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Navigating New Beginnings: Peter Baker on Military Transition and Finding Community in Civilian Life

Larry Zilliox Season 2 Episode 88

Retired Army Colonel Peter Baker joins us to unravel the challenges and opportunities of transitioning from military service as an officer. Imagine standing at the crossroads of duty and personal freedom, deciding when to leave the structured life of the military behind. Peter candidly shares his journey, emphasizing the emotional weight of retirement ceremonies and the critical steps of planning for life after service. Discover how resources like the GI Bill and veteran organizations can be pivotal in navigating this life-changing transition. Together, we explore the personal stories and strategic decisions that define this complex phase.

As we steer through the transition into civilian careers, we focus on the unique hurdles veterans face, like translating leadership skills into corporate success and adapting to a slower-paced decision-making environment. Northern Virginia emerges as a hotspot, with veterans often finding roles in defense companies or exploring new passions, like teaching or coaching. Peter's insights on negotiation could redefine your approach to the job market, from salary discussions to flexibility negotiations. Plus, we reflect on the camaraderie veterans miss and the potential to find a similar sense of community in civilian workplaces. This episode is a must-listen for anyone contemplating a new chapter beyond military life.

Larry Zilliox:

Good morning. I'm your host, larry Zilliox, Director of Culinary Services here at the Warrior Retreat at Bull Run, and I want to thank everybody for joining us for this. This is the last episode of Season 2, and I have a very special guest with us today Retired Army Colonel Peter Baker. I've known him for quite some time, and I realized in my previous episodes where we were talking about transitioning, I had inadvertently been focusing on enlisted and I thought that it would be great to have Peter come on and talk to us a little bit about the difference, because there is always a difference between enlisted separating and officers transitioning. So, peter, welcome to the podcast.

Peter Baker:

Well, larry, thank you for having me, and I think what you're doing here, and the whole retreat and the whole organization, is a real service to our veterans. And for those who aren't familiar with it, I encourage you to look up. Serve, our World Lawyer, and you're for local. You can come involved with it. It's a great organization doing great things.

Larry Zilliox:

Yeah, we are very fortunate we have such a strong volunteer corps, many of which are veterans who live in the area. We do have quite a few veterans almost 55,000 veterans living in this area here in Prince William County and Loudoun and Fairfax. So let's begin with talking a little bit about your career when you went in, what you were doing when you got out, why you got out. So start from the beginning.

Peter Baker:

I used to have a boss who told me that's always a good place to start. Amazing, a lot of times people would start in the middle or at the end. But it was commissioned in 1983, and for some that may be like a century ago. I retired in 2010,. 27 years active duty Again. 2010 may seem like a century ago for a lot of people. For me, it seemed like a few years ago. Time does go fast. Yeah, I never intended to make a military career, but I got into it and people joined for a lot of different reasons. I joined for educational opportunities and paid for my undergrad, and I paid for my grad school as well. But I think the most difficult part, whether you're enlisted or an officer, is deciding when to get out.

Larry Zilliox:

Yeah.

Peter Baker:

Perhaps your enlistment time is up and you have to decide whether to re-enlist and stay in, or you've gone the length of your tour and there's various reasons to get out. It's a very personal decision and I found a very lonely decision. Hopefully nobody tells you, hey, you need to get out. And even your family who has been raised my boys and my wife, they're used to the tempo so they didn't matter if I stayed in or got out. The decision to leave the military, I think, is a very. For me it was the most difficult decision because there's no wrong answer, there's no indicator saying you should or you shouldn't, and it's very, very personal. But once I made it I still doubted myself for quite a while. In the transition again, there are some similarities. I'm sure there are differences between enlisted and officers and I'll talk about my experience and why. It may be dated, I think it's still relevant. There are a few things I think you ought to be involved before you ever leave. And where do you want to retire to? It may be where your current duty station is. For my case, I had two boys in high school, one just started in college. I decided to stay here In Northern Virginia. There's also a lot of opportunity in Northern Virginia and not far from my hometown. But you may want to move and you may want to check out. If you're not moving back to your hometown, you may want to go there on a vacation, on some leave, and start looking at that. You can do a lot of this online. Look at the housing market, but if you're going to retire where you're at, then that makes it a little bit easier. But if you're going to retire where you're at, then that makes it a little bit easier. I also encourage those who retire most bases, most weather, which service you're in have a retirement ceremony.

Peter Baker:

I retired out of the Pentagon. My retirement ceremony was at Fort Myers, virginia, and I encouraged everybody. Even prior to coming here, I was stationed at Fort Sillac, oklahoma, and I encouraged everybody who was retiring to go to the retirement ceremony. If you don't want to do it, do it for yourself. Do it for your family. It's one of the last times you're going to be in uniform. It's going to be the last time your children, your wife, your husband are going to see you in uniform or your parents, and do it for them. I ended up doing it as well and I'm glad I did. So I really encourage do the retirement. And as you're doing this transition, I found out recently and that is still the same as it was when I was in you can transfer your GI Bill to a family member.

Larry Zilliox:

Yeah.

Peter Baker:

I just talked to a Navy captain, colonel 06, who retired. He's been retired four years. Never knew about that. Make sure you attend all your retirement briefings.

Larry Zilliox:

Yeah.

Peter Baker:

You don't know what you don't know unless you go, and I highly encourage it. When you get retired, when you retire, go through the medical process. I had the American Legion assist me to submit my paperwork. They're professionals, they know it, it's routine for them. You could do it yourself, but you'll do it for the first time. You may get it right, you may not. There are different organizations, veteran organizations, that will assist you with this. Again, mine was American Legion and they were wonderful, easy.

Larry Zilliox:

Yeah.

Peter Baker:

I highly encourage that you may get some disability benefits you don't even know about and that goes much more. The disability benefits. There was much more in the disability pay but it goes to the VA loan if you have a disability. So highly encourage that you have to prepare for a transition to retire or leave the service before you leave the service position to retire or leave the service before you leave the service.

Larry Zilliox:

So what was the catalyst for you? What was the point? I know, did your career field have a reenlistment bonus?

Peter Baker:

No.

Larry Zilliox:

Okay, so neither did mine. Yeah, yeah, I had a buddy's son having dinner with one time. He was going back and forth about was it going to reenlist? You know, he had like 12 years in, I thought, and he just he wasn't sure. And then he mentioned he was an Air Force sergeant. And he mentioned that in his career field, which he worked with, satellites, there was a $62,000 reenlistment bonus. I said, but you're out of your mind. If you don't reenlist, you know for me and as for you, they just said, fine, how do you do? And here's a ticket home. But if you're in a career field that has a reenlistment bonus, I think you really do have to give some pretty serious consideration to that.

Peter Baker:

And I will make a plug here too, and I'm glad you brought that up, blair. I really didn't appreciate the medical benefits when you retire and there's a difference of retiring before 20 and after 20, and it's significant. The military benefits are significant. I would ask some of your civilian friends who are not veterans or who don't have that medical retirement it's part of our compensation. If you hit 20 years, you're eligible for it and it's significant. My criteria and again, it's very individual.

Peter Baker:

I had a good friend of mine said, in fact, if he works for two people in a row that he had a hard time with, he'd retire. I was going to be looking at it's 27 years and I had two boys in high school and didn't want to move the family again and I was at the point in time where I was going to go and take a geographical bachelor tour. I think I felt as though I had fun and the opportunities for me to transition were probably good. Now that's a little bit of hindsight. It turned out very well because there was a company that was just starting to form the time I was retiring. But again, there's no wrong answer, it's a gut feeling.

Larry Zilliox:

Yeah, yeah.

Peter Baker:

I would solicit the people who you work for get their input and let them know you're thinking about leaving. They may have some insights, you know. They may say, well, they want to hang in here for another two months. If there's a promotion board or something, yeah, and talk to your family. They may have some very, very definitive ideas for it.

Larry Zilliox:

I like the idea of talking to those that you work with and who you work for, because they may have connections on the outside. They may say my cousin's looking for people, you've got a security clearance. You can't let that go. It's golden in the Northern Virginia area, so you never know who people know, right, right, and so don't make it a secret. Don't try to say, oh, I don't want anybody to know I'm leaving. You know, I don't want a ceremony, I just want to. I'm going to put my time and I got early leave, I'm out of here. You know I'm short, I got a month and two days. So because once you, once you leave, you left, you're gone, you're on your own. You've got to do everything for yourself. The military is not there to give you whatever you need, yeah, and so it can be a little daunting. What was it like for you when you left, when you came out? I'll share a little daunting. What was it like for you when you left, when you came out?

Peter Baker:

I'll share a little story. So I was in after duty. I go to Korea for an exercise. I've been there. Ultra Focus Lens is one of them. I've been there quite a few different times, never staged, but I was there. You go, you're in the village and you land. There's someone there at the plane, greets you and says follow me, you know everything's taken care of. There's someone there at the plane, greets you and says follow me, you know everything's taken care of. I retire and my son is living in south korea. So I go, I get off of the plane. There's nobody there, like who's there calling my name? I was saying I'll just go over here. Yeah, so your part. When you start right from the military, you're alone. You're absolutely right. Yeah, I was very alone, nobody give you a ride.

Larry Zilliox:

No, nobody tell you where. Okay, here you are at a real. It's you know, and the chow hall's over there 20 million people in Seoul and I was alone.

Peter Baker:

Oh my.

Peter Baker:

God. So I again, when I started thinking about it and you got to tell people and my boss and other mentors I've had and coworkers you know, they said well, they didn't really have a definitive answer. You know, maybe you ought to stay or maybe you shouldn't, because to them I was coming up, I could serve only until 30 years as a colonel and I wanted it to be my decision. I didn't want to say to the Army Army says well, you hit 30 years, now I have to leave, which is fine for others, they want to serve as long as they can and that's fine. But I finally made a decision and in that transition, as I say, go to all the briefings and everything else to prepare you for it and let everybody else and you're going to hear one word, larry already mentioned it in some sense networking.

Larry Zilliox:

Yeah.

Peter Baker:

And it starts before you leave, just as you said, you don't know what people know and what they're looking for. But when you do and now you're on terminal leave I would encourage you. I just sort of stumbled upon this idea because you run into people at varied places at times and you get talking about this or that. I went ahead and just went online and had a business card, my name and my telephone and email address. I had a business card, my name and my telephone and email address. So if I run into somebody, we started having a discussion about employment or opportunities or whatever it may be, I had something to give to them.

Larry Zilliox:

Yeah.

Peter Baker:

And they had something that they could take away, and I would take it. You know, get the material where they can write notes on the back of the card and that's just a tangible connection you have. And I found I don't know if it worked or not, but I at least felt as though I was putting myself in the best position to stay connected. Yeah, it can't hurt. It cannot hurt right, yeah.

Peter Baker:

Yeah, and it's very, very expensive. And friends that I knew who worked for companies while I was active duty and they heard I was retiring and they said, hey, you ought to consider this and so, and then you apply.

Larry Zilliox:

So how did you find your career field and what you had done for the bulk of 27 years, translating into civilian life? Well, how did that go?

Peter Baker:

This is probably a significant difference between enlisted and officer. At least as an artilleryman, I would say I didn't have any hard technical skills. Most of our enlisted do have hard technical skills, even if it's in HR, or they have some marketable skills that they learned in the Army as an officer. Leadership isn't completely one-for-one transferable. There are plenty of opportunities to succeed in that and there's also maybe an opportunity where a lot of people will gravitate towards what they're comfortable with, what they've been trained in, and a lot of people in Northern Virginia go work for a defense company. There's a lot of them out there. They're large or small. They're always looking for people. Subway's current mentions the security clearance very valuable and that's a well-worn path. But you may also want to look at this opportunity to do something that you're passionate about. A friend of mine retired as an archival officer. He was a colonel and he decided to go teach math in high school and he wanted to be a baseball coach and that for him that was his retirement job teaching math and becoming a baseball, high school baseball coach. Others want to go in business for themselves, yeah. So it's an opportunity that very few people ever have to recreate themselves professionally when you're looking for a job, it's because you need money, or you're younger and you have to get a career going, or you have some obligations. But now, when you serve 20 plus years, you have an opportunity to look back and maybe you and your spouse want to do something together in business. So I throw a wide net and really reflect upon what you're passionate about and your skills and what you can afford to do or afford not to do. Again, I didn't have the technical skills to market myself, other than I ended up going into business development, again very well-worn path for officers for a defense company. And I knew about defense company only because I had known one of the civilians Vice President there through the Army work, which is casual Army work, and we got to know each other. Again, it's just coincidental, they started a company here in Northern Virginia at the same time. I was like transition.

Peter Baker:

Two things I would say. One, everything's negotiable In the Army. It's not. There's no negotiation in the Army, not at all. Negotiable In the Army. It's not. There's no negotiation in the Army, not at all. And if things are negotiable, it may be salary, it may be the company car, it may be working from home nowadays two days a week. Be creative and especially if you're looking at two or three or four other companies and they're going to give you offers, then maybe you want more money, or maybe you want more flexibility, or maybe you want more money, or maybe you want more flexibility, or maybe you want more vacation time. So I would say, push the envelope and say, you know, until they say, well, we really want you here, but we don't really allow 60 days of vacation, sure.

Larry Zilliox:

But they may allow 45 and you don't know that you don't know that, and that's why it's always negotiable.

Peter Baker:

You can work from home three days a week, or whatever it may be. Again, you got to get a little creative and find out where you really want to be. Maybe you want to go to work every day. There's some different values. There's, again, no wrong or right answer for that. Yeah, so negotiate with that. And it's much more than just about money. The other thing is get ready to slow down.

Peter Baker:

The one thing I it was frustrating, and in the Army and I'm sure it's all the other services there's certainly a hurry up and wait, oh yeah, but you sort of know that and decisions can come quick and then the execution may take a little bit. But in the civilian world I found decisions are slow, slow, slow, slow, even when you think they have all the information. You just need to make a decision and let's get on with it. And that includes the hiring process. There is a season to hire. It pretty much follows the school season. A lot of people tend to hire large hiring in late spring. That's probably the most significant one. The next one is in September, august, september, and then there are others that will do it in January if that's their new fiscal year, but it's also a timing there. Now. I applied I think I applied for the job in May and I got an offer in September and we solidified and agreed to terms by October. Summer is a different meeting in the civilian world.

Larry Zilliox:

Yeah.

Peter Baker:

And people are going to take vacations, leave, and they're going to go on and they're not nearly as in a hurry as much as you are. Right yeah, so I would just temper your expectations. The military in a lot of regards, you're on a boilerplate in the military. You know if you do this, this is going to happen and you know what reactions. And it's not the same in the civilian world, right, right.

Larry Zilliox:

Patience, patience. What's the one thing you miss the most about the Army?

Peter Baker:

Oh, I think this is probably again camaradership for sure at all levels. The tribe yeah, you're really. You're really, and that's one of the things why I joined the Army, why I joined the field. I tell you why I stayed. You're really on a team. You're not doing anything by yourself in the Army. You're part of a team and you're contributing to that team and it's significant, and you have great teammates and you accomplish things together. You're part of something bigger than yourself. That can certainly happen in the civilian world. In the corporate world it can less of an opportunity, but it does.

Peter Baker:

I ended up being on a small team that we won some contracts and I ended up bringing different values to the table. One guy had the technical expertise in the product. I had the tactical expertise. I could talk to the customer about what they wanted and what they didn't want. It gave credibility. So when we're talking to the customer about what they wanted and what they didn't want, gave credibility. So when we're talking to the customer about this product. And then someone else had the budgetary. So as a team, we did very, very well and I realized that I did have again, not hard technical skills, but I had knowledge, and it's another thing I discovered. I didn't know how it's another thing I discovered. I didn't know how much I knew until I left the Army, yeah, and started talking to other people. See, I know about this program, I know about that program, I know about this product, I know the goods and bad about this product, and so that became a valuable asset that I could provide to the company and actually to the customer.

Larry Zilliox:

Well, nobody sells product better to the military than ex-military. It's plain and simple and that's why all these contractors and all these companies in Northern Virginia, business development is a wide open field, because they have the expertise to make the product. They have the expertise to do the software, to do everything. It doesn't matter how good your product is If people aren't buying it. You're not going to be around very long and that's a perfect field for an officer really.

Peter Baker:

You're absolutely right. I mean, I know everybody in the military knows what works and what doesn't work, and then what doesn't work doesn't stay around long, if it ever got there to begin with. And what works? Well, you got just a handful of competitors and you're going to be able to separate those competitors. Maybe a cost, maybe a performance. Performance may be range, it may be weight, it may be other things, but when you've been in the military long enough, you bring that tactical expertise to the table.

Larry Zilliox:

Yeah, yeah, if you haven't used that product, you've seen one probably pretty similar, and you know it worked. It didn't work, uh, it didn't work at the time we needed it. The most is usually the way it goes. But well, I'm with you. I think most veterans will agree the thing they miss the most is the tribe, it's the, it's the people that they served with Um. You know, I got out in 83, and I'm still in touch with a lot of them. Oh right, you know, it's a closeness that you don't get in civilian life, and I think it's one of the reasons why some veterans have trouble transitioning.

Peter Baker:

No doubt I have friends who got out in 83, and they got out maybe 87. Still very much contact as well. Knew them since 83. And we have shared experiences in the military. On that team you go through the same weather and the same heartaches and, whatever the sadness part of it, or the victories, the losses, you share that, and that's what part of being a team is. When you leave the Army, you're no longer part of it. Or for the victories and losses, you share that and that's what part of being a team is. When you leave the army, you're no longer part of that.

Larry Zilliox:

and any, any victories you may have, uh, are going to be shared by if you're self-employed, by you, yeah, yeah, or a very few people yeah, um, I was self-employed and I uh, the only benefit that I could see to that for me was I was employee of the year for seven, eight consecutive years. I mean, it was a record, there was no doubt about it, but it just didn't seem to impress many people.

Peter Baker:

Just a few other things. I just jogged my memory. Other things you can be prepared to do is join organizations, whether they're veterans organizations, something that you find interest in. Again, do it genuinely, but it all goes apart in networking. Yeah, and there's also professional organizations there, not just the American Legion I mentioned before, but the MOA Military Officer Association of America. Yeah, military Officer Association of America.

Larry Zilliox:

Yeah.

Peter Baker:

They offer resume reviews that are free for everybody and they offer a job fair at least twice a year, I think, throughout the country Certainly they do in Northern Virginia and DC and take those opportunities to go there, have your resume looked at and again. Now it's different. Now it's all digital, so you've got to make sure you have the right buzzwords in there so that the computer picks up on it and when you do land that first interview, think about what you want to say before you get there. It's just again. It's like going in front of a promotion board or going through a process that you've done in the Army. It's very personal, but take advantage of those organizations. They are there, exist because we're veterans helping veterans, and what I'm familiar with most is MOA and I'm not here to applaud them, but a very good organization that you may find some usefulness.

Larry Zilliox:

There are a lot of resources available to help veterans with many issues, from mental health, housing, job placement, just all sorts, so you don't have to do it alone, right yeah?

Peter Baker:

And I get a newsletter from the state of Virginia Department of VA. I'm sure every state has a Department of VA and it's another source, like I said, job placement or mental health or health, whatever the issue may be. So take advantage of what is there for you as a veteran.

Larry Zilliox:

Yeah, for sure. I'm glad you mentioned the Virginia Department of Veteran Services. As we wrap up here, listeners, again, thank you so much for sticking with us through season two and we'll be back. We take two weeks off during the holidays, but we'll be back with the first episode of season three. We'll be in January and our guest for that will be Commissioner Chuck Zingler, the commissioner of the Virginia Department of Veterans Services. So we're looking really forward to that. Peter, thank you so much for joining us. I really appreciate it.

Peter Baker:

Larry, I've enjoyed it as well.

Larry Zilliox:

So for our listeners. We'll see you in January for season three. Until then, thanks for listening.

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