She Was 18, Had No Mentor and Accidentally Joined the NSA. The Rest Got More Interesting From There.

Dr. Yolanda Reid didn't choose national security. She had a competing offer from a pharmaceutical company and picked the National Security Agency because the scheduling lined up better with school. She was 18. She didn't know the difference between the two industries. She just knew someone would pay for college.
In this episode of "Rookies to Rockstars," hosts Amanda Ziadeh and Camille Tuutti  sit down with Reid, vice president of cybersecurity at the MIL Corp., on what it looks like to build a career when you have no roadmap, a lot of candor and occasionally too much of it.

In this conversation, you'll hear about:

• How Reid landed at NSA and what she wishes she'd known about mentorship from day one,
  
  
• The technical director who became her first mentor and why she promptly told him no,
  
  
• What it's like to be the only woman and only person of color in the room for years before you even clock it,
  
  
• How a cancer diagnosis forced her to write her priorities on an index card, and what made the list, and
  
  
• Why she started homeschooling her daughter through first grade from a wheelchair and what that year gave them both.

Reid also talks about leaving government, how she thinks about cyber and AI today, and what she'd tell her younger self about the ideas she let go of too easily when the first answer was no.

At her 5-year cancer-free mark, she and her best friend went to Egypt for two weeks. Fifty people, two groups, ancient history she'd studied alongside her daughter. She loved every bit of it —  except the part where there were 50 people.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Yeah, I'm graduating high school. I wasn't even, you know, in college yet. So I really was trying to figure out what to do. And this is why I tell people to have mentors, especially in high school and college and things like that, because it's sometimes you will make some life-changing decisions. And so it's good to have a mentor. So what if I had a mentor actually telling you, like, hey, you know, the government is different from drug development. I mean, I don't know if I would have changed or anything, but it would have been nice to have understood that.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

GovCon has a language of its own: acronyms, compliance, acquisition. And when you're new, it can feel a little bit like Alphabet Soup.

SPEAKER_00 0:51

And let's be honest, no one hands you a decoder ring. We are your hosts, Camille Tuti and Amanda Zedit. And we are here to get real about how people actually break in, level up, and lead.

SPEAKER_01 1:02

Because not everyone grows up dreaming about GovCon. Some people just need help paying for college and somehow end up at the NSA by accident.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

Yeah, that happens. Today's a guest applied to a student program had a competing offer from Merck Pharmaceuticals, and a scheduling conflict made the call. Zero intel on what she was walking into.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

And along the way, doctors gave her a year to live. She spent part of it homeschooling her first grader from a wheelchair and came out the other side with a very clear sense of what actually matters.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Now she is the vice president of cybersecurity at the Mill Corporation, and she has a lot to say about mentorship, believing in your own ideas and what she wishes someone had told her at the very start.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

Today we're joined by Dr. Yolanda Reid, Vice President of Cybersecurity at the MIL Corporation. Yolanda, we're so glad to have you here. I'm glad to be here. I'm really excited.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

Yolanda, you and I talked a few weeks back, and I walked away from that conversation thinking a lot of people needed to hear your story, the resilience, the comeback, all of it. So if you could find your way back from everything you've been through, that's a really powerful reminder that other people can too. I just want to go back to the start for a second. So you have spent decades in national security, but the way you got into this work was pretty unusual. Uh, you signed some paperwork, walked into the National Security Agency, and only later realized what the work was all about or what you had signed up for. So take us back there. What did you think that we were walking into?

SPEAKER_02 2:49

So they had a program for students, and so the advertisement was that they're gonna help pay for college, and you needed to be a US citizen, you needed to have a good GPA. And it was an essay. That's right. There was an essay there that I had to write, and it was a the same essay I wrote for colleges, and so I kind of just reprinted it and I just sent in this application, and I thought I'm just walking into like an internship that will help pay for college. I went to an engineering high school and there were other programs that were kind of similar that you uh apply to, you would probably do, they'll do a case study of how you work with other people, then you get a job in the summer and they pay for college. So it seemed very natural that this is just an employer that was doing the same thing. But when I actually got there, you realized it wasn't the same. It wasn't just any employer. And so at the same time that I applied to NSA, there was a program that I think Merc pharmaceuticals had that was very similar, and I got that as well. And the reason why I didn't end up taking the pharmaceutical ones was that I couldn't get their program to line up with the school program exactly. So I'm like, okay, well, I guess I'll do this in a say one. So at the time I had no clue the difference between, you know, pharmaceuticals and national security, but I knew that they'd pay for school.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

I mean, to be fair, I don't think at that age I would have either. And when you're graduating or looking for a job, you're just thinking, I need a job. Yeah, I'm graduating high school.

SPEAKER_02 4:46

I wasn't even, you know, in college yet. So I really was trying to figure out what to do. And this is why I tell people to have mentors, especially in high school and college and things like that, because it's sometimes you will make some life-changing decisions, and so it's good to have a mentor. So what if I had a mentor actually telling you, like, hey, you know, the government is different from drug development? I mean, I don't know if I would have changed or anything, but it would have been nice to have understood that.

SPEAKER_01 5:24

Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, when the reality of the work hit you, along with realizing that you could have used a mentor, what's something else you wish you had known in those first couple of years that would have made your life easier?

SPEAKER_02 5:36

What have made my life easier is that I did get eventually when I joined the agency a mentor. And he told me, you know, to go get your PhD. And I was like, no, I don't want to do that. And I just wanted to do a master's. And you know, that that made sense to me is you know, after your your bachelor's, you get your master's, and then if you get your master's, you might get promoted. And so that made sense. And he's like, Well, you can just join a PhD program and then you'll get a master's degree along the way. And I'm like, No, I don't want to do that. I just want to do this quick little program and be done. And so what I didn't realize is in technology, you always have to keep learning. And so I end up getting that PhD that I was told that I should have got a long time ago. And it would have been cheaper and faster if I did it before I had kids and before I had a job. And so I will tell people to have the mindset that you're gonna always learn. And so do not close those doors if they're open for you.

SPEAKER_00 6:46

I'm curious because I hear the younger generation is asking me, like, where do you find a mentor? Like, did this person just appear? Was it somebody that you were drawn to because they had all the experience? Or how did you cultivate that relationship? Because you were very young.

SPEAKER_02 7:03

Yeah, so it was two years in. I was still an intern at that time, and we had just a technical director, and he was going around looking at our projects that we were working on, and he's like, Oh, and he starts talking. And then I mean, I didn't know what mentors were or anything like that. And I was brutally honest at that time. So I just you asked me a question, I told you the answer. And so that relationship started that way of just giving me very honest feedback, and then I like I said, I gave honest feedback back as well, right? Like, no, I don't want to do that. Why would I do that? It's like and so that'll take too long. So that's how I first got a mentor, and then um I got into another program where they said a mentor was required, and so then I asked an old supervisor, hey, will you be my mentor? And this is when I discovered the concept of commitment issues. And so he was he's like, What does that entail? What do I have to do? How long do I have a be a mentor? And so he didn't want to commit, and so we had to kind of discover what mentorship was together, and and we worked that out very well. That I had another source to be able to ask questions to. It was great like to have a mentor when I was in college because you have to pick classes, and I had this vision of where I wanted to go, and so what classes made sense. And so starting off with these two people, they kind of gave me their opinion. And so that was very, very helpful. Um then, you know, some other person was assigned to me at some point, and they just wanted to boss me around, and I didn't like that. So I I ignored that person, right? You're assigned, but you're not helping me, and you're just telling me to do things that not asking me anything about me. And so I saw what I didn't want in a mentor, but it would have been have been nice to have known the concept of a mentor and to know how to pick one and how to change. Like, you know, if you're assigned one that's not working, it's okay to ask for a new one. And so I think that's really valuable. And there's a lot of uh places to find them at all ages, and so I encourage people to be mentors, and so sometimes like college students are like, Oh, I'm too young. And I'm like, Well, you can mentor a high schooler, right? Or in every stage of life, you can always uh mentor someone before you. So think of the communities that you're in. And so, like, if you do a sport, you might find someone that was on the team or their parents that you think is interesting, and you can just ask this question of can I have a conversation with you? And then if you like the conversation, then you can continue to ask, can I have another conversation with you in a month or two? And most people will say yes. And one thing I've learned, especially when you ask people about themselves, people like talking about themselves. And so um there's a great way to find a mentor if you say, like, I think you're interesting. People like to hear that, right? If you're part of like a, I don't know, like church, people love to mentor at these kinds of things, and then most professional environments do have a mentorship program. Like I was part of women is cybersecurity, all right, for a very long time. And so there's some mentor program there, and then they you go to the website and you'll see like they take applications every year, and then that's a way to also find one. So I think it's easier to find, and now we have AI, we can just ask ChatGPT find one. And it will gladly tell you, and you know, and that's another way to probably find it. So I think it's easier to find mentors now, and I think that we're having the conversation more about mentorship and the value of it, so it's not so foreign and you don't have to go through what I did.

SPEAKER_00 11:19

So we often learn through failure. What's that one mistake you look back and you're like, oh, that was kind of cringe-worthy, but you learned something from it.

SPEAKER_02 11:33

Yeah, so I um, because I had no mentorship, right? And I had no filter and I was just an honest person. I know that there was this person I that was a manager, and I I loved her. You know, every time she walked into a room, she wore a red suit and red lipstick, and everybody would be like, Oh my goodness, this person's coming, and they would clean up and make the workplace all nice. And I told her exactly that. I was like, I love when you come here because everyone starts pretending to work and they do and they clean up and everyone's happy. And she was so stunned that I told her this. And then after moments of shock, she laughed. And I see her a couple of times a year, and we still laugh about it. And I consider her a friend and a mentor as well now. But yeah, I don't recommend that. I I think we just have a filter. Thankfully, I talked to the right person that was able to laugh about it, but I didn't have the etiquette of like, what do you do in the workplace? And a mentor would have helped me with that, right? Like, the big boss is coming. You know, what should I do? I should talk about the great things we're doing, not like give your honest opinion about you know whatever's at the top of your head.

SPEAKER_00 12:57

But that that's an interesting story because you are in a male-dominated field, you're a woman of color, you're young, and then you said, you know, you have no filter. So I can imagine like how that was a big reality check at some point, like, oh, like maybe maybe I should be more diplomatic. Or did it, or actually, let's talk about the when it actually served you in a good way. Yeah. What when did that candidness and that you know filter approach actually serve you?

SPEAKER_02 13:31

So I never really thought when I was younger, like, okay, you're you're a woman of color. I mean, I figured that out later, like, oh whoa. You know, I have always just been me. I never thought of myself as different, right? But for other people, you know, I was the only female and I was the only person of color for a very, very long time in the workplace, and people learned from me, right? And so I thought that was really good when I look back, right? You know, the males that I work with, their view of women as from their mother or their wife. Uh and then I was someone that was not like their mother or their wife. I was very different, and so then they were able to see, like, huh, you you think different, I might dress different because I was from the south and I was working in the north. And so I I people were kind of vocal of not in a mean way, they were very vocal of, well, you're different, or I never really thought about this before. Or I remember my aunt got me a work purse. She's like, you should have a work purse, and it was a fancy work purse, it was Duny and Burke, I think it was. And I knew, again, knew nothing. But I had this work person, I brought this work person, and some men saw it, and they're like, I think my wife would love that. I'm like, you know, and then start having conversations, and then they got their wife something similar off of QVC because it was super popular then. And then they came back and was like, thank you, you know, for that. And so it was very helpful. So it was a really good exchange. I will say that I did run into issues later in life, though, right? And so as I became up the ranks and more in executive roles, that became a lot more difficult, right? And so that I needed a lot of mentorship, but I've learned by then uh to have them and to talk to people and um and the seek counsel. So it has been different, but I didn't notice it right away.

SPEAKER_01 15:44

Well, and as a leader now, do you when when there's you know a younger employee in the office and they come and speak to you a bit candidly, similarly how you did when you were younger, do you appreciate that kind of conversation and you know that approach?

SPEAKER_02 15:58

So I will say that I feel like I cannot be surprised. And no matter where I go, I think I got it from my grandfather. Everybody would tell my grandfather things, and so everyone tells me things. And so I know that one time, you know, male dominated rule, and you can edit it out if you want to later, but um male-dominant rule atmosphere. I'm a chief. Somebody comes in and says, Yolanda, you know why I've been grumpy. I just figured it out. I went to the doctor and I had my testosterone levels checked, and they were too low. And so it explains so much. And now I'm gonna be a better husband to my wife because of the mood swings. And I was like, watch a face, Yolanda, right? Someone's really opening up to you about something they wanted to share, and so I I always look at that moment as like, okay, nothing can surprise me now. Yeah, okay. So people are quite interesting to share. So how I was just very open, I have got it back later. Yes, I have.

SPEAKER_00 17:15

Because there is a lot of talk these days, especially about bringing your whole authentic self to work, which I don't believe in. Yeah, I don't because professional Camille is different from personal Camille, like home Camille, right? I don't think that those sh, you know, my boss doesn't need to know my clients or my boss doesn't need to know how I am at home. But how did you learn to kind of balance those two sides as you became more severe?

SPEAKER_02 17:43

Yeah, so I had to really think through what do I want to portray? And then what are my values became another thing. And so I worked in environments, like people they curse like every three words. And how does that make me feel? And I'm not gonna judge people and I'm not going to try to correct you because if that's the language you choose, you that's the one you choose. But I can control and choose how I want to portray myself, and I tell that to my daughter too. I you get to make those choices of how you want to portray yourself, and so think of how you feel when you see these things in your environment, and then you can decide how you want to participate in the environment. And so that that took time to try to figure out, right? I want it to be open and honest all the time, and there's definitely people that want to take advantage of that and use it against you for things like promotions or for them to be more popular or whatever, like that. But I didn't want that to cut me completely off, right? So I had to strike this balance of how do I want to portray myself, what do I give, and what do I not give. In every work environment, I I don't give the same way, right? Because the people are very different. And so I adjust accordingly of how do I want to show up in this place.

SPEAKER_01 19:11

Um, well, Yolanda, I I learned this about you after reading Camille's profile on you. I understand that by the time you had, you know, built a career um and gotten to a certain point, everything got a bit interrupted by a cancer diagnosis. And, you know, of course, that kind of moment forces a reset that most people don't expect or plan for. So, how did that change what mattered to you in your work and and how you came back to it?

SPEAKER_02 19:34

It changed everything in my entire life. And so I will say I was a real go-getter. I was like on this progression at work, and so I was getting accolades, I was getting promoted very often. I was definitely working with my peers that were a couple of decades older than me. And so I was just on this projectory. But when this diagnosis came, it didn't change me right away. I was pretty messed up. And meaning, like I even had like a work restriction put on me by my doctors to heal from cancer, I could only work eight hours a week. And what did you know? I showed up all eight hours and I had a super, super stressful job. And there was a lot that was happening in the world at that time that it was not a good healing environment because it was stressful. And if I didn't get the eight-hour restriction put on me, I would have been there in pain a lot longer. So I wasn't, I didn't have balance at that moment of my life. And so as I lost functionality, meaning that I I had surgery and my body couldn't handle it, and my body pretty much collapsed, and I was in a wheelchair and I pretty much became a vegetable. Like my body was a vegetable and my brain was active. That is how I got forced to re-prioritize my energy, right? And so I can only use my energy so much time a day, and so what am I going to do? At one point, I I did have to take time off. I learned to take time off, and I was like, I had a lot of sick leave. And so I took time off to heal, and I was strongly medicated by all of the damage that I that happened to me. And so at one point I was woke 60 to 90 minutes a day. So you really had to prioritize in that 60 to 90 minutes, what am I doing? Because I won't be woke again, right? And so it took all of that for me to start prioritizing. So as I started getting energy and functionality, what am I putting that energy to? And so what was very important? And then I also had This life sentence given to me that the the doctors were only trying to get me to live a year. And so in a year, what do you want to do? Right? And that reprioritizes what you put your energy into as well. So it changed every aspect of my life. I learned who were friends and who were loved ones, right? That who showed up, who didn't know how to show up, and then who were willing to even harm you when you're weak. And so it was very eye-opening. So my friendships and my relationships changed. What I put my energy into, I made a card, um, a postcard. I just took a little index card and I wrote my priorities on there, and I was like, this is where my energy will go to. And so if I beat this or if I live this year, this is what I'm going to do. And it got me to focus because not only was I very mission-driven, I was volunteer-driven, I was mom-driven, I was school-driven, I was driven, I was doing professor work driven. You know, I was doing a lot of great things. They were all great things, but it this whole journey made me um focus. And then I don't want to ever go back to where I was. And so I still keep now as more of a mental um index card of this is what I focus my energy on. And and I reevaluate that.

SPEAKER_00 23:44

I know that one of those focuses was spending more time with your daughter. What were the other ones?

SPEAKER_02 23:50

Um, if I was to be there, I I was going to travel. Um, I love seeing the world. And so I um at five years, me and my bestie, we went to Egypt for two weeks. And that was the longest vacation I ever had. And I didn't know if I even liked two weeks of vacation. I really don't.

SPEAKER_00 24:10

It was such an overachiever. That's why you're like, can I be on vacation or not? Am I allowing myself that rest?

SPEAKER_02 24:18

You know, we learned about group travel, and then do I like it? No. And you know, all that kind of stuff. Like it was we were traveling, you know, like 20 some people, and um, and we're broken into two groups, so it was really 50 people. And I was like, no, I don't like this. And so I I learned a lot, but it was just it was just such a great thing. Like, I'm going across the world to have a new experience of something ancient that I heard so much about. And is it true what I've learned? And you know, especially when I was studying with my daughter, you know, she's looked at the ancient world, and I and I'm from Texas, and in Texas, we don't learn about other people's history, we learn about Texas history. So when I was learning this with my daughter, I'm like, oh my goodness, I'm gonna go see what my I I learned with my daughter, and it was a great experience. I got to see what which was true and what wasn't true, and what you know was fudged and uh a little bit, and so it was a great experience. So travel was one. Um, you know, I lost my appetite and um I went down 89 pounds at one point, so food became a priority. So I wanted to eat, yeah. And I still do enjoy food, so I like trying new foods and new cultures and things like that. That was a priority. Emerging tech is a priority, so you know, I've always been this engineer and I like like where we're going in the future, so I want to put my energy into that and then education and so for my daughter and then for myself. And then strangely enough, you know, when I told you that I I was so out of balance when I was a vegetable and I was only woke for so much time, I I did decide after I was woke a few hours a day to start homeschooling my daughter. And someone was like, Yeah, that sounds completely you. Like nobody else would like fight cancer and decide to like homeschool their kid. And but I I did because it gave me an opportunity, like if I only had a year that I can be able to spin it with my kid, she wouldn't be at school for eight to nine hours and I would miss all of that. And people said I was smart, so let's test this out, and so I should be able to teach a first grader, right? And so I did, and then what I didn't ever, ever suspect, but I'm very thankful for is our relationship was so close because I did, and so I would never trade it for the world. What a lovely story.

SPEAKER_00 27:04

I mean, somebody who was a vegetable, and then you decide you're gonna homeschool your first grader. I mean, that that takes not just time but commitment and you know, a desire to to want your daughter to be better.

SPEAKER_02 27:19

Yeah, I was able to, I don't know. I I got online, I found someone who was in a homeschooling program. I'm like, I know nothing about this. Can you meet me? And this person drew from I think Arlington, Virginia. I should go find their email and t tell them how I'm doing, but um and met me and um and and went through like how you can homeschool, and there's a program and it's all made for you. And only thing I gotta do, it tells you what to do, and I just do it. And um, and that's what I did. And she went to class once uh once a week, and so she got the socialization, and then I put her aftercare for I can rest and she can be able to be amongst um school-age kids, and so um, and so I worked on all of those things, and it was it was great because if I did pass, then she would have memories, right? And she would know what her mom taught her, and so you know, I wasn't trying to pass, I I was trying to fight because I wanted her to say my mom is and not my mom was, and so um I'm I'm glad that um I I'm here, right? And and I feel every day still a journey, um, and I cannot take for granted that I'm I'm here.

SPEAKER_01 28:40

Well, yeah, it's such a testament to who you are too, because I mean I think it's always an understandable choice to not be so active or positive or strong during these moments, and choosing choosing that route is so hard, but I mean, you know, it's a true testament to the way you live life. So that's yeah, thanks for sharing. You're welcome. Absolutely. Well, Yolanda, I understand that with a change in perspective, you moved out of government for more flexibility. Tell us what that transition showed you about what you actually need uh from your work at this stage.

SPEAKER_02 29:19

So, what I needed was to be able to contribute. It was very important, right? And I am very much into like emerging tech and how can we secure things and how can we do things that's right. And so I needed a place that would honor that. And then they knew that my kid is my priority, right? Is it was very important. And there's some places that are kid friendly or parent-friendly, and there's some that's not. And so I I had to just make the choice, like I have to go somewhere that they know that I'm a cheer mom. And so that doesn't mean I'm away from you very much. It's always most of the time it's on the weekend, except at the end of the season. But that's important, you know, me to show up and um and and be there for her and put my energy to that. And she has the craziest schedule. And so drop off pickup, I mean, it's not consistent in any capacity. And so are you okay with that? I will get the work done.

SPEAKER_00 30:29

And fast forward to now, you're working at the intersection of uh cyber AI and emerging tech. So, how do those early lessons and that mid-career reset shape how you show up in the work today?

SPEAKER_02 30:46

So they hit this point that you start seeing patterns. Where is like, oh, I remember when we used to do this, or I remember when we stopped doing that, or this won't happen. And so it's very interesting to start bringing history into emerging tech, right? Sometimes people want to shut the door on what happened in the past, but it can help you move in the future and then save money and save time and save costs, and that's how I'm showing up now is trying to calm fears, saying that we have a lot of lessons we learned and a lot of best practices. I'd say calm down a lot because it will be okay, and then enjoy and embrace the future.

SPEAKER_01 31:41

And I know we talked about mentorship and and wishing that you had had that early on in your career. But when you look back at the whole arc of your career, including the experiences that you've gone through personally, what's one piece of advice that you wish you had at the very beginning?

SPEAKER_02 31:56

To believe in myself earlier. I had a lot of ideas, like I saw things like, oh, this can be better or this can be improved or whatever. And I might have vocalized it, and then someone was like, no, or not now, or maybe somewhere else, you know, that kind of thing. And I was like, okay, then I let it go. And then 10, 15 years later, someone dipped my idea. And I'm like, what? And that kind of sucked. And I remember RF signals, the signals to go through the air and work with our cell phones and all those kind of things. At one point, people said it was gonna be dead, and they're like, RF is dead, don't worry about that, just work on the computer. So I was like, I don't think so. What got us now? I'm like, oh my goodness, why? I didn't believe in that. I have wanted to develop this development program just to make sure that people were aware. And because RF is very different from digital, and so want to make sure that we grow this workforce. And I was like, told, no, we don't need that. We're moving away, it's dying. That's old stuff. And look so I I do watch those ideas that I had that I knew to just believe in it, or you know, like if I had that idea and I think is a good thing, and I made a I made a whole proposal. I knew nothing about proposals, but I still made one, and I made a whole proposal of what it's gonna look like and the strategy. And I let the first notes stop me. So what happened if I went to someone else, you know, or went to their boss or whatever. Um, it might have been different.

SPEAKER_00 33:38

I'm impressed that how you seem to have like such a positive on look and a real go-getter. Where do you think that comes from? Like, were you ever afraid of doing something early in your career? You seem confident, and that's a big struggle for a lot of young people. But would you describe yourself as a confident person, especially when you were young? And what advice do you give to younger people in the workforce who are maybe pursuing a national security or intelligence career? And they kind of feel that they are not there quite yet.

SPEAKER_02 34:20

Yeah, I never thought of myself as confident. And I mean, I I might present that. I never thought about it. I always thought of myself as passionate, right? And so I'm very passionate, like the this is the right thing, this is the morally and ethically the right thing. So just do the right thing. And so that is very deep in me when I went to college at Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt kicked my butt. It was hard. Engineering program, it was it was hard. And I had to work really hard to understand things that I was never exposed to. So I there was a lot of students that their family members were engineers or they were connected in different communities, so some things came a lot more natural to them, and I didn't have that, and so I just had to just work really, really hard. And I was like, I had this thing in me, I didn't use the word if. And so, like, if I finish my degree now, is when, and I think some of that came from my high school. I went to a high school where 100% of us went to college, and let me take that back. It maybe it's 98 because the the two people that didn't go to college, they went in the military, but we all transitioned into where you want kids to go. So we went to military or went to college. And how did we get there? We got there because we had a support system that said that you're smart and that you can do this and you're gonna have to fight for it, and then we did. And so we didn't all get to go where we wanted to go, but we all did go somewhere, and um, and I'm very proud of that graduation class. Our teachers never said if at all, and since they never said if, we did, and so I just carried that forward, and I still did.

SPEAKER_00 36:15

And now you have a PhD in IT. That's pretty impressive.

SPEAKER_01 36:21

She is a child.

SPEAKER_00 36:22

And I know you said earlier in our conversation that you did not want to do a PhD. I know. You still did, so that that must have kicked your butt too.

SPEAKER_02 36:33

It kicked it in a very different way. Getting my PhD was more staying the course throughout all the challenges, and so the academics, like I knocked all my classes out in a year. Boom, it was just done. I already learned how to be in school. So I mean, you know what to read, you know what not to read, you do the assignment, get it in a boom, you're done. And then we had residencies, and I figured that out, and then we had comp exam, and they they told you it's three questions, 20 pages each questions, and then a bunch of references. And it's like, okay, check, check, check. I I could do that. Um the hard part was dealing with life. Like I was in a PhD program, and then I was pregnant and I had a high risk pregnancy. I was in a PhD program when I was navigating my career and going up the ranks. And so, how do you balance that? Because you don't want to take time off of work because to do your PhD, because then people will look negatively at that. So, how do I balance? Like, I'm going to be, I'm going to do both. And then I had like an advisor who was diagnosed with cancer. And so at that time, if you lose your advisor, you start over. So I had to start over.

SPEAKER_01 37:51

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_02 37:52

And then I was diagnosed with cancer, and so I had to take time off for that. And then I came back, and I mean, and it was just a challenge after challenge, and now I gotta re-retake this class, or now we changed the program, and it was so many struggles to just get it done. Oh, I got all the way to dissertations, and I was assigned a committee member who I did a qualitative studies with numbers, and they're a qualitative person, they love interviews, and so where I got accepted by all the other committee members, they gave me 97 things I need to adjust, and they put in their personal opinion on quantitative studies. And I I had to go to the school and ask for a new committee member. I did a whole case and to say, like, I can change and do what this person said, but then it would negate everything you taught me at this school, and that's your choice. Do you want me to negate that or do you want me to represent your school the way that you taught us? And so that was many, many months before I got a decision, and then they gave me a new committee member, and then I was able to move forward. So it was so many challenges of life more than the academics. If I listened to the person in the first place and did it before, I wouldn't have had those same challenges, but I still learned through all of that. I learned more about me, and then it was like, Do I want it or not? And I was like, I'm on it. Sometimes I did say I didn't want it, and I was like, forget it. Yeah, I'm just this is my last fight. I'm just tired, you know. But when I came through with all the bruises, I was like, Yeah, I want it.

SPEAKER_01 39:44

Let me just keep going. We have gone pretty deep, Yolanda. So let's end with something lighter, which is something we love to do on Ricky St. Rock Stars. When people hear NSA, they picture, you know, spy movies, car chases, all the things. What's the most boring and glamorous part of that job that would completely ruin the Hollywood script?

SPEAKER_02 40:07

It's none of those things. Uh it really isn't. It's not, it's not all of these things. I watch the movies to get excited myself, and it's not. Just think of just a bunch of people that really like tech talking to each other. That's how it goes. You know, researchers are not traditionally great conversationalists, and so just think more like that. So, you know, and they don't trust anything, and and rightfully so. Like technology is not trustworthy. And so you have a population of people that are really smart and they don't trust, and so there's not a whole lot of bubbly personalities like me walking around. But I will say this though, I was a lifer, I enjoyed the mission. We've stayed there to take care of others. And so, you know, when you save lives, you continue to want to save lives, or at least the people that I was surrounded with. And then when it came down to my life was in jeopardy because of health, it was the best community of human beings ever. And I'll tell this story because it it is very significant to me, is that before I knew I had cancer, I was having surgery, and and I found out from the surgery it was cancer. And so they said, you're gonna need eight weeks to recover. And I'm like, they don't know me. I need six weeks, and so I only scheduled six weeks of time off for recovery, even though they told me eight. So that's just who I was. And when I told people the six weeks I never even acknowledged to eight, people that were close to me over a weekend got together and they cooked for my family, and they made enough meals to cover my family for six weeks. So only thing they had to do was take the food out the freezer and warm it up, and that's what they did because I was also chef, I cooked every night, and so they did that, and so while it is not glamorous like the movies, and it's not, it is a big nation impact, it keeps us safe, and then the community in the family is incredible.

SPEAKER_00 42:40

Well, thank you so much, Yolanda, for sharing your story. I have I'm more convinced than ever that you're a superwoman. Which is even a fancier tech and more knowledge of tech, right? And yeah, thanks so much for sharing your story again with us and being so open. And I think that a lot of people listening are gonna take something real away from this conversation. So super happy that you were able to make the time and you know, share your story.

SPEAKER_02 43:12

Yeah, this is great. So now I'm gonna go fight the garage.

SPEAKER_01 43:22

Thanks for listening to Rookieas to Rockstars. GovCon doesn't come with a playbook, but these stories might be the next best thing. Follow the show, share it with someone still figuring it out, and connect with us on LinkedIn. We'd love to hear from you.