MindForce: Mental Fitness & Life Stories!
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MindForce: Mental Fitness & Life Stories!
Strategic Partnerships and Popcorn Machines: Beavers and Matt on the Art of Air Force Contracting
Embark with us on an insider's exploration of Air Force contracting, where the stakes are high and the popcorn machines are just as crucial as mission-critical supplies. From the front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan to the corporate boardrooms after service, our guests, Beavers and Matt, share their compelling stories of resilience, adaptability, and the often-unseen challenges that shape the world of military procurement. This episode promises to unravel the complexities of a career that demands a sharp mind and an even sharper ability to forge relationships across diverse sectors.
Imagine a world where securing a contract is akin to a strategic ballet, balancing the government's rigid frameworks with the private sector's drive for profit. This dance of diligence is what our conversation with Beavers and Matt dives into, revealing the nuances that separate military purchasing from civilian contracting. We cover everything from the importance of understanding end-user perspectives to the personal satisfaction that comes from seeing your work save lives or reach the stars. The discussion is a treasure trove of insights into the daily grind of Air Force contracting, pulling back the curtain on the emotional rollercoasters and the precise, urgent nature of this unorthodox career path.
Wrapping up, we debunk some of the most common misconceptions about contracting, emphasizing the pivotal role of education and professional development in climbing the career ladder. With mentorship and mental fitness as our guiding stars, we look toward the future of the field with an excitement that's almost palpable. If you're curious about the inner workings of contract management or seeking advice on how to navigate this competitive landscape, this episode is your gateway to understanding the intricate puzzle of Air Force contracting and the remarkable professionals who navigate it daily. So tune in, learn, and perhaps find the inspiration to carve your own path in this diverse and rewarding career field.
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Welcome to the show. Welcome to the show.
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Speaker 1:Welcome to the show. Welcome to the show. Welcome to the show. Welcome to the show. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the show. Welcome to the show. Welcome to the show. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3:Welcome to the show. Welcome to the show. Welcome to the show. Welcome to the show. Welcome to the show. Welcome to the show. Welcome to the show. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the show. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3:Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the show. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3:Welcome to the show.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the show. Welcome to the show. Welcome to the show. Welcome to the show. Welcome to the show. Welcome to the show. Welcome to the show. Welcome to the show. Welcome to the show. It is good because it challenge you. The career thread will challenge you in overseas locations and to come up with creative solutions dealing with very unique problems that you wouldn't see anywhere else. And when you do decide to retire or separate and enter the civilian workforce, you have an advantage over other applicants because one you've been trained. Everyone has like a baseline right, the baseline being tech school, graduated tech school. Then everyone's done their five level, seven level upgrades training. Then they have their APDP level one I'm sure that's changed now. Level two most people have, like you know, beaver you said you haven't, he hadn't associated walking in you probably have a bachelor's degree. Now, yes, you probably finished that. Most people are finishing bachelor's and master's degrees.
Speaker 2:That's a lot of good opportunities. Can you highlight some of the places? I mean without going a list of 30 different countries, but what are some of the highlights of places you've been?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've been to Iraq, Afghanistan, Germany, Oman, Turkey and all throughout Eastern Europe, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:Okay, beavers, what's your? What's your story? How long you been in, what have you done?
Speaker 3:I've been in and I just hit my 10 year mark at the end of July. I re-listed back in last December, so I planned to do 20. I came in only thinking I was going to do four or six back in 2013 and then fell in love with the Air Force and the career field, even though, like you, I wanted to go overseas. But it got stationed in the middle of North Dakota at Minot Air Force Base in the ice freezing cold out there with a job I had no idea anything about. So it's been a fun experience. I've deployed three times in nine years and it's been many bases been to Turkey after Minot, then went to England, been deployed to Qatar, saudi Arabia and then went to Kosovo. Just got back last month. So you will definitely deploy in this career field more than you probably expect. Then I'm planning to go to Schriever Space Force Base in January with my family. So back to the States and then we'll see what goes on from there. But love the job, love the Air Force so far.
Speaker 2:Awesome, A lot of different places you can go. Everyone needs contracting. So the first main question to kick us off this is always kind of a difficult one to really wrap up but can you give us an overview of your career field, Not the Google version, but what it looks like every day? I mean, every day is different, A lot of meetings and things going on, but in your elevator speech, if someone caught you, could you describe it in like three minutes without saying I'm not a contractor?
Speaker 3:My wife calls me a glorified shopper. So it's. I would say to most people. What I do is the Air Force goes to many different places, but we don't take everything we need with us. We have to get it from wherever we're going. So I'm the guy that goes out to try to find things in the local area, local marketplace to support our mission needs.
Speaker 2:It's pretty good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that summed it up better than I could have.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I used to say just trying to piece together, cutting the contract between the contractor or, in the government, that link between the two, because I feel like that is where the line usually gets blurred. So that's usually what I'd try to say. I'm the one in the middle that actually writes that and cuts that across.
Speaker 3:So that's good. Sometimes I'm swiping the credit card, sometimes I'm writing a full on contract, so it's standard form 44, right, you got to get that checkbook. Yeah, I said 44s did those, so yeah, awesome.
Speaker 2:Okay, just as a general life lesson, what's one lesson you've learned in life you believe everyone should know and take to heart? It doesn't have to be contracting related, but we're always working on ourselves here. It's a little personal development.
Speaker 1:I'd say the biggest thing is and I was just talking about this today with somebody and I think one of the biggest things I learned from when I was in was when you're on a deployment and I was telling the wife this earlier I was like none of my deployments ever went as I thought they would go. Oh, you're going to be out there 180 days and it's going to be. You'll be back by then. Now it always ran through like 200 and it would just drag on Part of that.
Speaker 1:When you get that crushing news like the first time when I was single, it didn't matter. When I was married, it was not a big deal. I'm just like whatever, okay, I'll stay out, get more tax free money, it's great, let's do this. But you know like happens. You get into relationships, you have friends, you got family back home and you start missing those things as you get older. And when I would get that news as I got older, it would be kind of soul crushing and it's how do you mentally you have to develop the resilience to be able to take hard news like that and then start to look forward.
Speaker 1:What's the future path? What's the end goal that you're trying to get to Okay, so you're delayed a little bit, this is going to happen, it's going to happen. Driving from work, you're going to hit traffic, you're going to be delayed. It's annoying, but at the end of the day you're going to be at home, right. Same kind of thing. It's a little bit different, but I think learning those different tools of resiliency while I was in it helped, especially tackling smaller problems, if you will, absolutely so. I'd say. The main takeaway from that is really look at the end objective of what you're trying to get to, the path to get there. If you look at any successful CEO or leader, they're going to tell you about all the failures they had to get to where they were today, and that's exactly kind of the same thing. You just look at that end goal and, yeah, maybe Monday Monday's, hard Tuesday's, terrible Wednesday's, great Wednesday's there, but guess what? Friday's two days away, two, three days away. We're all going to hit Friday, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think another thing that's really important to touch on that is the bigger picture. Everybody wants to go home. If you leave, then someone else is going to have to leave early, and so if you start to think of the other aspects of it outside of ourselves, I think the initial thing is kind of to dive into ourselves. There's other people that would have to replace you and they'd miss their family and a string of other things. And I'm not thinking of the bigger picture. But I love that you touched on resiliency, because I think some of the things that have happened in my life, the things that I've built up and experienced throughout my Air Force time, has actually really prepared me. And I know we use resiliency and sometimes it's a little frustrating because it seems like it's almost a buzzword, it just gets thrown around all the time. But I think what you touched on is the most important.
Speaker 2:Resiliency isn't a buzzword or a commander's call or a word on a slide. It's the ability to get through it and then look back. I feel like we don't do that. We want things to be easy and just want to get the resiliency for free. Like resiliency doesn't come from the easy. Resiliency comes from the difficult, you conquer it and then you get to look back and, oh, I did that, that was fine. It was another 30 days, it sucked, but I got through it. I got home, I'm healthy, I'm safe, I didn't get blown up. You know, there's a lot of different things that you could look through that, but I feel like, for some reason, resiliency now seems like well, I just wanted to show up on social media and everything looks great and I only take pictures on the good days and things like that. So that's a good point, like resiliency, but like true resiliency getting through the difficult and knowing that you can. So that's awesome, beaver, what's?
Speaker 1:your one takeaway.
Speaker 1:Oh sorry, no, I was just going to say I do agree with you. When I was leaving the Air Force, that was like I think that word and that term was overused, you know, and when you overuse a word or a term, it starts to lose its importance and its value and I think you hit it on the head. You know, I think out of the two of you I'm the one I can say this, but yeah, it became the buzzword and whenever someone said all right, resiliency training, everyone's like, oh, here we go. All right, let's check this box guys, let's get on with our day. But it is an important thing to learn. It is important, important, kind of a lesson.
Speaker 2:Yeah, get through those difficult times and know that you can. You don't rack those up. In one of a previous episode I'd never heard the analogy, but someone on the show had said her person that was working through some stuff with her referenced it as a paper plate, which I thought was kind of cool. You just have the one wimpy plate and they put a big stack of spaghetti. That spaghetti is just going straight on the floor. But you've been through some things, you've conquered some things. You now have like four or five paper plates. You put the spaghetti. It holds, you know, and then you just build up more and more. But we use the rubber band. But I don't really ever understand oh, bounce back, like what does that mean? The paper plate I thought was way better than the rubber band, but anyway, yeah.
Speaker 3:What do you? Got One takeaway.
Speaker 2:Something that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, one takeaway that you can use just not in the military, not in contracting, but everywhere is you really do reap what you sow. The more time you prepare, the more you're going to be better, wherever you are. Whatever you're doing, if you take the time to practice, to study, to research, to read away from unproductive time, you're going to see the back end productivity. So in contracting, if you're reading the FAR, you're studying, you're planning for deployment, you're researching the country where you're going, instead of just winging it and getting there. That's completely different. So to me, it's take the time that you need to do to accomplish whatever you're trying to do, and I can't over stress that enough.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a good one. Somebody was talking about I forgot who it was, but they were talking about being nervous for, like, a presentation, and you kind of have two things for that nerves. One, you're nervous because you care about it and you want to do really well, or the other one, you're nervous because you didn't prepare and the outcome of those are completely different. If you care, you put the time in, you research, you're nervous, your heart is racing but you crush the presentation. Yeah, more anxious than worried. The other one, like Simon Soneke, talks about it.
Speaker 2:He interviewed some people that were up for the Olympics and then some people that were doing a presentation and he asked them how they were feeling and they had sweaty palms and racing heart. They had these different symptoms. They had exactly the same symptoms. They asked the person for the job interview and the word they used to describe how they were feeling was nervous. But the Olympics they had the exact same symptoms, but the word they used to describe themselves was excited, because they were excited to prove themselves. They've worked their whole life Like. The nerves are no longer there. They have the same symptoms physiologically, but they're excited. This is the biggest stage, exactly. I'm going to crush this. It's interesting.
Speaker 3:I've met some people that are about to deploy and people have said are you nervous? What are you? And you can either say oh, I'm excited to deploy, I've been waiting for since I joined to do my mission to everything. And then some people are like oh, I'm nervous to go out there and I'm scared of being alone. And it's just, yeah, two different things for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my first contracting deployment, my everything. I had been told. They said, hey, they're going to hand that phone to you and Oman, it was, we were 3D and they handed that phone and that reality hit Like I didn't know what I'm doing, I got myself into it. They're like look through all these files and I'm like seriously trying to read. But the major that was on our command, he was like wait for the phone to ring and I was like sweating and just like hello yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah, you definitely have two ends of the spectrum there, so we'll move on to another question. Again, it's a little difficult because days just look so different, but from your experience, I like to hear from you too. How can you describe what a week looks like in your job and what are some of the main responsibilities, responsibilities and challenges you face?
Speaker 3:When I use the contracting answer of it depends.
Speaker 2:You can, but you have to elaborate.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So that's one really thing I love about this job is that each week is completely different than the last. I mean, each day is can be completely different. You have certain things that you need to do to get to a certain deadline, but outside of that you can kind of control at least in my experience you can kind of control what you work on each day. So you're a brand new airman all the way up to as a tech, as I am now.
Speaker 3:You kind of spread out your work as you you see during the week to accomplish these deadlines and you just random things will come up. You'll get a phone call saying, hey, I need this now, especially on a deployment. Someone will pass you and say, hey, I got this going on, I need this ASAP. Or the general come down to your office and just say this takes priority and you will never expect that or anticipate that coming. But you just have to think in the back of your mind that these things could happen and I'm sure, matt, you have stories and nades on your diplomas that these have happened. So it's just one thing I love about this job is each week is completely different than the last and, as you said, you'll have meetings, you'll have people coming up to your desk and just distracting you, and it's just completely different every day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, you say the same thing, matt.
Speaker 1:So on the outside you know work for a company the defense company and you can find out whoever. For just some LinkedIn it's not a deal, but yeah, on the outside it's going to vary. This is my second company I worked for. First company I worked for was through the and I was the contract administration, which is basically you're selling things. You're selling your products and services to the end customer. It's a lot different than being in the Air Force where you're buying everything. So a lot of that is you know. I worked in manufacturing so it's a very niche field.
Speaker 1:So it's largely the first six months is learning what these people are talking about. You know what's EOQ and what's all this stuff and what are. You know stamp packages and what does all this stuff mean? I have no idea. So it's lots of meetings, it's lots of relationship building. That's a big thing. That's a very big thing because in these large, long running contracts the problem you have day one is going to be your problem. You have next year it's you're going to own it. It's not like in the Air Force where every three years you're either moving or you're going to deploy. So you don't really get to follow through and see. But in the contracts and the stuff that I'm working now, I create my own problems or I create my own solutions to those problems. So it's very different.
Speaker 1:You know a company, publicly traded company there's incentives based on profit and loss. You know you've got shareholders to answer to. You've got lots of multitude of different government compliance and regulations. You've got the SEC with SOX, sarabine's, oxley, sox controls. You're always constantly in a movement or a momentum of looking at what are the terms and conditions that you're negotiating with your suppliers or with your end users. You know it's a lot different. So one week, one day, I could be focused on Monday, it could be okay, I'm going to sit down at four hours and go through these terms and conditions and then I'm going to be working through some mods for my subcontractors. It's, you know, like Beaver's, like you're saying, like no day is the same and I couldn't say that I could tell you Monday through Friday what I'm going to be doing, because you know there's different priorities from internal and external customers that you're dealing with. So it just depends really. You know I hate to say that too, but it depends. But you've got a full plate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's a good picture. But circle back to Beaver's. What would you say are your main responsibilities and challenges you face?
Speaker 3:Main responsibilities is getting your mission partners what they need timely. So you do have timelines you have to meet. When they give you what we call requirements package as a document that says this is what our unit needs, please contract it for us and, depending on the complexity and dollar value of it, depends on how long you have to get this contract in place. So that would be your main responsibility is is getting your mission partner what they need on a timely basis. The challenge comes with working with the mission partner on explaining exactly what they need, because that can be confusing, because they'll say, oh, I need a desk. Okay, there's millions of different deaths in the world. Just getting it down to a fine point, there's the issues with finding a contractor that could do it. There's a lot of challenges that you have to overcome throughout the contracting process and it depends on what you're trying to get. So it's it's it's it's really different.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is interesting how contracting gets a bad rap, for you know the lowest bidder and the different jokes and whatnot. But some of those purchase requests one of my favorites had projector. I'm like I can go to wishcom and get like a $10 projector or we can go 150 inches 4k I don't even know 4k was out of the time, I guess 1080p. I mean $10,000 projector to $10 projector. But no, no direction. It's kind of funny.
Speaker 3:But if you like problem solving, then contracting is the job for you though You'll have. If you have your problem solving skills and like challenges, then it's very entertaining and fun.
Speaker 2:So, matt, I got a question for you. Now that you've gone on the other side, I'd like to kind of hear a little bit about that, because I mean, we do have a lot of jokes about the acquisition process being slow and burdensome and caught up with red tape. So is that the same on the outside? And, if you know, you could fix it, if there is a way to fix it, how would you fix it?
Speaker 1:It's different. For sure I'll say the government has more internal restrictions than I would say we do on the outside as a government contractor. Our challenge that we face is that we are responding a lot of times to customer suspensives and customers on the outside can be either prime contractor, us government customer and they have their deadlines that we have to try and meet. So our process we still have approval processes that we have to go through, but it's faster Because we don't have the ability to sit there and say, oh well, we're just going to turn this in late.
Speaker 1:No, you can't turn it in late because you're missing. You know, if the contracting officer, they beaver, says, hey, this is due Friday at four, we can't be late and turn it in at Friday at four or one, it's not going to fly. That's lost business right there. So there's teams of people working these requirements internally to make sure we meet those suspensives or, ahead of those suspensives, still going through an approval process. You know we still have to get all different approvals from different signature authorities, but I would say that that is a one big change. You know we're more motivated, I would say internally sometimes than it seemed like it was when it was back in the government.
Speaker 2:Which. I guess, makes sense, right? Not for profit business. You're not trying to make money, you're trying to cut even.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so if you could change something about Air Force contracting, what would you change?
Speaker 1:From what I remember. I would say I would change it in the sense of urgency, right, not necessarily, and that doesn't mean saying removing the different reviewers and approval processes. I would say, you know, making it so that when you do hit certain dollar thresholds and you have to go to certain levels for different approvals, I would say that you attract that and you would make that each person has so much time to turn it around to get so that you can get that requirement out on the, you know, out posted out on. I think it's, I think it's moved to SAMgov. Now I think everything's consolidated. You know that would help you guys with your internal mission partners meet the deadlines that they need.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Okay, we're going to move on to the next question. So I'd like you to think of one thing. What is one thing you'd like to highlight about this career field?
Speaker 3:I love that I get to see what a bunch of different career fields do and meet a lot of different people. I try and get out of my office all the time to meet different people, go to the squadrons and the units and getting stuff for, find out about their mission, see how I'm affecting it, Whereas other career fields they don't get to see anything outside of what they're doing, Whereas I support the entire base and I get to get some insight into what how the Air Force operates and the mission and how that's accomplished. So I'm just meeting a ton of different people that you wouldn't normally get to in different career fields.
Speaker 2:Awesome Matt. What do you think?
Speaker 1:I think being out is, you know, like you talked about, different.
Speaker 1:You know you're dealing with the base and all the supplies, but when you go, when you get out, it's a whole wide world and it's kind of like you can pick almost pick what you want to do If you decide to go industry.
Speaker 1:You know, I never thought I'd be working on manufacturing pack three and pack two missile parts in my first job and now I'm working on projects that never in my life I would have ever thought that I'd actually be a part of. Certain programs that you know I shouldn't necessarily name. But yeah, some of our mission partners are like NASA and all that, and NASA and the Army and the Air Force and some of the stuff these guys are doing is just, it's just unbelievable, it's just mind blowing. And you're just realizing you're sitting there I'm reading these requirements and I'm just going like man, I'm on the ground floor of stuff that's going to be taking us further into space and it's just like I never thought 13, 14 years ago I'd ever, ever be a part of any of this stuff. And here it is today and I'm just like, wow, I just I'm so lucky.
Speaker 2:And I think that's a really good thing to remember. There's people that feel like you know, they don't like their job and whatnot, so getting out is really important. I'm glad that the two commanders we had there at Travis were both really supportive of that. And one story I'll share real quick. I remember I'd crossed over, I was air traffic, I was on the flight line, I was in the ops group and then I moved over and I was really excited at first as my bonus dad was contracting, which that's kind of a story in itself.
Speaker 2:I made fun of him for being a paper pusher, because my friends as a kid would always ask me what is your dad fly? What is your dad fly? And I'm like, oh, I was always disgruntled because I'm like he doesn't fly, he just sits in a cubicle, and so then I come up on retraining and I have it on my list and I'm like, oh, I won't get it and I got it. So I had to call him and he's just laughing because the universe comes back and gives me the thing I used to make fun of. But yeah, so I was excited at first and then after the first year, you know, some of the people in the office are like, oh, we just fly a mouse, all we do is cut paper work. And you know, once you hear it kind of more and more, it kind of sinks in. And so I remember, you know, towards the end of the first year or whatever the timeframe was, I was like, yeah, I guess I just like kind of push paper, I wasn't getting out and seeing the end products and the users and things like that.
Speaker 2:And Paisley got sick and she was sick with something, her fever was running and it just didn't seem like it was going very well and the temperature was rising and whatnot. So we flew in, we got her into David Grant and she got her hooked up with this machine and the machine like told the nurse you know enough information for her to tell us kind of what was going on. And so you got all the stress and anxiety and you're kind of freaking out. But based on what the nurse gave from the machine, she's like, oh, it's this, you know we can antibiotics work on this and you know you guys will be out of here soon and you taking care of, and so the stress and anxiety and all these things are going on are relieved and instant because of this machine. Come to find out I bought the machine earlier in the year. I was going to say you bought the machine, so it's just like this big wave of emotion that hits you.
Speaker 2:And so I remember, you know, trying to share that story with the people, that were like, oh, that's all we do. We try to get out and really see those things. I had a purchase request for pig pens. I was like why am I buying pig pens? And you know there's animal testing facility at Travis and they were feeding pigs, energy drinks to see what would happen to their hearts and just you know crazy things that at a maths point, like you never thought you'd be involved and whatnot. But I think some of these career fields that people feel like they're not doing well or whatever, I know we talk about the, the gear and the machine and how important. But getting out and getting to your end user, I think even if you're maintenance or you know security forces or whatever it may be, seeing the end user is a super important. So I'm glad you guys brought that up. You never know what you can get into, yeah.
Speaker 3:I stress that to my junior man all the time I'm like get out of your desk, go visit these people that are that are speaking to you. My seven year old daughter thinks I work on a computer all day, which I, yeah, I am but also at the same time I'm interacting with all these people. I just deployed to Kosovo and worked with NATO out there and got to interact with 29 different nations of people that I would normally do if I just sat at my desk all day, you would not talk to these people and get to know them and everything. That's. The joy of this job is just to meet all these people. But you have to put out that effort and I'm sure in every other career field is the same. If you just get out and talk to people to see what impact you really have on the mission and everything, and I'm sure on the outside it's probably the same matter if you, if you talk to people in Biologue, oh, this is what you're actually doing in accomplishing. So what would you say? Oh, sorry.
Speaker 1:No, I said yeah, it is. Yeah, it's pretty much the same, you know, I think the different, the main differences, is I have a lot more internal, there's more of an internal team. So we're definitely a business management team. So we work closely with business management, the business team that helps the program manager manage the business side of things while they manage the technical. So it's learning who those individuals are and asking all the questions about where the financial is at, what's the estimate completion, at where it's. You know where we are invoicing wise, where we are. You know we look at cost or overruns or underruns. So it's learning those different tools. But still going back to that same point yeah, you're learning, you're having you have to get out and go and talk to those individuals.
Speaker 2:What would you say is the most bizarre? By no-transcript. Oh, that's funny. I was going to preface like that you can actually say out loud yeah, there was purchase.
Speaker 1:I was a joke, but wasn't an English, david Graham. Yep.
Speaker 2:Oh.
Speaker 1:David Graham.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I thought it was a. I remember having to Google. I was like my computer is going to get shut down, like I. I just hate, no, it's okay, it's market research. I swear, it's market research, trent what's yours.
Speaker 3:I was deployed to Saudi Arabia in 2020, setting up a bear base from scratch, and we literally had no prefabricated buildings. We had cash payments, we had tents and everything and we got a purchase request for a popcorn machine. Someone up there and to come to find out it was authorized because it was from the chaplain and trying to boost the morale up of people with no internet and living in the desert, and we bought this $500 automated popcorn machine out in the middle of the desert.
Speaker 2:So there you go, underneath pizza parties is popcorn? Absolutely, that's awesome. Okay, so on a roll over, we talked about some good, some awesome opportunities and why it's important. What are some of the aspects of the job that are less desirable? Got to give the full package here. Trent just wants to say it's, it's rosy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'll come out and say on the outside, even on the inside, as you, as you rise up, when you start to see a contract to administer, it's going to be a little different when you switch and become a contracting officer and you're always going to be a little bit longer. The end of fiscal year is kind of on you because you're the one with the signature authority. On the outside it's going to be proposals are going to be kind of your nightmare because, like I said, force or the user says we need to spy 4pm. You might be working Thursday until like 11 o'clock to get that in. We got to meet those deadlines. You know it's going to be hours and it's going to be peaks and valleys, if you will. There's going to be times when you're sitting there going like I got nothing to do. Well, it's going to even out, trust me.
Speaker 2:Savor the downtime. You got anything else?
Speaker 3:Beavers yeah, I would say if you're one that likes high physical activity and things like that, this isn't the job for you because you'll be at your desk A lot of the times during the day looking at a computer screen. You'll be reading a lot Sometimes. I would say the working with civilian the civilian military dynamic is sometimes issues you can't control the people you work with, so you're just going to have to do it. I'm trying to think what else Matt kind of hit on the head. There are lowest peaks and valleys. You'll be heavily busy in September Depends on what kind of. If you're in construction services, commodities, the three different types of contracts, you'll be doing High deployment tempo. So if you're with a family and you're not expecting to deploy, you probably will in contracting in two to three years at a time.
Speaker 3:Very competitive People are smart in contracting. So if you're trying to make a, we have strats now to get promoted, their bonus points towards your tests. And if you're trying to compete with those, you're going to have heavy competition because we have a lot of smart people in the career field. So you'll need to be volunteering. You'll need to be on your A game a lot If you want, if you want one of those spots? Yeah, that'd be the. That's all I can think of right now.
Speaker 2:I got a question for you, beaver. So when I left we had like LGCA and the different office symbols. And I walked into the one at Kadena and they had like PK or something I was like completely yes.
Speaker 3:What are?
Speaker 2:the different. Yeah, is that just what it more?
Speaker 3:PK, pkb. Pk is procurement, it's, it used to be a. So the L? I'm trying to think of them because that was what I was at. What did you just say? The LGC?
Speaker 2:LGCA Was that what it was.
Speaker 3:So it was logistics and they changed it to procurement.
Speaker 2:Oh, so they're all PK now, yeah, every, every flight to PK. Yep, okay, interesting, okay, I want to touch on. Oh sorry, matt, go ahead.
Speaker 1:I don't want to take over your podcast, but I do have a question for both of you. Yeah, when I was when I was leaving, getting ready to retire in 2020, what I started noticing was there was an influx of airmen and I started noticing a lot more NCOs and people coming into the Air Force. It's not just crew, for specific, but they had associate degrees or they had bachelors degrees. Are you guys seeing that the airmen of today are coming in and they have more education than, say, when I came in and about 2000?
Speaker 3:I can only go off of my recent squadrons and I would say no. So they flooded contracting tech school with a ton of new airmen in the last five years because people were cross training into contracting, staying for two or three years, getting their certifications and then bouncing. So now you can only cross train into contracting if you're a staff or below. They stopped cross trainees for techs and above, so they flooded tech school with airmen and I've had junior men 18, 19 years old with no university college credits at all.
Speaker 2:Are they trying to get after their CCF and things like that after they clear their CDCs, or are you seeing the same kind of mentality as before?
Speaker 3:I'd say the same mentality. You have some high speed airmen that get after it, some don't.
Speaker 2:I think that's what I would say too. I think it's really up into the individual. I think it feels like it as a whole, like as United States or whatever. It feels like almost like your bachelor's level degree is almost like your high school diploma now is what it feels like. It feels like your master's is now like your first step into college. So I think that feels like it's like the nation.
Speaker 2:But as having flights of my flight at Kadena was like 98 people, obviously that's mixed contractor, civilian and whatnot, so probably 40 to 50 actual airmen big A. But you do have the ones that want to get after it and they're getting that school, and then the ones that came in to get out of home or get out of that area and try to make a better life and things like that, and they don't necessarily have a strong desire to start school. So I'd say it's about the same. I think it's really up to the individual. It does feel I feel like we're smarter as a whole. I know that doesn't play directly into education, but it does feel like we're better about personal development. I would say we're working on ourselves a lot more, I think since COVID, since we were able to do stuff on the computer and people are getting more certs. I think certs is probably higher I don't have any percentages to back that up but I see a lot of PMPs out and a lot of different things where people are getting things that are worth, they say, tens of thousands of dollars on the outside.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's scary. Yeah, absolutely, that's a good question. Yeah, we're here for conversation. So I wanted to touch a little bit on the unique opportunities. You guys have kind of touched on deployments and things like that. But I wanted to kind of hear from you guys on the specific things that are in this career field and not others. So I guess that'd be like your DAU, devents Acquisition University, and some of those trainings and whatnot. So can you touch on some of the unique opportunities that you'd only get here in 6C?
Speaker 1:Yeah, nail postgraduate school. When I was leaving I was starting to get into class slots for enlisted conversation with an individual I had worked with in Turkey and he's enlisted and he's in the Nail postgraduate school and we're kind of masters of degree full time. I was like, hey, awesome on you for taking advantage of that. That's really cool. I'm glad they're opening that up. It sounds like they're starting to. I think Nate, you'd said their personal development. They're starting to look at the Air Force Contract and Workforce recognizing. Yes, it's more academic, it's a little bit more unique. You have enlisted in officers that are warranted and have the ultimate signature authority on what it is that they're carrying. They have the ability to have that tough conversation sometimes with people that outrank them and having to say, no, you shouldn't do this. That comes with the challenges.
Speaker 1:There are some certs through the National Contract Management Association, cpcm Certified Professional Contract Manager, certified Federal Contract Manager. I think they just opened another one. It's CCCM. I'm not sure what it stands for. There's certs that could be that you can get in conjunction with education. I think those are unique to our career field. Other career fields do have certs. I think you meet in the skies. They can get their AMP license. That's a big deal Contracting specifically. I think there's a number of them. I think DAE has changed. I can't really talk to that anymore. I think Beaver's you might be able to explain. I think they came up with a new certification process. I'm not too familiar with it. I'm really glanced at it.
Speaker 3:As soon as I am probably naped in that when you guys came into contracting, you immediately in the first few months went on a temporary duty location for a month to these contracting courses all across the United States. You have these temporary duty courses that you'll take. They now turn that to virtual if possible. There are temporary duty classes that you'll travel to. There's tons of defense acquisition university courses that you can take time away from work to do.
Speaker 3:I've always allowed my troops to work on school during the duty day. If they wanted to do school up to an hour during the duty day and there's nothing pressing, I allow them to do that. I was allowed to do that as an airman, so I want to pay it back to them that not their career fields can maybe do Security forces you're probably not allowed to take an hour off the day to do school work, but ours you're able to. Air Force Cool has a program management certification that a lot of people try and get because that's huge on the outside. There are some certifications that you can get through the Air Force. I would say these temporary duty courses that Defense Acquisition University allows are huge Working on contingency, contracting to different layers of contracting, subcontracting, etc.
Speaker 2:That White House gig is pretty sweet.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Moving to the next question, this one probably will be more funny than anything, but can you speak to one common misconception or stereotype about your career field and what the reality is?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that I'm the guy with the money. No, that's finance You're not finance. I do not have the money. I'm not in charge of the money. I'm not in charge of your budget. That is not my job. My job is to get you what you need, but I need to see the money from you.
Speaker 2:There you go. That's a good one, man.
Speaker 1:I'd say sometimes on the outside we're looked at as the admin part of our duty. Title or title is taken as we are.
Speaker 2:Law admin.
Speaker 1:Yeah, now, sometimes we have to slightly identify. I am authorized, on behalf of our company, to sign legal documents that bind our company to an agreement. Set up meetings for you. Have you ever been asked to?
Speaker 2:like notarize something or anything like that.
Speaker 1:No, there's some people with her, but luckily I haven't had that question yet.
Speaker 2:That'd be awesome. I know a medical admin, as I am now. I've had a nurse ask me to help her with her statistic homework. She said I know you're really good in Excel. I was like, thank you. I think that's good. I don't want to help you with your homework, but thanks. That's funny. Admin gets taken a little too far sometimes. Next question is what's an important personality trait or strength that you think someone needs in this career field?
Speaker 3:Interpersonal communication is huge. Got to be able to learn to talk to different people, whether you like them or not, whether you have the same personality they do, etc. Etc. And then definitely thinking on the fly, being adaptable. Sometimes you'll change at a moment's notice that you have to be able to think of a solution for.
Speaker 1:I'd say probably, which falls along the lines is Integrity is one. Yes, you definitely have to have that. But initiative, because there's times when you are going to rely on what you relay into either an infant or an external customer. You have to have the ability to take the initiative to. If it's something you don't know, you've got to either research it or ask somebody that does know. But you've got to be the one to take that initiative to go and figure out what the answer is to the question that's being asked how do you find their solution? You can't do that without having the initiative. If you see a problem, take the initiative to step up and be able to solve it, or come up with a solution to present it to somebody who can solve it or has the authority to solve it. But you still have to take that first step of taking the initiative and raising your hand and saying, hey, here's what's going on, here's how we handle this, here's my recommendation.
Speaker 3:That's huge, Matt, because no one's going to be looking over your shoulder throughout the day, Even as an airman. Here's your work. Go do it. You have to definitely take that initiative to spend your time wisely, 100% agree.
Speaker 2:Awesome. So the last career field question I have. You got 12 years, as I've said, beavers and 20 years of information and experience with everything that you know. Now, what's one piece of advice you give to someone starting day one?
Speaker 1:That's easy Get your education, get your education. I'll put a different twist on it, kind of how I explain it Get your education, get your certifications and get your. If you're going to stay in contract and get your NACMA certs, if you can get a PMP, you're going to put a little bit more icing on that cake. But the reason why I say that is because from the day you get your certifications and your bachelor's or master's degree, everything you say is done by that master's degree, that master's degree, those two certs. I say those two certs because I actually have them all up here. Right, you guys can see it, I do have my CPCM, the CFCM, and I have my bachelor's and work on my master's who may MBA right now. But everything you say, from the moment you earn those certs, you're backed by that. Like what you say. You're saying that as, hey, I'm educated, I'm certified, you can trust what I'm saying.
Speaker 3:Awesome. I tell brand new lieutenants, brand new airmen this find a subject matter expert that you trust and respect and just soak up and pick their brain and engage yourself into conversations around you and just find a good mentor because that person has been there before. They've learned from them, learned from their mistakes and just try and soak up as much information as you can from them.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Don't. Someone else already lived it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I will say it was that skill you're talking about that was beat into my brain when I came in the career field and now, years later, you start to recognize who those individuals are like. In my current position, I know who to go to. I know who on. I'm lucky. Our team has people have been in contracting over 20 years and the outside work for different companies. I know who to go to the talk to because I learned those skills early on. I could see who that war dog was. It's like hey, I've been through all this, bring on these challenges, but here's how you can work through it. Here's how. Here's the path that you're going on. Here's how this is going to end up, because I did this five years ago. You'll start to recognize and see those people as you start moving along. You start going through your career path.
Speaker 3:If the person that you're relying on isn't helping you find someone else, Someone settle for someone that's not helping you.
Speaker 2:Awesome, okay, so this podcast is focused on mental fitness. We're always working on ourselves, developing ourselves, so we got to intertwine some of that. So I'd like to hear a tip, trick or personal story about mental fitness from you two.
Speaker 1:I would recommend to all the all of your listeners out there. There's a book called Peaks and Valleys. It's a very good book. It was written. I got to look it up. I took kind of taking my camera, my brand new lens. I'm sorry, oh, it's all just in the oh, there you go.
Speaker 2:Spencer Johnson, Spencer Johnson. What's the big takeaway? What was hard hitting for you?
Speaker 1:The big takeaway is that how you behave when you're in a valley, like a low point in your life, will determine your success when you're at a peak in your life, right? So, if you think about it, the errors that you make when you're at that peak will result in that drive down to when you're in your valley. The good things that you do in your valley will help you rise back up to that peak. And it also talks about to finding the source of your fear, right? So the one thing I like to think about when I look at different leaders or listen to them talk is the ego. The ego is a big driver for fear, right? Ego drives like well, I got to have a fancy car, or I got to have the most expensive item X, y and Z or I got to have this and this, but that's ego driving because it's creating fear and that can help drive where you're at, on a peak or a valley.
Speaker 1:So, understanding what your fears are, learning how to, when you're in the low time, look at the good in the low time. We are at a high time. Look at the good in the high time and just learn to enjoy it. I think it actually came out of a data science podcast. I thought it was interesting that we're on a real list. I'm listening to this podcast about analyzing different data sets and the different tools and that was the book that the individual had recommended and whenever it was like analysis.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. Y'all have to get that in the description If anyone wants to check it out. I think I'll have to put it in my car. That sounds great. Beavers, what do you got?
Speaker 3:I would say know all the resources and try and find as many resources available to you that you can do or can go to. For the Air Force members, one amazing resource is called the M Flak. It's at the Military Family Readiness Center. It's not an attribution, it's kind of like someone you can just talk to and vent, because everyone needs to have someone that they can vent to. You can't bottle everything up yourself. You can't do everything yourself, so you need to find different people you can talk to about everything, from the chaplain to the M Flak to your friend. Just have someone and give these resources to your troops and your friends as well. To share everything.
Speaker 3:That would just be my biggest thing. I've know a lot of supervisors and troops that I've had and myself that I've gone to to different, various resources and it's helped tremendously. So just if you do go to these resources, share that you've been to them with people, because that'll give them confidence in going to them if they ever need it. Because a lot of people look up to you and if you're saying, hey, I went to this resource and these are the people and these are the help that they gave me, you should try them sometime the chances of them going to those are huge.
Speaker 2:So I'll just say that. Do you think the stigma is moving in the right direction with all these conversations we're having?
Speaker 3:I think it is. I know people that have gone to these places like mental health, the stigma over mental health and they've come back and shared with the squadron that they've been better off with it. So when I came in, the stigma was mental health. If you go there, your career is done. I haven't heard that in a while. I don't even remember the last time I heard that, compared to when I came in. So I think it is moving in the right direction.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. That's great to hear. I lied earlier. I said it was the final question about the EFSE, but I got one final one to close this out. Finally, what do you see as the future of your career field and what excites you the most about the future? Matt's all the cool missiles that he can't talk about.
Speaker 1:I'll say that the future is really going to be and I really hate to say this because the data science and all this has become the past five years and the buzzword and everything but really the mesh between data technology and the tools that are out there, that's going to be the future. It's not necessarily. You know, I had a talk with somebody about AI and their fear was like, oh, anyone's going to replace a contact specialist. I was like, no, no, you're misinterpreting, you're misreading, you're not reading the road right. It's. Ai will be there to supplement in certain ways, but AI will never be able to replace or read and interpret the legal aspect of the contracting career field. It will be there to assist in certain ways, but you have to understand there's a signature behind that and it can't. It's not going to be AI generated. It's going to be a person that's going to read and interpret and review and approve for signature.
Speaker 1:There's software out there, a lot of software out there. I could go down a laundry list like beavers. You'd be crying if you knew what some of the stuff is that's out there, that's available. It's awesome. On the defense side Storage management I could put a mod in a system in like maybe 20 minutes and send it out. I can accept the mod on the contract sites or contracts and subcontracts. I can accept the mod. I can have it in about five minutes. The technology and the creativity of the tech industry is just amazing and getting to see it up front and being able to use some of those tools is amazing.
Speaker 2:It's interesting when people say oh sorry, I was just going to jump in real quick. It's interesting when people talk about taking over the jobs and whatnot. One I've heard is like aircraft pilot, because with all the advanced features and whatnot, it basically can land and take off itself. There's just certain things I think will never. You will always have a human up in front. I just kind of imagine boarding an aircraft and looking over it and there's just no one up there. Even if the thing could do it, you get into what happens in an emergency making those decisions and things like that. It's interesting. People get so worked up around, lose all our jobs. I don't think it's going to happen. Anyway, what's up beavers?
Speaker 3:Air Force military perspective I think it's going to be with some emerging competitors and peers is going to be how we do contracting against them in the same contested environments. If we're trying to compete for the same things from the same markets, how are we going to use our expertise to get ahead of them or convince these other countries or local markets to supply us and not our competitors or peers? We just saw two active conflicts happening currently at the same time. That just popped up in the last year or two, you don't know when. The next one is, when you're going to have to go out to these places that might not have the technological advances or the software, or where the cyber warfare is happening that is going to obstruct these technologies and cyber systems, where you might have to do paper and on the ground conversations to get what we need. The next 10 years is going to be very interesting, I think, with some of these peers rising up.
Speaker 1:It sounds like from the military side. Yeah, you are, because you guys are. There's a lot going on, especially in the defense industry, with support for those efforts. The larger government customers are using things like OTAs and other contract vehicles that don't necessarily come with a lot of the far clauses and restrictions that you guys are using, but it allows those larger customers. It gives them the ability to turn around and place with a big defense contractor a very quick contract vehicle and give them funding very quickly. You on your side, at the base level, you're going to be competing with that.
Speaker 1:What do you do when one of the big defense contractors has bought out all the resources in a location You're going to be facing? It's ultimately logistic. How do you get those supplies that your customers are requiring? What do you do? Do you go to GSA? What vehicle is there in place that you can use to get those requirements to the end users? I think, largely, it sounds like it's going to be a logistic problem for the next 10 years, like you said. I think you said about next 10 years. That sounds about right.
Speaker 2:It's interesting too, because we saw a lot of that with COVID too. Sometimes it's just not anymore in the world. Sometimes people spend more money, pay them more or get it here faster. It doesn't exist. It doesn't matter how much you pay or whatnot. That'll definitely be interesting with the finite resources.
Speaker 1:Going along. That's another good point, nate. We saw that on the manufacturing side. We saw that as precious metals and different types of metal started becoming scarce because of the supply chain problems. The second problem is that our government customer is always wanting to reduce prices, reduce our price. But how do you reduce your price when the cost of your materials has skyrocketed? We're, at one point, had increased 400% of what it used to be. That's unprecedented.
Speaker 1:You can look on the chart of lumber prices. If you get really bored at night and you want to do really nerdy stuff, go look at lumber prices. But you could look and you could track it and you could see where it just spiked in there. You're just like. This is insane. But when you have supply chain shortages and your customer is asking you, they're still reducing your pricing, but all of your suppliers are increasing while they're pricing. Those are still challenges we're facing today the conflicts over Ukraine and stuff that affects a lot of these supply chain challenges we see on the industry side. I think, like you said, the next 10 years is going to present different challenges in different areas.
Speaker 2:Okay, Well, that's awesome. I'll try to summarize some of the main points. You talked about being able to get some of the certifications, some great opportunities for deployments, getting out traveling, a lot of opportunities for education, some of the downsides being some extended hours. We talked about the uphill and downhill or the peaks and valleys. You might be able to catch up on some school at some point and other times trying to bust out that 12-hour shift. So a lot of different things, but some great opportunities out there.
Speaker 2:Encourage all the listeners out there, share their thoughts. Let me know I'll be good, what's going bad and you know what I can work on. I'd like to thank both of you. Thank you, beavers and Matt for coming out, of course, best job I ever had. You want to know more? Beavers is an internal recruiter, so find him on Indigal and shoot him some emails. But I'd like to thank everyone for listening to AFSE's 1-9 today. Remember, exploring different career fields is an important step in finding the right path for you. Join us next time as we continue to explore different career paths and the opportunities they offer. If you have any questions or want to share your own career story, please let me know. I love you all, see ya.
