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Veterans know how to lead. The lessons we learned in the military form the foundation for bigger successes in business, entrepreneurship and community.
Host John S Berry, CEO of Berry Law, served as an active-duty Infantry Officer in the U.S. Army, finishing his military career with two deployments and retiring as a Battalion Commander in the National Guard. Today, his veteran led team at Berry Law, helps their clients fight some of the most important battles of their lives. Leading successful teams in the courtroom, the boardroom, and beyond, veteran leadership drives the firm’s rapid growth and business excellence.
Whether building teams, synchronizing operations, or refining tactics, we share our experiences, good and bad, to help you survive, thrive and dominate.
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[00:00:02.820] - Tad McIntosh
The things that make the best part of the Army the best part of the Army is that is a combination of that team effort, mission, skills, camaraderie, perseverance. You know, hard stuff makes the Army better.
[00:00:19.200] - Freddie Kim
Welcome to the Veteran Led Podcast. Today, I'm your host, Freddie Kim, with Mil-Spec Talent. I am here at the Veteran Edge Conference in Dallas. Today I'm sitting with Tad McIntosh with HumCap. You are an '89 West Point grad.
[00:00:35.710] - Tad McIntosh
I— that I am.
[00:00:37.240] - Freddie Kim
Did Sanders— did, uh, what was on the swim team?
[00:00:41.030] - Tad McIntosh
That's right, team captain. The swim team captain, the team that beat Navy in swimming. Doesn't happen that often. So yeah, proud of that.
[00:00:48.560] - Freddie Kim
And swimming.
[00:00:49.300] - Tad McIntosh
And swimming.
[00:00:50.650] - Freddie Kim
Awesome. And then you, uh, you, you became an infantry officer.
[00:00:55.050] - Tad McIntosh
Yes, sir.
[00:00:56.430] - Freddie Kim
Can you tell us a little bit about that trans— that, that entering into the military?
[00:01:00.040] - Tad McIntosh
Absolutely. So, I, I grew up, um, in an organization that used to be known as Boy Scouts. It's now Scouts of America. Boy Scouts of America is now co-ed, but grew up in Scouts. And two of my Scoutmasters were, you know, one was a Sergeant Major retired, one was a Colonel retired, one was Army and one was Marine Corps. And so it was, it was a great entry point into learning how to serve and talk about things that are bigger than yourself and, you know, and really learn that. And then I heard about, you know, the Army and West Point. My dad had served in the Army as part of the ways— one of the ways he could become a U.S. citizen was through joining the Army. And so, I was like, okay, if I can get a college education and go serve in the Army and serve the country, you know, or the other— and even looked at the other academies as well. That sounded like a pretty good path because it seemed like it fit from a combination of service, education, bettering yourself, basically serving a much bigger thing than yourself. So felt pretty good about going into the military via the West Point path.
[00:02:07.250] - Freddie Kim
Wow. So where did your father come from?
[00:02:09.990] - Tad McIntosh
My dad was from Jamaica. So yeah, came from Jamaica, was a Jamaican immigrant. You know, by looking at me, people might not, might not recognize it. Yeah, exactly. It's not— it doesn't show on the book cover. How about that?
[00:02:23.460] - Freddie Kim
Okay, so, so Jamaican, and then he encouraged you to also serve?
[00:02:28.280] - Tad McIntosh
He encouraged me to serve. And, you know, and I always joke with people, my mom was from Oklahoma, my dad was from Jamaica. I'm a Jamokey-born American.
[00:02:36.720] - Freddie Kim
So how long did you serve? And, you know, what did you— how did you think about transition? Why did you want to transition?
[00:02:45.510] - Tad McIntosh
So, a couple things. One, I think, you know, thinking about the service was kind of like doing something, you know, you didn't really realize at the time, doing something bigger than yourself that motivates you to go stretch and, and have a mission, you know, beyond just saying, hey, I'm going to college, I'm going to go get a job, was really important for me going into West Point and then going into the infantry. I was kind of like, okay, that's the main effort, I don't want to do that and then had mentors around that. So, I went into the infantry out of a desire to be, you know, a part of the— it sounds bad— the main effort. And maybe that's egotistical, maybe that's just one to serve, serve big, you know, be wired that way, right? Wired that way. Action. Did Sanders at West Point, really enjoyed that competition. Did that competition with now, you know, General George, who's Chief of Staff. And like, on my one of my Sanders teams, there were, I think, 3, 3, 3, 3 or 4-star generals, 2 Ranger Italian commanders, and one, the first guy to ever win Best Ranger as an officer was on that Sandhurst team.
[00:03:43.580] - Tad McIntosh
Like, yeah, so some very
[00:03:45.110] - Freddie Kim
West Point cadets, you listening? Sandhurst team.
[00:03:47.200] - Tad McIntosh
Sandhurst, baby. And Sandhurst is different now. It's harder. It's, I mean, it's a core squad now. I mean, it's a, it's a full year commitment. You, I don't think you can do, I don't think you can be in a regular sport and do Sandhurst anymore. I don't know, I'm not positive on that, but I think that's, I mean, they train for it year-round versus it was a much more isolated Hey, we're done. It's springtime. We've got 2 months, get ready to go do Sandhurst type deal. But I think it's still a great competition and think it's great. I wish everybody at West Point did Sandhurst. It's just a great way to encapsulate a lot of the great military skills and training and teamwork and fitness and the things that make the best part of the Army the best part of the Army is a combination of that. Team effort, mission, skills, camaraderie, perseverance, hard stuff makes the Army better.
[00:04:39.800] - Freddie Kim
So just so we can have some time for the transition part, what you're doing at HUMCAP. Yeah. How did you think about even just upon transition starting your own business?
[00:04:50.780] - Tad McIntosh
Okay. So unique story. So did infantry, Korea, the Old Guard, And then the captain's course. And really interesting, the Army was about to miss their accession mission in the early '90s like they did under the last administration and say, we weren't going to have enough soldiers for the Army. And so, they went and took 20 high potential captains out of Fort Knox, 20 out of Fort Benning and said, you're going to Recruiting Command. And all of us wanted to go to regular combat arms units and they were like, we're not going. And they're like, we'll take care of you after that. So, I went into Recruiting Command. And did my job.
[00:05:25.700] - Freddie Kim
That's where you learned it.
[00:05:26.590] - Tad McIntosh
That's where I learned it. So I ran the Atlanta Recruiting Company within the Atlanta Recruiting Battalion in Atlanta, Georgia, where they sent these 40 young captains to where they were from so they could help kind of put a cattle prod to the system where you're sending somebody who is known in their marketplaces to do a good job in helping the NCOs get guys to raise their right hands, guys and gals who are able-bodied, able-minded, and service-minded. To join our great armed forces. So, I did Army Recruiting Command, and when I was getting out, honestly, it was a natural thing to get into the executive technical search business. And that was an interesting— and we served emerging growth, middle market tech companies and those that are growing new things, inventing things like the internet. When the internet was being invented, internet equipment companies, 3G, 4G, 5G, Wi-Fi, DSL, all those technologies that are normal to us now were not normal. So I was around recruiting for all those companies that were building what we now have as the internet economy and then the telecom economy. And we all have iPhones and built all those things so we can have a supercomputer in our hand and in our pocket.
[00:06:37.890] - Tad McIntosh
So, I got into that business and then got recruited into a tech company to help them hire 200 people. And when I did that, I noticed there was a gap between what a company needed to be in HR when you're 25 people and what it needed to be when you're 250 people. And I thought of the idea of, hey, you could have fractional services for different parts, like that 25 to 75, that 75 to 150, that 150 to 250. Those are honestly different mission sets. And building a fractional organization that can support companies on a fractional basis around those growth—
[00:07:12.260] - Freddie Kim
Which was new at that time.
[00:07:13.540] - Tad McIntosh
Very new.
[00:07:13.760] - Freddie Kim
Yeah.
[00:07:13.860] - Tad McIntosh
Fractional HR is popular now. Fractional CFOs. Those are on every street corner now. But back— this is 2001— it was not very popular. So, I wrote a business plan, and I talked to some old clients and some people that are entrepreneurs. I said, here's my business plan, do you think it would work? And to a T, they all said yes. It's going to be hard, but it can work. Yeah. And, uh, a story— I started the business in August of, of 2001, you know, marketed it, was marketing it, um, got a yes by a client. We got our first retainer check for a fractional project on September 10th, 2001. And so, it was kind of ominous. I have a picture with my wife who happens to be a flight attendant for American and knew people who were in the planes that were murdered on those planes. And I know a guy who died in the South Tower. So, it was a very ominous time. And I didn't realize, honestly, even then, I was just kind of like, okay, I think God wants me to be doing this. Seen to persevere with grit, kind of came from the Army, is to be tough enough to be harder than the life you're given.
[00:08:18.390] - Tad McIntosh
And so persevered on that. So that's where it came from, was an idea of fractional services married up to recruiting as well. So, kind of fractional HR, fractional recruiting, and search. So, it got customers. I, as quickly as possible, got employees. So, I was not a one-man band. You know, so had both recruiters and HR people doing the work.
[00:08:39.730] - Freddie Kim
Who was guiding you throughout this? Like when you were building a business?
[00:08:43.660] - Tad McIntosh
A combination of, I had some good mentors and there were folks that were entrepreneurial around services companies, and I didn't have a problem asking people that I knew well, hey, this is what I'm gonna go do, what do you think? Or hey, who do you know who needs this? And so, in some ways you just find customers that have a problem that our solution set fits. And be a person like in the Army. Like, I think if you went and took back why, or why are we good? Well, we have a mission that's bigger than ourselves. You know, our mission is we deliver excellence to our customers in the community. So, it's a double bottom line company. So, it's trying to get people around us that want to say, I want to deliver excellence, serve with excellence, both our customers and the community. So, it's not all about the money, but it's about a holistic—
[00:09:27.480] - Freddie Kim
Yeah, and you're recruiting society as a whole, right?
[00:09:30.120] - Tad McIntosh
Absolutely.
[00:09:30.650] - Freddie Kim
So that's why I'm in recruiting.
[00:09:32.350] - Tad McIntosh
Yeah, that's right. Because it's a bigger— you've got a bigger mission set and you can say, okay, it's hard and there's a lot of failure, but kind of that anchor point out in front of you keeps pulling you forward to serving with excellence, to being excellent. And sort of that excellence then pulls into us as service providers is I have to be excellent, right? And as a company, we have what we call core behaviors because people talk about values. We call them core behaviors because if you don't display those behaviors, you probably won't be around our company for that long because you just won't have it. And like, number one is be better every day, you know? And that's hard. Like, that's a, you know, both capitalism requires it of it and our customers require that of us because they're going forward, they're not going backwards. And to be a better, you know, a better company that we're serving, they gotta get better systems, better process, better people. Gotta like, with AI coming on, we all gotta learn how to use AI-enabled, AI-enabled human capital services, right? And then the second piece is, you know, beyond that, you gotta deliver results.
[00:10:32.180] - Tad McIntosh
Like, it's kind of like in the Army, it's mission first, people always, right? You gotta get the mission, but you gotta take care of your people to get the mission done. And thirdly is, you know, it's persevere with grit, right? And that's another thing of you, that's our, you know, third core behavior. And then the fourth one is win as a team. And so, 'cause it takes a team, nobody does this alone. And that's kind of how, and I see a direct, application of Army values, Army mission, Army training. And it's not just about the Army. I'm sure the Marines is just the same— or not the same, but just a different flavor. Navy's different flavor of helping us both be doing something bigger than ourselves, as well as having those behaviors that are happening every day, every week, every month so that you can be pulling forward into the economy and pulling forward into service to the community, not regressing. And in the Army, not back in the rear with gear.
[00:11:27.140] - Freddie Kim
That's awesome purpose. Awesome purpose. So, we're sitting here at the Veteran Edge Conference. This is day 3, the final day. Do you have a single takeaway thus far?
[00:11:37.400] - Tad McIntosh
I think on a tactical basis, it's strategic and tactical, is how much more our emphasis to get AI embedded into our business has to be, and it doesn't have to be overly complicated AI, right? Because we've been down the path and we've got some different tools we've been using, and we've been building some around co— HR Copilot. And, you know, and then we're using things that help us deliver candidates on spec faster to clients. So, it's really kind of, yeah, so AI I think is both the strategic and a tactical piece, but also for me, is looking at, okay, how am I looking at where our company needs to be and the leader I need to be 3 months to 3 years out? So how do we get ourselves positioned as a company? And so how do I position myself so that the company can be positioned well, forward postured in the future? So those are the two big deals is AI plus transformational, seeing myself transformational and being transformed and transforming the company. Where it ought to be.
[00:12:44.490] - Freddie Kim
Leading by example, right?
[00:12:46.990] - Tad McIntosh
Hoo-ah
[00:12:48.300] - Freddie Kim
Yeah, drop the hoo-ah bomb.
[00:12:49.710] - Tad McIntosh
Yeah, exactly.
[00:12:50.340] - Freddie Kim
How can people find you, stay connected, and why should they reach out to you?
[00:12:54.620] - Tad McIntosh
So, one, they can find me on LinkedIn, you know, just Tad McIntosh. There's two Tad McIntoshes. There's one that works at Home Depot, and then there's one who's at HUMCAP. And if you didn't know, HUMCAP is short for human capital. So, you can find me at HUMCAP and on LinkedIn. The other way why people should call us really is about where they say, if you're growing a company and you're not 150% sure on your HR and human capital strategy, I meet with people for free many times a week to talk about, okay, where are you now? Where are you going? What has to change to get there? And how do you not over-resource HR? Because one of the bigger problems in HR is they over-resource the department. And they're spending money they need to be spending on something else where we have a fractional model. So, you can get the strategic advisory services you need or the tactical execution services without a full-time employee, right? So, it's a leveraged model and we can help them have the strategy, have the tactics without the weight of the full-time cost of, you know, 2, 3, 5 people in HR.
[00:13:57.660] - Freddie Kim
Cool. So, thank you.
[00:13:59.390] - Tad McIntosh
Absolutely.
[00:13:59.810] - Freddie Kim
Thank you, Tad.
[00:14:00.270] - Freddie Kim
Appreciate it. This was fun.
[00:14:00.950] - Tad McIntosh
Appreciate you.
[00:14:01.640] - Tad McIntosh
There you go.
[00:14:02.050] - Freddie Kim
We'll talk later.
[00:14:02.920] - Tad McIntosh
Hoo-ah
[00:14:03.160] - Freddie Kim
Yeah.
[00:14:09.410] - John S. Berry
Thank you for joining us today on Veteran Led, where we seek to help Veterans build an even bigger, better future after military service. Unfortunately, for some of our Veterans, the roadblock to a better future is that they are not receiving all of the benefits that they earned. If you need help appealing a VA disability decision, contact Berry Law.