to do them.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So, other than the Olympics, did you ever have any time where you thought, okay, this is going to happen, north Korea's going to take action?
Speaker 1:No, I almost burned down South Korea, though. Oh no, I was an evaluator, kind of observer controller for another battalion's evaluation, and so I would go around and throw artillery simulators to simulate artillery and they would have to react to it. So I'd get a thing to go to the top of this hill and do artillery. We can't take the Humvee up there. So I end up climbing up about the last 50 yards straight to the top of this hill and do artillery. So we can't take the Humvee up there. So I end up climbing up about the last 50 yards straight up the side of this mountain. So I get to the top and I'm just like, do I really? So I go ahead and throw one, and it's in the summer and it's really really dry there, so it's monsoonal, but then it's dry, it's dry before and after, anyway. So I monsoonal, but then it's, it's dry, it's dry before and after, anyway.
Speaker 1:So I throw this artillery simulator in the grass top of the hill and it catches on fire and it's spreading fast and my driver's down, you know, 50 yards away, and I'm up on top of this hill thinking, you know, I'm I'm second lieutenant of the army, I'm gonna burn down korea and it's good. You know what a, what a, you know flame out of a career. But uh, you know. So I'm up there stamping like a madman. I was able to stamp it all out. But uh, I come down, I'm just black from soot. I'm sweating my driver's like what's up?
Speaker 2:I'm like nothing I would have enjoyed hearing the battalion commanders uh after action report on that one yeah, it was hilarious for me. Oh, that's awesome, so you did your. So did you just do the six in? Did you do more than that?
Speaker 1:No, I was in Korea for a year. Then I went to Fort Hood and that's kind of where my mom's like, oh, you're going to go to war. I'm like, mom, we're not going to war. So we'd stack. And then coming up on a four-day weekend that's another kind of good thing about the military Three-day weekends always became four-day weekends and so coming up on a four-day weekend I'm staying, I have my.
Speaker 1:I was the battalion maintenance officer for a self-propelled artillery battalion and so I have my team there because we're getting ready to. We're going to go to the National Training Center in a couple months and so we were dropping at the time to to in the supply system. You had to hand, write out these cards to drop requisitions for stuff. So we were requisitioning all of our stuff for the national training center and so we were uh, so everybody else uh took off for a four day, you know on a Friday at noon for a four day weekend, and um, and so we're there in the afternoon and my boss calls me up and says, hey, come, come up to the battalion headquarters. So I get up there and he said the colonel just got called in, he goes. I think we're going to get alerted to deploy because of this Kuwait stuff, I'm like, really, so that's shocking. So I went back and I'm like, well, if we're going to go, I'm going to need some ports. So we dropped, all you know a thousand, some odd requisitions for parts and things and we were ahead of everybody. So you know, so that was my sort of claim to fame in the first Gulf War was, we were stocked and no one else was. Because I was, you know, in the first Cav division, I was basically the first guy to drop requisitions for parts and things because I was getting ready for NTC so fortuitous. Requisitions for parts and things because I was getting ready for NTC, so fortuitous.
Speaker 1:But yeah, so we trained up and went to the first Gulf War and I got there in mid-September and at the time, clearly, what happened post 9-11 between Iraq and Afghanistan? There was a much different level of fighting war over a lot of years and intense fighting, but at the time years and and, uh, you know, intense fighting, but at the time there wasn't. And so when we got there, you know, we were essentially there was 30 or 40 Iraqi divisions and there was, I think, two of us on the ground us and the uh, the 101st, and so we were basically, you know, supposed to just kind of uh, die in place, uh, sort of delay them as much as possible if they were, if they were to attack. So you know, as it turns out, we are the best trained and best equipped military in the world.
Speaker 1:You know, beat the Iraqis, but in September that wasn't so obvious and it wasn't so clear, and so there was some months of real apprehension, and then you never know how you're going to react when you go to war. And so I'm proud of what my team and I did, and mostly that's down to training and uh and discipline and what you do in the military, which is, you know, you you're clear about what what uh the objective is and clear about you know how to train for it, and then you train and then, when it comes time to execute it's you do it, and those are super lessons you know, that I've used throughout the rest of my career as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so uh, let me back up to West Point. What did you study there?
Speaker 1:My, my major is engineering, management, uh, and so you know, so a mix of engineering classes and, uh and management, so kind of hard and soft yeah.
Speaker 2:So do you think it was your dad's time of service that it really launched you into wanting to go artillery instead of going to an engineer unit?
Speaker 1:No, I think when we, the people that were going artillery, it was a very people oriented and I liked a lot of people that were doing it, and when we did our summer trainings, the artillery seemed like a pretty motivated kind of squared away group, and so I think it was more, you know, one of the combat arms and I wanted to go to something where you know I like the people that I was with both, both my peers and and my soldiers.
Speaker 1:But I think that had something to do with it too. It was kind of neat. I mean, my dad was a gun chief for three years in World War II, and so it was a neat parallel.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so let's go back. So you did your deployment to the Gulf War. You finished up your time. What did you first off, I guess what made you decide to get out, and what were you looking at doing when, when you got out of the service?
Speaker 1:So uh came back from the Gulf war, went to the artillery advanced course, went to Fort Ord, california, and uh was the seventh ID, which was a light and uh, and it liked what I was doing. I got married right around the same time and was, you know, deployed a lot. The 7ID was part of the Rapid Deployment Force and so we deployed a few times different places and so I was gone a lot. Plus, there was, you know, this is 1992, 93. And there was, you know, kind of the peace dividend.
Speaker 1:Clinton was elected, there was, the military was downsizing, they were paying people to get out. You know, kind of the, the piece of it. And Clinton was elected there was, the military was downsizing, they were paying people to get out, you know, and we and I just fought a war that looked like there might not be something else for 20 years, and so I think a lot of things, I think there was some societal sort of you know like, what are you going to do that? You've done that, um, a little bit. There was the, the military was downsizing. It didn't look like the mission was going to be all that interesting. It was pretty predictable, and I had a young family, and so I would say that I loved the army, but that was, you know, sort of a senior captain, not quite a major, and there were some things I didn't like and so it was seems, you know, it was a. It was a difficult decision for me. A lot of people, I think, jumped at the chance, but it was a difficult decision for me. A lot of people, I think, jumped at the chance, but it was really difficult for me because I love the Army, but anyway.
Speaker 1:So when you get out, I went through a recruiter that specializes in bringing junior officers to the corporate America and generally there's two tracks that you come out in. One is, at least at the time it was kind of a technical sales, so medical sales or pharmaceutical sales or chemical sales or sort of manufacturing supervision. So I interviewed and the numbers aren't exact but they're kind of close I interviewed probably eight sales jobs and eight supervisory jobs and one real estate job, and so it was just so different than everything else. It was just so different than everything else, um, and it was with a company called Archstone which was, uh, uh, an apartment developer or part of the uh real estate investment trust, public public real estate company, and uh, and so one of the guys that that was running one of the groups there had hired militaries before and so they were trying to do that again. They had a pirate about eight of us over two years.
Speaker 1:But anyway, it was so different and kind of in a career when everyone's doing the same thing and there's a chance to do something different, I jumped to something different and so I didn't really know anything about it. I really, beyond it being just different than what everybody else was doing, and I like the people that I talk to, I think you know ultimately a lot of the moves I I make, I think, in my life, have been toward a plan I've always sort of had. You know I want, I want to a direction. I wanted to go in a, in a career path I wanted to go. But but I also, you know you spent so much time at work that if you don't like and respect the people you're with, it's really it's not a very satisfying life. So so I liked and respected the people that I interviewed with there and talked to and it looked like a really interesting sort of career path. So I so I joined Archstone as a management trainee in their, in their property management.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, let me say, when you made that decision for your family, I think that's always the right thing to do. For sure and I know a lot of people are torn about that they have that, that love for country, and one for sure. So good on you, jack Right.
Speaker 1:Right, right. So it turned out, though you know I mean what uh in 2001, after, uh, after nine 11, I really, uh, you know, I, I I had regrets. A lot of people that I that I went to school with and were, uh, still in the military at the time and they would have been, uh, majors time they were going to war and it was not a, you know, gulf War, I that you know that was kind of done, you know, in and out in nine months, this was, it was real and it was, you know, sort of an existential threat for country, and I really it was sleepless nights sometimes, just you know, sort of regretting, maybe that I did the wrong thing not being there, you know, to go into to war in Afghanistan or Iraq, back in the Gulf with the uh war on terror.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I completely understand that. So let me, let me ask this so we talked about the transition piece that kind of got you into that world, so you, you didn't really have real estate on the mind getting out. It was just kind of a connection that you made.
Speaker 1:It was. You know it was uh, and really, when it comes down to it, and I think people that spend some time in the military, they don't really know what the world does, especially if you spend a lot of time in the military. I mean, you kind of know, but you kind of don't too, and so, uh, you know, I wasn't sure exactly how everything all worked. And you know, I'd gone straight from, you know, high school to West Point, which was military, and then into the Army, and so I didn't really know how everything worked. And so, you know, I think a lot of people just sort of stumble into careers, and I stumbled into this one and really, if there was anything about it, it was that it was so different than what everyone else was doing. You know, all the other sort of junior officers were getting out it was so different than what everyone else was doing.
Speaker 1:You know, all the other sort of junior officers were getting out. We're going to Johnson and Johnson and selling surgical tools or Procter and Gamble and selling soap, and so it was just really so different. You know, going to apartment management and apartment development.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I think this really speaks to the uh, the value of networking and relationships, for sure.
Speaker 1:Some things I just you just kind of fall into and then you're, you know you're good at them. I think you know, I think that's the see. People say, follow your passions. But I think it's really kind of find something you're good at and you can get paid at and you'll probably, it'll probably be a passion, but anyway, I kind of fell into it and I people in property management either love it or hate it because it's.
Speaker 1:it can be a real grind and I, you know, I sort of I did pretty well with the grind, yeah, so that kind of segues into my next question.
Speaker 2:So you're not necessarily on the field side of the industry. Let's talk about what you do now.
Speaker 1:I have been in you know sort of executive levels of leadership of property management or real estate development companies for the last I guess 20 years. It's been about 2003, 2004. I started off as a regional manager managing properties and then, both because I liked the education and also I was ambitious and wanted to advance a career, I got my master's in business administration from University of Texas, austin, in their executive program, which was every other Friday and Saturday all day for basically two years, and so that led me to being more involved in acquisitions and financing and then higher levels of management. So I worked up to be the chief operating officer of an apartment company about a 15,000 unit apartment company in Austin, and then eventually worked my way to Dominium, which is about a 40,000 unit apartment developer and apartment company. We were based I'd say we say we were based in Minnesota, but now we're really spread amongst the south and southeast and southwest, because that's where the growth is.
Speaker 1:We have offices in Atlanta, dallas and Phoenix. I'm in the Dallas office, which is kind of the main office. I've been headed up the management company for the last 12 years for Dominium and I'm currently I've found my replacement and so that person's in place and now I'm an executive partner with Dominium. I'm on the investment committee and the executive committee and teach leadership classes and have about three or four projects as well as a lot of our charitable. I head up our charitable group too. That gives, that gives back the community and so uh, so you know I've come. I'm closer to the end than the beginning, scott.
Speaker 2:Yeah that's true. Yeah, well, and you were. You were pretty involved. So I had stated earlier, jack and I worked together. Um, we actually built his office here in Dallas and I was the superintendent on that project. But you were heavily involved. Um, we would refer to Jack as like the owner's side, basically whoever the customer that we're building for but you and your team were really involved almost in the day-to-day process and your role overseeing, telling us what you want, what you didn't like, what you did like. So, although you're in property management, you also oversee the construction aspect as well, even though you have people managing that process on the day to day.
Speaker 1:Right, and that's, you know, that is uh comes back to we are apartment developers and we build apartments and we, you know, are heavily involved in the design and so, uh, and so we were heavily involved in the design and kind of the execution there too.
Speaker 1:But when we, um, you know, during COVID it's kind of a quick, interesting story here During COVID, when things sort of stopped, you know, and there was this is, you know, the summer of 2020, we said, well, what's a big move we can make? And we had planned on we were based in Minnesota and done a lot of our work in Minnesota, although we, you know, apartments follow jobs and job growth spend, you know, across the Southeast Texas, southwest, apartments follow jobs and job growth spend, you know, across the Southeast Texas, southwest, and so we'd been acquiring and and uh, and starting to build in the Southeast and Southwest in Texas. But, uh, but we said what's, you know, what's a big move? We could make that kind of accelerate things, while everybody else is kind of, you know, focused on COVID. What can we do big? And so we had planned on opening offices. Uh, in had planned on opening offices closer to where we were doing business.
Speaker 1:But we went kind of big during COVID and we moved all of our development out from Minnesota to Atlanta, dallas and Phoenix, and senior people moved too. So I was in Minnesota and I moved to Dallas, and so I was the senior person in Dallas. The CEO actually moved to Phoenix and we had a couple of our very senior development people moved to Atlanta. So I was, you know, when I moved from Minnesota there in 2020, 2021, I was the senior person here running the Dallas office and so I was involved in those kinds of things that you know, directly working with you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was a really enjoyable time, Jack. I appreciated it. So you kind of alluded to it earlier on how your service helped you, but are there a couple of key takeaways that you have in your role now that you think your time in the service really helped with?
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, there's so many you know, because ultimately I went, you know, smaller to bigger, organizational leadership and organizational and executive leadership, and so you know, you learn that in the military because they're you know everything, you know when things are, you know, from the squad up to you know, up to the U S army. So, uh, you know, you, you learn lessons of that, but really it's mostly you know. You know most everything in the world is is, uh, people in leadership, and so you know, from a very young age I was in charge of people and in charge of getting things done and so uh had, really early on, because I was, you know, second lieutenant and you know we wear gold, you're, you're was, you know second lieutenant and you know when you wear gold you're supposedly, you know your brain gets put on hold. So I had, you know, second lieutenant and major. Those are the kind of theories but you know.
Speaker 1:But I had really great NCOs that taught me how things work and taught me how to lead people at a very micro. You know, at a very personal level, lead people at a very micro, you know, at a very personal level, and so you know the lessons. I think. So, scott, to answer the question first. I think the leadership of people and how to connect with people and how to influence others to accomplish things is largely from my time in the military, so everything from then has gotten more complex or different, or you know higher dollars, but still it comes down to you know making people feel like they can make a difference and that you know treating them as individuals and you know using a team to accomplish a lot more than any individuals could accomplish.
Speaker 1:I think that's you know, all other things aside, that is, I attribute that to my time in the military, both at West Point, which is basically four years of leadership lab, and then the military, which is for me, seven years of practical leading people and being led and understanding you know motivations and how to get things done. So I think that's first and foremost, and understanding you know motivations and how to get things done. So I think that's first and foremost. And then you know certainly the planning aspect of it. You know the operations order and how to. You know how to plan for operations or is project management Certainly you know having that strong focus or you know sort of drive and determination to, to to accomplish a goal or accomplish a task is, you know, very military focused and you bring that I brought that to the real estate world as well. So I think those you know there's a lot of things, but certainly the leadership, organization and and drive and determination there's there's all sorts of quotes out there.
Speaker 1:Everybody has leadership things that they hear in there. There's, there's all sorts of codes out there. Everybody has leadership things they hear in there, but but, um, you know, the determined, the determined person beats the talented person almost every time, and that's you know. That's a a long time. Lesson for me is you know, if you apply yourself and are determined and smart about you know how to get there, that that's a, that's generally a winning and that's, uh, you, you know that's a real military aspect, I think.
Speaker 2:Yeah, very good nuggets of wisdom there. I appreciate it, and I'm sure your your worst day at work was nowhere near your worst day at ranger school.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a blur. I remember Zava, but it's pretty blurry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, you get to eat and you get to sleep, eventually, right?
Speaker 1:Right, right, so, uh, so everybody fast, uh, uh, uh, sort of fantasizes about things. Mine was rb beef and cheddars. When I was at ranger school. I dropped about, I dropped about 25 pounds in the in the 60 days, but I just like, for some reason, the beef and the rb's beef and cheddar was just. You know, that was my like god I wish I had one. So I I uh, after we've been, after I finished, that afternoon I drove from uh uh Fort Benning, georgia, up to my house and my family's home in Ohio and I think I stopped at like eight Arby's and route and had beef and cheddars the whole way home. I was sick when I got home.
Speaker 2:Uh, yeah, and I just had like about a dozen beef and cheddars over that day. Oh man, I can't imagine how you felt the next day. And I imagine how you felt the next day Funny, yeah. So, um, you had quite an interesting journey, um, and obviously you've become quite successful in your career.
Speaker 1:But, uh, looking back, do you think there's anything that you would change along the way, or you know, you, you, I look back at, at, at things that I could have done better and in almost every case, you know it's it's that's a very interesting question, scott, because you can't, right, I mean you can't go back. Yeah, you can, you can. You can, you can analyze what you've done and say, well, I don't mind, I'm not gonna do that again, I'm not touching that hot stove again, or well, that didn't work, or that really worked. I want to do more of that.
Speaker 1:So I think, um, when I first got my master's, I sort of doggedly pursued a partnership interest in something and I got it, and then that led to more ownership as I went along in different places, and I think that's most of the great wealth in the country is from, from real estate developers. You know, if you look at all of the, the real wealth over the last 250 years in the country, a lot of it's real estate development, and so so, you know, starting off that small ownership piece, and then it sort of became expectation everywhere I'd go that I, that I would, you know, take a position. That, uh, that had a shot at some ownership piece, was really, you know, made a huge difference in my life. It's, it's where I am today. It's because of, you know, it's because of that uh, coming out of my getting my MBA and and and working to get a uh, an ownership piece in something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I guess I asked the question mainly because there's plenty of other people out there that you know West Point grads or people that are still in that look up to a guy like you and maybe think, hey, if there's something he could have done differently, that maybe they could improve too. But I appreciate you sharing that and that's good Good.
Speaker 1:I have, uh, it's never let me down. Now it doesn't work very well, necessarily, but education has been. You know, and and I've got, certainly you know, I've got a lot of certifications that you get in real estate and you know, but those are just certifications, but the education has been.
Speaker 1:I think it has been a real game changer for me you know, both from formal education and then certifications, and then just on the job, trainings. You know, being curious, I think that's probably you know, education, both formal and formal, and the and the curiosity to want to figure out how things work and then uh and then make them better, those are, you know, those are skills that are always in demand and they'll always be, um, compensated some way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well said, so we've got. I'm sure you've ran into plenty of other veterans, uh, in property management, real estate, construction, um, and, as we know, there's a lot of long, hard days sometimes in that arena, um, and burnout happens quite frequently. We just came out of a mental health awareness month. Um, if you have people out there listening specifically veterans that are just, the mental health crisis has gotten just worse and worse over the 20 years we were in war and then going into a stressful industry. What would you personally say to somebody that came to you and said Jack hey, I'm, I'm just really having a rough time, man, I don't know what to do and they're kind of at their wits end.
Speaker 1:Well, I'll, I'll do the setup to what I think leads to that and then what I try to do. I think the hardest thing for me when I got out was the lack of camaraderie. You're around a bunch of people that are similar to you, different backgrounds, but similar. We're doing the same things, we're working on the same goals. We're, we're, you know, um, have a lot of the same interests. Um, you know, work ends and you, you, you go to the bar together or you do sports together, but, but, but there's this, there's a great sense of camaraderie that you have military. And then I got out and that was just, it was a.
Speaker 1:The greatest shock is how that kind of went from. You know, this sort of huge, you know, cohort of people like me doing similar things and enjoying the similar things and then being on my own. So I think that that is that, that lack of a little bit lack of identity. One, you know there's ego and identity. I'm doing these great things and I get out, and I'm not doing those great things anymore. You know that was the in a hard day you always said well, at least I'm protecting, you know, at least I'm defending the country, and you get out and that's not really what you got. In a regular job You're not really. You know you're supporting your family, but that sort of shock of not of having a support network of people that are similar to you and having that deep sense of camaraderie and trust, and then you come out and don't have that. So I think that first is a huge shock for people and I think it's the greatest.
Speaker 1:I still miss it. You know, I said still, I got out in 1994 and I still miss that. So I've been out what's that? 30 years, good Lord, but I still miss that piece of it, I still miss the camaraderie. And so I've, you know, tried to keep those relationships and networks of people that I knew in the military. I still my best friends are still the people that I went to West Point, went to war with, and so you know, don't be alone. You know, talk to people and the people that probably have the greatest understanding of the people that you knew in those times or people that were also in the military now.
Speaker 1:But I think people that sort of lose hope, I think, get really lonely and don't have somebody to to and have that sense of camaraderie, and so I think that's really the most important thing Surround yourself with people that have been through what you've gone through and talk about it and maintain that you know, try to find that camaraderie on, you know, small or large level. I think it's hard because, you know, I think I have through a lot of the people I went to school with and the people I went to I was in the Army with and I've kept in touch with you know 10 or so of them. I do. I do whenever I go, whenever I move, and I've moved a lot. I moved a lot in the Army.
Speaker 1:I moved a lot in the civilian world too for opportunities. You know, that's the one thing about you think when you get out you don't have to move and you don't. But if you want to, if you're ambitious and you want to new opportunities, sometimes you got to move. And so I've always connected with the military networks in town, either West Point societies or, you know, ausa or just other other sort of military type things that for years I recruited I did recruiting for West Point too when I was in the reserves and then kept doing it afterwards and just puts me in contact with people in the military. So I'm talking a lot and I'm rambling a little bit, but I think that loss of a sense of camaraderie and that not having people like you that you can just talk to and feel comfortable with you've got to replace know, replace that with wherever you can find it, with people that were probably in the military also before.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. And I think when we were working together I think I connected you with another West Point grad friend of mine too. So that's always I found that neat that West Point grads, that instant connection you served together. You went through the same junk through school and you kind of just like a fellow vet that I run into at a job site, you kind of you have this expectation that, hey, this person most likely has the same morals that I do, right, probably has the same drive that I do, probably somebody I can count on too. So I totally agree with you and I think every person I talk to that's. The one thing that they miss is that teamwork aspect of working towards the same goal, and they're very A-type most of them, very A-type driven individuals.
Speaker 1:Right, right, yeah, yeah, and it's a, it's a, it was a. I don't know about you, but it was a. It was a shock. The first year I was out man, I was like what did I do? I'm thinking about going back in because I just missed it so much.
Speaker 2:It was such a maybe taken for granted big piece of my life. Yeah, quick story, I actually. So I got a year early out. This is when they were doing the reduction in force in 2011. So I signed up, got the year early out, cause I was already enrolled in college, um, and immediately that first year I went, just like you, what am I doing? And I tried to get back into every single branch I could find. Looking back, thank God I didn't know about like the national guard, uh, but every branch I talked to it was well, you got to go through this. Or I went to the Marine Corps and they said, oh well, you're going to get dropped back to E1. And I'm thinking I'm not going to have some 18 year old kid, lance Corbel, screaming at me that hasn't even been to any war zone at all. So that was an ego thing. But, uh, thankfully I didn't.
Speaker 2:But I I struggled for a long time and it took me close to a decade to just kind of get comfortable in who I was, cause, like you said, you go straight from high school in your position, you go straight to West Point and then straight into the service, with me being enlisted first it was straight out of high school into the military and that's all I ever knew. So you're dumped into this world, like you said, you don't even know anything really about how to navigate it and you just kind of feel alone for a while. But, to your point, what really helped me through was connecting with other veterans that are going hey, I feel the same way. Let's, let's talk about this. I think that's gotten a lot more acceptable in the last five to 10 years or so, that hey, look, it's, it's all right to chat about not being OK, man, it's cool, you know you're not a wuss. Let's, let's discuss it. Everybody has these same challenges.
Speaker 1:You know, and it's what's gotten harder too, is it's a lonelier world, everyone's you know people are so used to just connecting electronically and not face to face and not voice, and it's that's. You know, it's a, it's a lonelier world which just I think, um, it really makes the mental health piece of it even more difficult. So I think you know, as much as you can get face-to-face with people or just talk to people. Humans are not meant to sit by themselves in a room looking at a screen. They're meant to interact with other humans.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:That's one of the great things about real estate. You know it's a hard asset and you know you can't build a building sitting in your office on a computer screen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, ai is not going to replace my job anytime soon, that's for sure, right? Well, in closing here, jack, let me ask one last question. We know we need people desperately, whether that's in property management, project management, the field, just the whole building industry as a whole. And if we've got folks that are transitioning out of the service, what would you say to that person to try to encourage them to get into this industry? If they don't realize this is probably a very good fit for them?
Speaker 1:I think one. It really I think it comes back to um, you don't really know what's out there when you're getting out and so uh. So you know, I think, some sort of awareness of that other. You ever heard of a company called forge?
Speaker 1:now they basically yeah absolutely yeah, yeah, they put together basically a training program for plumbing, electrical, and I think they've got a facilities management now too. But they basically are taking people, they're getting out, use some of the resources from the military to get them into the trades that work in there, and I think something like that is, I think, a tremendous way to get to transition from the military into into real estate development, management, construction, something like Forge now. But. But you know, how do you make people aware? You know, I mean I, I've, I've gone, you know I've I've gone around to like the Fort Bennings of the world. I think it's Fort Boer now. You know, they changed all the names since I was in.
Speaker 2:I don't know.
Speaker 1:I struggle with them and Fort Hood, fort Cavazos, and try to work through the groups there, but it's so hard to enter in there and get to make an impact with people. But there's a lot online online, I think, just awareness that, uh, that you know the things that you learned and made you successful in the military are really really uh, uh hard or or uh uh important skills that'll make it successful in the construction and management um in in real estate. So you know the awareness that those that those skills really can translate better than probably a lot of other skills into a career is, uh, is a big piece of it. And and you know, I think, uh, that that's one thing with your, with your podcast, that I think you're able to do is maybe reach people that are in and are or or looking for the next thing, and and understand that the um that real estate and construction is a is a great path for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it has been humbling. Since I started the show. People have reached out to me that are transitioning and they've listened and you know I'm making a small dent and I appreciate it and getting guys like you on has really helped um, just kind of open people's eyes to what's out there. It's not, it's nothing against the guys that swing hammers I did it, but uh, there's there's just this whole other world in the building industry and we need people now more than ever. Things are just booming right now, which is great.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, no, I agree, it's you know, especially on for us on on the facilities and maintenance side. I mean, it was a it was a problem before COVID, it was a big problem during COVID and still here afterwards. We're dramatically short people with the skills to you know to to run facilities and to run teams, and so that's you know. It's it's demand, it's in demand. It's certainly in demand. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Well, I'll be sure to tag you when we, when we post this and I, I I don't want to speak for you, but I'm sure it's okay. If somebody shoots you a message on LinkedIn, you're on there quite a bit. Um and maybe just need some advice or somebody to get connected to.
Speaker 1:I, I talked to, uh, I talked to people as much as I possibly can and I'm happy to do it. I, I'm happy to. You know, I'm, I'm sort of a, like I said I'm, I'm close to the end of my career than the beginning, and so, you know, if I can give back by just talking to people and and, um, you know, talking about my experiences and talking with them about what they might do, happy to do it and I like to do it. So then I do it often, so I'm happy to do that, Scott.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're certainly leaving a legacy, jack. I appreciate your time. You're a busy guy, so thank you so much for being on here with me.
Speaker 1:Oh, you're welcome. Thank you, it was a great hour, enjoyed it.
Speaker 2:Yes, sir, if you're a military veteran in the construction industry or you're in the construction industry and support our military vets and you'd like to be a guest on the podcast, you can find me at constructionvetpodcast at gmailcom, or send me a message on LinkedIn. You can find me there at Scott Friend. Let's share the stories and motivate others.
