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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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[00:00:01.16] - Mark Fava
You know, I was told once if you make a decision and it's a stupid decision and it was a mistake, when people ask you did you talk to anybody else before you did this? If the answer is no, not good.
[00:00:14.13] - John S. Berry
Welcome to Veteran Led. Today's guest is Mark C. Fava, author of Lessons from the Naval Wisdom and Sea Stories for Leaders. From the chief operations attorney at Delta Air Lines during 911 to now the vice president of the world's largest aerospace company. Welcome to the show, Mark.
[00:00:37.02] - Mark Fava
Great, John. It's great to be here with a fellow lawyer and a fellow veteran. So, thank you so much for having me.
[00:00:42.18] - John S. Berry
But what I love about your book and a spoiler alert, Mark was not the admiral. This is great. He was the army would call the aide de camp to the admiral and basically learned those leadership lessons was in the room when the important decisions were made. But more importantly, he learned the basic lessons that made him a great leader that could help not only junior leaders and managers, but also lawyers as Mark was a senior partner at a, at a well-established law firm before he took his current job at Boeing. So, there's a lot to unpack today and excited, I'm excited to have you here. But tell us what led you to write the story to get these lessons down on paper and to. And to publish it?
[00:01:25.00] - Mark Fava
Yeah, listen, it's what you said. My last job on active duty in the Navy, that's what I was. I was admiral's aide. And you know, all the things that he taught me and that I did in that job, the habits I was using as a reserve officer, I was using in law school, I used as an associate, I used as an in-house lawyer at Delta. And it just kept going and going and I would do stuff, and I'd say, you know what, I figured this out. And I first was taught this in, in the military as the aide. So Covid came along, I decided it was time to stop watching so much Netflix and finally write a book. And that's what I did. That's when I did it.
[00:01:57.19] - John S. Berry
And I love, I did the same thing. The lessons I learned were early in my military career, not later. Because your military career in the reserve, you did 30 years, correct?
[00:02:07.00] - Mark Fava
Correct. Six active and 24 in the reserves. Yeah.
[00:02:09.16] - John S. Berry
And it's amazing that we still hold onto those lessons we learned as junior officers. But I don't think we really realize how important they were until we become senior officers or field grade officers and we're like, wow, that was pretty important.
[00:02:21.05] - Mark Fava
Right? Right. Like I said, it's still. You're still thinking, well, wait a minute, why am I doing this? Oh yeah, because I did this a long time ago. And the importance of it. And I loved how it transferred to the civilian world and then to the practice of law. It's the same type of attention to detail that we focus on, the same type of excellence, the same type of appearance. It all transfers very well to a professional world.
[00:02:40.12] - John S. Berry
And I like the fact that you call out the mistakes because we've all made those mistakes. And it's almost like when I hear the stories and you always know you're a great lawyer because great lawyers lead with the stories, right? The stories teach the lessons. The stories get us engaged in what you want us to hear. And you do a masterful job in the book of telling those stories. And those stories sometimes are embarrassing, sometimes they're funny. But the one story that I really liked was the speech. You're meticulous about preparing for the speech but tell them what happens when the general gives a speech.
[00:03:13.09] - Mark Fava
Yeah, that's one of the most important things. So, when the boss is getting ready to give a change command speech or a big ceremonial speech, getting in there on time, right uniform, right place, looking sharp. But the key is that their speech is prepared and in the podium in usually a binder back in those days and still today, you know, in a large typeset so that he can see it as he's reading it because it doesn't have teleprompters. But the last thing I did before I handed him the speech every time is I would run to a photocopy machine, the old photocopy machines, and make a couple copies. And I did that. It was very purposeful. So I would have an extra copy and he would too, in case anything went wrong. And he went up there one day, he was reading the speech. I had it pre positioned in the right place, right time, everything. And I knew the speech by heart because I had helped him write it and I had read it because that was also part of the job. And I've got my eyes on him in the audience. And he gets to a part in the speech where he just is sort of fumbling around.
[00:04:06.17] - Mark Fava
He's turned the page back and forth and then he just goes offline and off record. I'm like, okay, something's not right. After it was all over, I go up to him. The ceremony was great. He said, he whispers to me, what'd you think of the speech? I said, boss, I thought it was very good. I said, but you know, you went off cue for a little bit there in the middle. And he whispered to me, he goes, I sure did. It was missing page 12. Don't ever let that happen again. So, you know, in the haste of the old photocopy machine feeding the page after page, two pages got stuck. And I didn't page check it. And sure enough, it was missing a page. And never again did I ever do a document, a pleading or anything even, you know, even scanning documents online that we would file in court that didn't page check every single page.
[00:04:48.06] - John S. Berry
And this is great because the lesson pays off later when your job is on the line. And take us through that. The senior partner is asking you about this document, whether all the pages there, whether it's perfect, and you're able to say yes. So take us through that. I think that's a great lesson.
[00:05:01.19] - Mark Fava
Yeah. Gosh, John, it was even like, even better than that. So it was my current employer, we had just opened the factory in Charleston at Boeing South Carolina, Multi billion dollar investment. The general counsel who had hired me is flying in from Chicago to do a big press event. All local officials are there, elected, and he's doing the same thing the admiral did 20, 30 years ago. He's redlining the speech at the last minute. I'm running a page over to my trusted assistant who had been with me at the law firm. And I get back over to him, and as he's making the corrections, we're printing the page off. I'm looking at my watch. It's 20 minutes towards tea time. The press is there, and I'm handing the pages, and he looks at me and I hand him the final binder. And he said the exact same thing. He goes, is it correct? And I said, yes, sir, because she checked it and I checked it. And he says, missing any pages? And that's the first time I'd had anybody ask me that since the admiral who told me I had missed the page. And I said, no, sir.
[00:05:54.07] - Mark Fava
And he said, you're going to bet your job on that? And I said, yes, sir. And he said, okay, because I knew it wasn't missing any pages at that time.
[00:06:02.14] - John S. Berry
And I love that. That level of competence is what we all want in our lawyers. Would you bet your job on it? Right before I signed this pleading. Is it perfect? And I think back to my dad's era. This is back when trial lawyers really tried a lot of cases. He would have multiple jury trials a month. And the legend, at least what I hear from other lawyers that worked for him that were law clerks and junior associates were that he would, you know, he'd do the strategy in the case and then he would let those lawyers run with it. And back then, discovery wasn't what it is today, but those trial books, those trial binders, he would come in Friday, review it all weekend, and then pick the jury on Monday. And so his expectation was, if you're going to do, if you're going to learn from me, me, you know, because I'm going to give you my time and you're going to get paid well, but you had better have this done. It had better be done right. Because this client's future depends on your ability to get it right. And as you know, you miss something, you may not get important evidence into the case, you may lose the case.
[00:07:05.23] - John S. Berry
And so his expectation was, you had better make sure that everything, all the exhibits are ready to go, that we have our facts straight, that we are the most credible lawyers in the courtroom. And if you, I can't count on you to do that. You're not going to be sitting at council table. And I think that's a great lesson. And obviously you've seen it too, on the transactional, on the side of the general counsel looking at this huge deal, it's got to be perfect. And they know that Mark Fava is going to deliver. And I think that when you do that, there's no better feeling.
[00:07:36.08] - Mark Fava
Yeah, no, listen, John and I saw it as a litigator going up against very capable trial counsel like you. And I said, look, we got to know everything and we've got to know it better than the other side because the other side's coming in prepared. And there's no excuse for not being prepared. And I say that in the book. I might not be the sharpest lawyer, but you're not going to out hustle me and you're not going to be prepared more than me, and I'm going to know the facts better than anybody else. And sure, there's room for mistakes and there will be mistakes, but if you've prepared as much as you should, you can get around the mistakes. You say, okay, there's a way to get from path A to path B. And I love the story about your father. I mean, I just have these images of just the old same thing. I had some mentors, just old Charleston trial lawyers and men, when they came into court, you knew they were ready and they were good.
[00:08:20.14] - John S. Berry
Yeah. And you know, it's an adversarial system. And my dad would say, trial is the closest thing you'll ever see to combat, because second place in combat is death. Second place at trial, you lose, and.
[00:08:34.09] - Mark Fava
The client's not happy.
[00:08:35.23] - John S. Berry
No. Yeah, yeah. Not at all. So my. Yeah, I think that was a great analogy from a veteran. Right. When non veterans say that, it's, you know, it doesn't mean as much. But I want to go into your ability. I mean, you've taken. What I like is you take the lessons and even your personal life, you know, you talk about the general's luggage and you can't take your eyes off it. Don't let anybody else touch it. And I think, you know, sometimes we want to be accommodating, especially as professionals, whether you're a corporate executive or a lawyer, we want to be cordial. But, you know, hey, do not touch that luggage. And you have to use the general stars sometimes to get people to back off. So tell us a little bit about that lesson and how it's helped you.
[00:09:17.16] - Mark Fava
Yeah, you know, it's very important when you're an aide de camp or an admiral's aide, because you are the most junior person. You're wearing the agrilette, so people know you're the aide, but at the same time, you are giving direction and order. People who are very senior to you. The goal is to be able to deliberate diplomatically, cordially, so that they get the message and they follow through. But there are some people, like you said, be it that they're just very, you know, they're very eagerly anxious to help. But to me, sometimes that help would get in the way of my system. So I didn't have time to lose the admiral's luggage. I had to get it from the plane to the car and get it in the car before he got there. And I couldn't have anybody. And I knew how to put it in the car. Right. I put his stuff in last, my stuff in first, because when we got to the destination, his stuff comes out first. So every now and then someone would grab a bag and start going away with it. I said, oh, I got the admiral's bags.
[00:10:04.10] - Mark Fava
And you know, like you said, they're trying to be helping. They'll say, we'll take care of it for you. I said, no. And then you would have to up the amplitude. As long as they didn't follow your direction. I got, you know, that's okay, Lieutenant, I'll get it for you. I said, I really need to take it. And then finally, when they would start walking away, that it said, I'm the Only one that carries his bags. And gently, you would get there. But at some point, you've got to make it very clear that you don't have time for anybody interfering with you. And you can't stand there and talk to him and say, look, this is why, you know, and I call that using the admiral stars. Use them sparingly, use them when you have to. And it's the same thing in a law firm or the same thing, you know, when the boss wants you to do something to elevate or escalate that. But make sure when you're doing it, you understand that you're doing it diplomatically and you let the boss know you're going to do it. You don't want to be throwing people's names around without letting them know.
[00:10:49.21] - John S. Berry
I think that that's important because when you abuse that privilege, the boss will probably never entrust you with those stars again. Once you abuse that privilege, you tarnish the reputation of the admiral and no.
[00:11:03.05] - Mark Fava
One'S going to listen to you. Right. And everybody thinks you're the person that always cries wolf and uses leverages his name. You lose credibility. I mean, I call it the initial guidance. That first month on the job, the admiral brought me in his office. One of the things he told me was, these are my stars. You can use them, but use them sparingly if and when you need to. And every now and then I to just say, you know, the admiral wants it that way. Now, he hadn't told me you have to do it this way. But I had to use that leverage to get people to listen to me when they weren't listening.
[00:11:31.23] - John S. Berry
Yeah, and I love the way that you also the practical application. First of all, all of my future executive assistants are getting this book. You know, like I said, we grew up in the military, so we understand what an aide de camp is supposed to do. But, you know, less than 1% served in the military, so I think it's sometimes hard to communicate it. But your book does a great job through the stories of telling why it's important. But I loved when you had to go at the hotel room, hey, you're going to have this key. You're going to have it ready. And you know, I talked to your manager yesterday, and now you're giving me flack about it. And you said, you know, you were able to be polite about it, but the general was not going to wait in line. And look, as lawyers, you think about how much we bill per hour, it's a disservice to our clients when we're doing things like waiting in line. And look, having an executive assistant or having that paralegal or that legal assistant or that second in command and having them have the, I think the audacity and the competence to get things done.
[00:12:28.05] - John S. Berry
It's a force multiplier for us. And I'm just wondering, have you, obviously in your position, you have individuals who help you, are your aide de camps, do they read your book and what lessons do you try to teach them? What are the big lessons you try to teach them?
[00:12:42.20] - Mark Fava
Yeah, I've been pleasantly surprised because a lot of people have. I've even got a real good friend of mine who's a partner at a major law firm out in the Northwest that did just like you. He said, you know what? He goes, I like it so much, I just bought 20 copies and I'm giving it to the associates. Tell them, just go read it. Because my hope was that not only would it teach lessons, but it would also be an enjoyable quick read, which it is. It's 138 pages. You can get through it pretty quickly. But. But absolutely. I don't. I have yet to tell people you have to read it at work. But I've been humbled that many of them have and they'll. They'll kid with me and, you know, when I'm walking by them and they say, hey, I know to do this, or it'll be on time. And then they'll wink at me, you know, or you'll have the binder, you know, or. Or we won't forget the toothpick. Do you have the, you know, do you have the sharpie, you know, so I can tell they've read it and that's very humbling and kind of fun.
[00:13:28.21] - John S. Berry
The pillow. Yeah.
[00:13:33.09] - Mark Fava
Good military humor. Right?
[00:13:34.21] - John S. Berry
Yeah. Well, we knew that was coming. Right. It's like we would, you know, we'd go to the motor pool and ask, you know, the lieutenant to find the blinker fluid, you know, for the.
[00:13:43.22] - Mark Fava
The male buoy in the Navy. Yeah. The fork ensign have to stand watch for the mail buoy. And then in the P3, you know, we had a stinger off the back of the plane. It was a magnetic anomaly detector which would, when you're flying over the ocean, would detect the magnetic submarine. So, the huge magnet in the water, it would show where there's some deviation in the earth's magnetic field. So we would get the youngest pilot and we get the battle crash ax from the cockpit and tell him to go out and test the magnetic anomaly detector. And he would have to be behind it, under it, on the flight line, waving the metal across underneath it. And everybody knew exactly what was going on. And just testing the mad.
[00:14:20.19] - John S. Berry
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I guess they might call that hazing now, but. But no, that was how we would have. How we would have fun with each other. And. Yeah, but I loved it that the Admiral played in, too, and asked you about the pillow. So, I thought that was great. I thought that was great. So read the book.
[00:14:36.07] - Mark Fava
The joke was on me.
[00:14:37.18] - John S. Berry
Yeah, they all knew. Even the Admiral knew that was so great about it. So, one of the things that I get concerned about when I'm investing the time to mentor someone is, is it going to be worth my time? Because we have a finite amount of time. And you obviously, through your competence, the Admiral wanted to mentor you. He wanted you to be successful. And what advice do you have for those new lawyers, those junior leaders in an organization? How do you become worthy of the level of mentorship that you received?
[00:15:14.09] - Mark Fava
I think it's critically important to have a mentor and to be prepared. In other words, you and I, I'm sure you get these just random emails, either on LinkedIn or otherwise just saying, hey, can we love to talk with you. You know, I want to know, what do you know about me? Why do you want to talk to me? And, you know, what are your questions or concerns? And I think it's no different than going to the courtroom, no different than going in a deposition. But if you're asking somebody for their time or for their help, just come with a plan. Hey, I saw you here. I saw you there. I read your book. I'm really interested in becoming a trial lawyer, an aviation lawyer. How do I change from a vet, you know, stuff that you do very well. I've got a veteran problem. And then you're very respectful of their time. And, boy, when you know, you or I get those kind of messages, I think it's you. That's nine times out of ten, I answer them and say, sure, we'll get some time on the calendar. And then just a quick, you know, a quick thank you email afterwards.
[00:16:04.14] - Mark Fava
I'm happy to talk to people, but it is nice if they come somewhat prepared and not just, hey, you know, I just saw you give a speech. Can we talk? Okay, I don't know. What do you know? Because then you and I could pass it off to our very trusted assistant and say, can you get me the information? Get me prepared and let's book this. But I don't want to sound like a, I don't want to do it, I'm happy to do it. But you make it so much easier for your mentor if you come prepared.
[00:16:30.12] - John S. Berry
Yeah, I have noticed that it's a pretty easy litmus test. When I get that, it's like a young non commissioned officer, a young enlisted soldier that comes to me and says, sir, the regulation says this and I've looked at this, I don't know the answer. Like the junior associate who says, I've looked at the case law, I've looked at the statutes, I've gone back through the legislative history and I have, this is my question as opposed to they come, they say, mark, I have a question. What's the answer? I want to know. They did the homework for me. I don't want the lazy questions, you know, And I think that those are the people that I want to mentor, the people who respect my time and actually do the work and ask thoughtful questions because they did their homework.
[00:17:12.19] - Mark Fava
Absolutely. In the practice of law or even as a military officer, as you become the department head or the boss or the company commander, you want people to identify issues and, or problems and bring those to you, but come with recommended solutions. Right. Don't just throw the problem in your lap. So for me with the albums was like, look, I don't think you can do this, but here's what I Recommend we do 1, 2 or 3. These are the choices I recommend too. Wow. I mean that's a lot different than coming to a boss and saying, I don't know what we're going to do. You know, I, I, I one time said to the general counsel of the company I'm working for, he's since moved on, but there was a little bit of a mix up, a debacle and he was, you know, giving me a good chewing, good old fashioned chewing on the phone, which I probably deserved. And I said to him, him, I'm sorry, I didn't see that coming, you know, because I was just going to own it, all right? I'm owning it. And he told me, john, he said, I pay you to see things coming.
[00:18:04.17] - Mark Fava
Don't ever say that to me again. You know, it's just like I got it and I didn't, I mean, you know, I said, he said, you're there to look around the corner and to be the person on the spot to help advise me about what's going to happen in the future. Don't ever say that to me again. And I did. You're always playing that what if game, Right?
[00:18:24.13] - John S. Berry
Absolutely. And I noticed that before you ask your boss for help or admit that you don't know the answer, ask somebody else for help. And when you get lost on the ship, and I understand I've been on some Navy ships and they can be confusing, but you found a knowledgeable senior salty person and said, hey, I need some help. And you got to the location on time. So, take us through that story and what was going through your head when you're like, oh, my gosh, I may have got the admiral lost. Because we always said you can't spell lost without LT, right? We'd make fun of lieutenants all the time in the infantry for getting lost in the field, but you got lost in the ship. So, tell us about that.
[00:19:04.14] - Mark Fava
Yeah, it was a quick trip to a ship, a small ship, a small destroyer. Small Navy destroyer. Usually when we did that, I would have an escort because I didn't have time to memorize the pathways and the passageways and get from point A to point B. But this was a really small one. It was very clear. But it was back in the day, they gave me a diagram, said, you're going to get on here, go down this hallway, this hallway or passageway, go up one flight of stairs, turn left, and there will be the wardroom. Okay, you know what? I can do that. It was not an aircraft carrier. I could do that. So we were on time. I was 10 minutes before we were supposed to be in the meeting room. We got on board, and I started making my way down the passageway, and sure enough, there was big brown tape crisscrossing the passageway, and there was a sailor waxing the floor. And it said, close due to field day. And I'm thinking, this isn't good because I don't know how to get from point A to point it B. Admiral's breathing down my neck and says, where are we going?
[00:19:54.07] - Mark Fava
You know, do you know where we're going? Well, I knew where we were going. I just didn't know how to get there. And at that point, I knew. It's like, okay, either you can guess, or you can grab somebody to help you. And I saw an incredible chief walk by, and I just said, chief, this is the admiral. We're getting to the wardrobe. And I gave him that look like, you know, I need help. And he immediately picked up on it and said, got it, sir. Follow me. And I think it's critically important. And I even did that, John, in the practice of law. You know, one time in my early career, actually, I was a senior associate. I was in default. It's just a terrible feeling. And the plaintiff's lawyer was a very good college friend of mine, and he couldn't let me out of a default because his client would refuse to grant him that authority. Same thing. I went to a senior partner, and I said, I'm in trouble and I need help, you know, and people will help you.
[00:20:40.03] - John S. Berry
And yeah, just for the two terms. I want to clarify for the guys in the infantry field day is not. You're going out to the field. That means you're cleaning stuff. Stuff we would call that red cycle. And then default means missed a deadline. Correct.
[00:20:53.15] - Mark Fava
Bad. Yeah. Miss a deadline.
[00:20:55.04] - John S. Berry
Default judgment.
[00:20:56.18] - Mark Fava
Right. And in our practice, you're given, you know, if somebody files a lawsuit, you're given maybe 20 or 30 days to answer it. And those are calendar deadlines. And I thought, I think the deadline might have been like the 20th. And I counted it for the 30th. And when I found out about it, the motion for default judgment, the other side had already moved, which means the whole case is thrown away. And you don't even get a case. Right. You go right to a damages phase, which is legal malpractice. It was absolutely horrible. But thank goodness a senior partner took care of me. And 60 days later, we were out. But, gosh, I got to tell you, it was a rough 60 days of no sleep.
[00:21:30.09] - John S. Berry
Yeah. Hey, go ugly early. If you're going to make that mistake, let somebody. I learned this in the practice of law. It's amazing to me, if we can find out about a mistake, the sooner we can find out about it, the more we can do to remedy it. And if we don't find out about it till later, it's, oh, they only get worse with time and less fixable. Yeah. Wow. But that's a great lesson. And I think also when we, you know, look, we're going to fail as leaders, as lawyers, but just to be honest about it, and they don't tell you in law school you're going to fail a lot of times instead of. They scare us, you know, you know, you can't do this, do this. You're going to lose your job. You're going to commit malpractice. There's going to be a case in these case books written about you, you know, but they don't tell us, hey, you know, bad things are going to happen, and it's really important that you seek counsel. And I've seen it happen where a lawyer didn't actually screw up, but they thought they screwed up, so they told the client.
[00:22:25.03] - John S. Berry
That caused all this unnecessary distress. And it's like, you know, you just threw yourself on the pike. You didn't need to. If you just would have asked for help, this could have been solved. And then the client fires them and all these bad things happen. But it's just, you know, asking for help early, like swallow your pride, hey, I'm lost. I don't know. I don't know the answer. I'm in a new area. I think so many people, especially in a law firm, are willing to help. But there's this, there's this false, I think, sense of, hey, if you're asking for help, that's a sign of weakness. You're not that smart. And it's simply not true. And obviously you've experienced that many times over. What advice do you have for those junior people coming to new organizations that like a new ensign or new lieutenant, want to show up looking great, want to impress people, but they don't have the knowledge to do so? What's the best advice you have for those new leaders that want to make the impression, but they just don't have the experience or knowledge to be who they want to be yet?
[00:23:23.12] - Mark Fava
Well, I think you've already said a couple of things. I mean, do your research, right? You know, I don't start any new job without knowing the org chart, figuring out who the people are, knowing a little bit about their backgrounds. I figure out if somebody was, you know, I went to Chapel Hill as an ROTC person, if they went to Chapel Hill or Duke, know that. If they were a veteran, I know that, you know, so. Because that just shows that you're coming in, coming in prepared and then find it, you know, find somebody that you trust that can help you. And especially was, you know, if you're working for somebody, you can figure out how what they like and what they don't like by everything they've done before, right? So in our practice you can figure out the pleadings. In the military you can ask some another department head or another lieutenant and a good person, even if it's a competitive environment, is going to help you because they want you to succeed as a teammate and as a member. So I think it's critically important. I mean, I didn't do anything with a major person without talking to that executive office assistant.
[00:24:17.07] - Mark Fava
You know, what is he like? Would you look at this PowerPoint? Would you look at this presentation? Is this going to go okay? He likes 15 point punt and no more than three bullets on a page. Okay. I mean, how cool is that? You go in armed with something that he or she already likes and that's easy to do. It just shows some preparedness and foresight.
[00:24:35.02] - John S. Berry
Yeah, I once when I was in Iraq, I was at a briefing and a major was briefing a full bird colonel and the major was reading the PowerPoint slides, and he got. The colonel tossed him out of the briefing. He's like, that's not how you brief. You don't read slides. To me, I can read. And bam. He was thrown out of the meeting. So, yeah, he might have wanted to ask that question. But yeah, before. Absolutely. Now, one thing I want to get into about you, and it made sense to me. I mean, you're a pilot, and so you have the preflight checklist. You're used to following those checklists. And now as a lawyer, obviously same thing, right. You're very meticulous in doing that. And I'm just wondering, for individuals, after you became a pilot and decided to become a lawyer, how useful was that to just have that built into your, I think, your methodology of just doing everything?
[00:25:24.16] - Mark Fava
Yeah. So I'll be real clear. So I was a backseat guy, right? So I wasn't actually flying, but I was the tactics officer, the weapons officer, the mission commander, because that's what you could do in a P3. But everything was driven by practice, training and checklists. And there were some things that you had to memorize, right. There were some emergency procedures that you knew that if it happened even in the back, if we had a fire, if we had smoke, if we had something, we're 1,000 miles away from the nearest airfield. So we got 12 people on that plane and that's it, that's the team. And the nearest air base is two, three hours away. You had to know some of that stuff by excellence and memory. And as soon as the flight station or somebody in the back called, they're smoking the cab and execute the fire bill. Every member of that crew, all 12, knew exactly the first five steps that they, that they had to do. Right. Because we had trained with them, because we had practiced with them, and because we'd had real fires on board. You know, we have all those electronics.
[00:26:19.02] - Mark Fava
So that precision, that excellence, that timeliness, the importance of taking off and arriving on station, no different from you, from when you're in Iraq. Look, this is the time we need to be there, and this is the time the ordinance is going off. All of that is critical. And it was the same thing for us. This is the time we think the submarine is there. This is the time you got to be there for the, for the fleet. And this is when they think you're going to check in. And if you don't check in at this point, during this time frame, you're subject to being shot down. You know, it's, you're going into a hostile environment. So you take all that stuff, that attention to detail, and for me it was, it was seamless to go on into the law. And there's gray areas right for us, but you know, the hard line truths and the rules. And I think that's why it's just wonderful because I was able to do the reserves for 24 years and go back and forth either to the law firm or to a corporation and use the same principles because they're transparent and transferable.
[00:27:12.00] - John S. Berry
So now that we've made the bridge, I want to take it to September 11, 2001. What's your job and what's going on?
[00:27:19.20] - Mark Fava
Yeah, I was approaching partnership in a Charleston law firm, but trying to really break into aviation law. And a buddy of mine from high school who had flown B52s and then had gone to law school and was at Delta called me up and said, you need to come to Delta. And we were looking for a chief operations attorney. And I told him not only no, but hell no, because I just gotten back to Charleston, I'd finished law school, I was coming home to establish like you, to establish my practice where my family was. But I went and I interviewed with them and the general counsel said, look, if you want to be an aviation lawyer, you got to come work for Delta. And I did. And that was 41 days before 9/11. So, I went there thinking it was just going to be, you know, no more billable hours, easy corporate life. And gosh, the world changed incredibly. That morning, I was with the general counsel in the Renaissance Hotel, which is right there on the flight line of the Atlanta airport. We were in a large conference room briefing ironically, all of our corporate security directors on the most recent FAA cases in the law.
[00:28:19.10] - Mark Fava
When back in those days, you know, we had pagers, everybody's pagers started to go off, you know, 8:00 o' clock or so in the morning, 8:30 when the first plane hit. And I tell you, that next three years, staying there through 911 as a in house at Delta was the most formative for my career and allowed me to become an aviation lawyer.
[00:28:39.23] - John S. Berry
And at that point I got to imagine there's just chaos throughout the industry. How are you able to and you know, that there's the military communication channels and everything is just going crazy at that point. Being the new person, were you able to be the voice of reason and keep people calm, or were you just as freaked out as everybody else?
[00:29:00.02] - Mark Fava
I think, you know, all of us had that period of time where nobody really knew what was going on. And then. And then when we started to figure out, by the time the second plane hit the second tower, we knew something was going on, and we knew the country was being attacked. And. And the irony was, John, that we at Delta had an emergency procedures manual, just like we did in the military. So anytime there was an accident or incident, everybody knew what they were supposed to do, and they knew where they were supposed to go. And they had an operations center, get this, that was modeled after a military operations center by veterans, and it's still run today. And part of a side room of that operations center is the Emergency operations Center. It's only open when the bad stuff happens. Otherwise, you've got this huge room full of, you know, expert pilots for every single platform manned 24/7, in case somebody calls with a question. Flight attendants, same thing. So they can manage crew. Crew scheduling. It's a fascinating room, but we all knew who would go into the room of the Emergency Operations center.
[00:29:59.23] - Mark Fava
And by the time we finally figured out that no Delta planes were involved and all the planes got parked that day, it was pretty incredible. Because what I had, you know, when I'd come to work every day and heard that constant buzz of the jet noise because the headquarters is right there at the Atlanta airport, I never will forget this. I parked my car walking into the office and actually heard birds in the trees for the first time. It was so quiet. It was surreal. This airport that had been a den and a hub of activity from, you know, five in the morning till midnight or two in the morning, was just dead quiet.
[00:30:33.16] - John S. Berry
Yeah, that was an amazing, amazing time. I was a 2L in law school. It's my second year.
[00:30:39.00] - Mark Fava
Wow.
[00:30:39.10] - John S. Berry
And that I was in Omaha, and I was driving home to Lincoln after this had happened to see my parents, and I saw a plane overhead. What's between Lincoln and Omaha? Strategic Air Command. Right. So that was Air Force One, the only plane in the sky that day.
[00:30:56.17] - Mark Fava
Wow.
[00:30:57.04] - John S. Berry
Yeah. So that was. Yeah. But I remember, you know, I remember seeing that plane thinking, wait a minute, there's not supposed to be any planes out. But, yeah, that was an interesting. That was an interesting time. Fast forward to now, you know, as a senior executive at the top of your game right now. What are the things that are most critical to you? What do you wake up and think about every single day?
[00:31:23.08] - Mark Fava
Gosh. In the aviation context, and this is true for all of us, we all think about the safe execution and the compliance of the aircraft and getting the passengers from point A to point B safely. I mean, it's inherent to the people that do the job and has been. And, you know, I don't get into current events, but whenever you hear anything or see something, that's the first thought that goes to your mind. You know, was it as safe as it should have been? Was it designed the way it should be? And so, you know, I work with about 140,000 people that are incredibly conscientious, a lot of veterans, not only on the commercial side, but also the defense side. You know, we make the F18. We just got awarded the new fighter. And there's a great sense of pride to be able to develop something, especially for the war fighter, that can go forward. But, you know, you got to do it, and it's gotta be compliant per regulation and per rules and per what the FAA says or per what the military wants. And that's, I think, the most important thing that we're doing right now.
[00:32:23.18] - John S. Berry
Yeah, I think one thing that really helped me in the military as a young officer was I had to do risk assessments for every single operation, whether it was a mission on a deployment or a daily training exercise. Whatever it was, we just got in the habit of always assessing risk. And so going to law school and learning about negligence and standards of care and safety, it was, oh, yeah, I understand this. We did this the time. But it is one of those things, too, where it's all theoretical in law school, but when you've served in the military and you've seen bad training accidents happen, or bad things happen where we weren't as safe as we could have been as leaders. And we, America's sons and daughters, have been put at risk. That's something that doesn't leave you. And I think as a lawyer, then being able to identify risks and look out for that liability, the negligence, all the things, the big word, the buzzwords we use in law school, they're much more real when you've served in the military and you've seen the stakes.
[00:33:20.11] - Mark Fava
Sure, absolutely. It's so funny because I see, you know, you and I see things through that lens. Right. We see it through the military risk and the legal risk. So, you know, I might see, you know, Some shop that has a, A trampoline out in front of the shopping center. A bunch of kids jumping on the trampoline on a cement parking lot, you know, because it's children's Day and I don't see a bunch of kids having fun. I see risk. I'm thinking, gosh, I don't know if I should. They should be doing that. No, my kids aren't getting on that. It is a different lens. And you to temper that with what you and I do all the time. What's acceptable risk and what's not. And that's, you know, depending on the level of expertise. I work with a lot of engineers, I did at Delta. You rely on them for that level of expertise, the engineering expertise. But you ought to be able to understand what the client is saying and then agree or disagree as you apply the law to it.
[00:34:08.23] - John S. Berry
Yeah. I think back to one of the first lessons I learned. My father and I drove to Fort Benning, Georgia. That was my first duty station. And my dad, that was his first duty station. So we went to the Officers Club back when they. I don't know if they still have an Officers Club anymore. I know that all the things have changed. But we went to the Officers Club and there was a special forces colonel sitting there and my dad had his famous case, the Green Beret affair in Vietnam. And so they started talking about that and he said, well, this is my son, he's a brand new infantry lieutenant. What advice do you have for him? And he says, take risks. He says, leaders take risks. They take calculated risks, but not stupid risks. And I think, I think we have been exposed to that in the military. And then you see it in the practice of law, and I'm sure you see it all the time in aviation. It becomes second nature to say, well, yeah, you're going to have to take that risk. But I've met some lawyers and some leaders who are so risk averse that they actually put the organization at jeopardy because they won't take any risks.
[00:35:06.12] - John S. Berry
How do you advise those leaders when they're asking you, as you know, as a lawyer, how, you know, how do I take this? Do I do this? Do you try to steer them away from taking, you know, they say, I want to do whatever, something new, exciting. And you're like, yeah, that's great. Here's the risk. Do you try to steer them away or do you say, here's what you're going to, here's how you're going to mitigate it and it's your decision or do you try to help them make the decision?
[00:35:33.05] - Mark Fava
I think it's a combination of the two ladder, right? I think if you, you know, I was told once, if you make a decision and it's a stupid decision and it was a mistake. When people ask you, did you talk to anybody else before you did this? If the answer is no, not good, right? So what I do when I'm assessing risk is I talk to other people who are in the same profession. I say, look here, you have 10, 15 minutes, whatever. Or if it's something pretty significant, can we sit down and let me go through this with you. To be able to surround yourself with other people that have that level of expertise and can pressure check the risk assessment that you're making is great. It's so funny. I didn't spend any time active duty in the Navy on an aircraft carrier. All my buddies were carrier guys, and I was an in base person in the P3. But when you were talking about that risk assessment as it applies to not only the law but to your civilian world, last year I got the opportunity to go out on a Navy aircraft carrier on a Boeing sponsored trip.
[00:36:28.03] - Mark Fava
It was phenomenal because we bring a bunch of young engineers, and we let them see the Boeing F18 flying in and off the carrier that they're designing and they get to talk to the pilots in the ready room. I went sort of as the old man mentor and chaperone because I just thought it would be cool and it was phenomenal experience. But you know, on the back of the flight deck where the landing officer stands and you know, the paddles and you're right there to get up to that back area, you've got to, I mean, it's pretty bad. You've got to climb up a ladder. There were a bunch of hoses, and the ship is gently rocking. I went up there a couple of times, but it was pretty exciting. But you get to the last section, and you know, you're standing about waist high, and you've got to push yourself up onto the deck. And I wouldn't say it's compliant with OSHA. I mean, there's no bar, no handles to grab onto. So, I'm with all these young engineers, or early career engineers, I should say, and they're just pushing themselves up and jumping on the deck and you know, I'm struggling and they're giving me their hands and it's slippery on the deck.
[00:37:23.22] - Mark Fava
Well, I did that two or three times. Phenomenal place to be because that plane is coming right down at you. The last night we're sitting in the ready room, and they said, you know, hey, Fava, we're going back up again. You want to go? And, you know, I was tired, it was dark, it had been raining. And I, in my mind, I'm running the risk cube and I'm thinking, you know what, the other day I had trouble. It's dark, it's wet. I've been up there three times. I think the probability is pretty high that something might happen on this third or fourth time. And if it does, it's not going to be good for me. So I just said, you know what, thanks. I think I've seen it, seen it enough now. And, you know, that wasn't overly paranoid, but that was just a competent risk analysis that I had carried over from the military. And I said, you know, I'm good, thanks. And they all laughed. But I just sat there in the ready room and had a great time.
[00:38:08.06] - John S. Berry
Yeah. And how do you, how do you advise and coach leaders so that they don't reach that level of, I think, risk aversion where they're scared to do anything? Because let's face it, right when I'm talking to people, you're going to send an email, expect it to have an exhibit sticker on it. Your deposition is going to be taken. They're going to ask you, who else did you talk to? So you might, you know, and sometimes we try to protect our clients by giving them advice, saying if things go bad, these are the questions you're going to have to answer. And for some leaders, I've noticed, they, they get that scared look and they think, uh oh. And then our other leaders say, well, that's what I'm paying you for. There's a problem, you're going to fix it. Right? So how do you deal with leaders that sometimes are paralyzed by that sense of risk and understanding that every decision has so much gravity and you make a lot of big decisions yourself. How do you understand I'm not going to be foolish; I'm not going to be careless. I'm to going to put myself in the mind state to make the best decision.
[00:39:07.10] - John S. Berry
We've already said you're going to talk to other people, but what else do you do?
[00:39:11.00] - Mark Fava
Yeah, I tell people, look, and we've talked about failure, right? In the company, now that I'm in the previous company, there are engineers that are making some phenomenal calculations every single day about future aircraft, current aircraft, current weaponry, satellites. And some of them, especially of late, for obvious reasons, are just, they get a little bit risk averse or worried. What happens if I do make a mistake? And I tell people all the time, this goes back to our legal training. Look, if you, if you do everything right and you follow the processes and you follow the procedures and you just make a mistake, right? A pure, simple, negligent mistake because something maybe didn't go right, that's fine. Right. Because that will happen. But you can't be, you can't let that fear of that one mistake paralyze you from doing anything. You know, we, we look at, I mean the current plane that we're building right now In Charleston, the 787, all composite, never been done with a dual aisle commercial aircraft. And the CEO and the board of directors was making a huge risk to do that. I mean it was a bet the company move to do that with that aircraft.
[00:40:16.21] - Mark Fava
And, and you know, now it's, it's probably one of the bestselling aircraft in the world. But that took a lot of risk. Never been done before, cost a ton of money. Unfortunately, it was behind on schedule. But now you can't, you know, you want one now you got to get in line to get one for three, four years out. That was risk. And you know, if the board had said, we've never done this before, we're going to keep building aluminum aircraft, you know, we wouldn't have this product that we have today. And that was just a bunch of smart people getting together saying we're going to do it, it's risky, but we're going to do it because we've looked at all the angles.
[00:40:50.16] - John S. Berry
Yeah, I think sometimes you have to roll the dice now, but when people, I want to ask you this question, like I said, that's a calculated risk, that's a smart risk. When you've thought through all the variables and you understand the risk that you're taking. Great. Now I want to take you to, as a lawyer, I'm sure you've had the clients that you have taken them through all those risks, you have advised them and they have still decided to do something else. And then you have to clean up the mess. So here's my question. Do you prefer to be on the, hey, let's think through it and help them think through all the issues or do you prefer sometimes just to go in there and clean up the mess after it's done because you know that you don't have the pressure of making, helping them make the decision. The decision is already made, now you just got to clean it up. What do you prefer or what's less stressful?
[00:41:33.04] - Mark Fava
Oh, gosh, definitely. No one likes to clean the mess up, right? I mean, the CI told you so. It's just absolutely terrible. And I think that's our job as lawyers. Especially when I was at the law firm, you know, and this was another great mentor that told me this, and I'm sure your dad probably told you this too. I was worried one time because the advice that I had to give the client was not what the client wanted to hear. The client wanted to go full speed ahead this way. And this is again, at the law firm, it was bordering on being unethical and illegal. And I said, you know, I told the partner, I said, look, this is what he wants to do. And I don't know in good faith if I can stand up in the courtroom and represent that person, if they're going to do that. And we have an ethical duty to be able to do that. It's okay to take risks, it's okay to push the law, but you can't do that. So, the partner told me, and this might be one of these leadership lessons, he said, Mark, he said, you're not paid to tell them what they want to hear.
[00:42:26.02] - Mark Fava
You're paid to provide good legal advice. Now go give them good legal advice. There's 15 other people down the street that will take their money, tell them what they want to hear, and then 15 months later, they've still got a problem, and they spent a lot of money with you, and they're not happy. So that's what you got to do. And if they decide they don't like you because of that, and they leave, it's okay. And funny thing is, you know, the admiral said the same thing to me, right in the book. He said, everybody will say yes to me because I'm the admiral. You need to tell me that you truth, and don't let me do anything stupid. Wow. Same thing, right?
[00:42:59.17] - John S. Berry
Absolutely. My dad used to say that when I was a young lawyer and he was still practicing when I came into the firm. And he'd say he would tell, and I'd watch him, and he would tell clients, I'm not a good news lawyer. I'm a bad news lawyer. And another great piece of advice was he had me try cases with other senior lawyers in the community, and I was trying a criminal case with this great lawyer. And he said. And I asked him, well, you know, the client was just unruly, and it was. It was getting out of control. And I said, so what are you going to do? He said, look, at the end of the day, if someone's going to leave this courtroom in handcuffs, it needs to be the client, not you.
[00:43:39.11] - Mark Fava
Yeah, I did that. I mean I didn't do a whole lot of criminal work, but I was appointed to some civil cases that had some criminal components in it very early on in my career. And there's just no better way to learn than getting in a very difficult case like that with a difficult client, that it's an uphill battle, but you understand the constitutional right that that person has and the importance of the rule of law and you're going to be there to be there for it. And even when I did those and I made a mistake or I didn't do it the right way and get a good result, it was wonderful that I had some judges that would call me up to the bench afterwards. Right. I'm sure you've experienced that or your dad or somebody else has had, hey, come here. This is what you need to do. I mean I was doing one where it was a post conviction release where an individual had served their criminal term, but there was a statute in South Carolina that said because he or she was a violent sexual predator or convicted as such, they had to be assessed before they could be let out back into society.
[00:44:32.06] - Mark Fava
And it was a civil case. You know, I got court appointed to it and I remember making what I thought was a brilliant argument and I was ruled against. But afterwards the judge called me up and said, look, here's what you missed, here's what you need to do. Go back to that big law firm. Get your big law firm to pay for a psych analysis. Get me something in the record because I agree 100% this person's no further longer a threat to the society. But you've got to follow the law that says there's proof in the record to get us there. Right. And how kind was that? Right. So I went back, did exactly what he or she said. Actually it was a she. I remember her to this day and came back and went back before 45 days later and wasn't even opposed by, by the state. They just said, you know, we agree with, we agree with Mr. Fava on this at this time. So really, really neat when you have people that'll help you like that.
[00:45:18.01] - John S. Berry
Yeah, because you know, not all judges will. And I, I remember I was trying to court martial and the judge, I think it was only a major and maybe it's supposed to be a lieutenant colonel but he bright, bright guy. And at the end of it, you know, we always keep the ADC, the area defense counsel on, you know, because you get two lawyers, they get a free lawyer, and then they're paying us. And, you know, at the end of it, the ADC said, you know, I really want to get some feedback. And I said, well, here's what you did. He said, I want to ask the judge, too. I said, that's a great idea. And so, we brought counsel. And he said, judge, I'd really love to get some critiques or some feedback. The judge says, I don't give feedback at trials. And I just thought that was, hey, these young JAG lawyers are trying to learn. And I think some of the best feedback I've gotten from judges, some of it pleasant, like what you experienced, and some of it not so pleasant, but feedback is a gift, even when it hurts.
[00:46:08.22] - Mark Fava
Yeah, yeah. And you know what? There's good, you know, the frustration I hear from people all the time as well. It's a bad leader, a bad judge, a bad boss. And I say, well, it's the same thing in university, same thing in grade school. You're going to have a good leader, a good teacher, a bad teacher. But what you have to do is you can learn as much from them as you can the good ones. Right. To your point. Okay, well, if there's a bad leader, I'm going to outlive, outlast him or her. But I'm going to take that part of leadership and make it inherent to me such that I know that's who.
[00:46:37.02] - John S. Berry
I don't want to become outstanding. And so that takes us to the after action Review. If you could give us your exam, your best example of leadership and worst example of leadership that you experience, either civilian or military. Love to hear it.
[00:46:48.01] - Mark Fava
Yeah. The best are embodied in the book. Right. The best example of leadership, I think, is taking care of your people even when they fail. And the Admiral did that for me numerous times. And the footnote to that is, and I don't want to be too much of a spoiler in the book, but the Admiral got orders to go to another location and asked me at the end to go with him. I at that point decided I wanted to go to law school, which was not a good thing in his book. Right. I'm the cream of the crop. I'm his aide. It would reflect poorly on him from a position of his retention of good officers for that to happen. But you know what? He asked me, like four or five times. Are you sure you want to go to law school? Can I talk you out of this is what you want to do. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. And then he said, what can I do to help you? Right. I mean, how incredible that was when he could have been like that judge you're talking about and said, look, if you're not going to stay in the Navy, you're no longer going to be my aide.
[00:47:39.19] - Mark Fava
You know, you go back in the back, your staff officer as of tomorrow. And that was happening nonstop. So, I think those were just some great examples of really taking care of your people. And then the bad leadership, I think we probably saw this in the military, much more so in the corporate world is just the person who loses his or her temper and becomes a screamer. Right. There's no benefit to that to anybody. And the admiral I work for, all the lawyers I work for, they can look me in the eye and say, you know what? You very much disappointed me or I'm very disappointed in you. That is a lot worse than somebody ranting and raving and cussing at me, because I respect that and it hits hard. Right. Or your dad says that to you. That's tough, man. And I think that the person who gets excited and cusses and throws stuff, this is back in the day. I haven't seen it in quite a while, but it happened. And that I think thought was just poor leadership.
[00:48:35.13] - John S. Berry
Yeah, a lot of times there's just loss of self control. And you know what, we've all been there where we just lose our temper.
[00:48:42.20] - Mark Fava
I was a hothead as a young lieutenant, especially when things were going bad in the plane and we were losing the submarine and the equipment was going down. I was right there with them and that was just not the place to be.
[00:48:53.17] - John S. Berry
Absolutely. Well, Mark, where can veterans and other listeners learn more about your, you, your book and where can they get your book Lessons from the Admiral?
[00:49:05.17] - Mark Fava
Sure. It's definitely available on Amazon. It's an Amazon bestseller. You can also get it on barnesandnoble.com in both of those locations. And then the website is markcfava.com and it's on audiobook. I did the audiobook and would just be tickled pink if you got the book and let me know what you thought.
[00:49:25.08] - John S. Berry
And I also noticed that you are on LinkedIn and where else can people learn more about you other than your website? Because I know a lot of veterans. I didn't know this, but the military community is huge on LinkedIn. I didn't know that until about a few years ago.
[00:49:37.21] - Mark Fava
Yeah, huge on LinkedIn. The publisher said go where your people are. For me, it's always been LinkedIn because the professionals, the lawyers and the military has started a presence there. But a lot of my veteran friends are and it's a thing of age or still on Facebook. So I've got a Facebook Mark Fava, and then I've got Lessons from the Admiral Facebook, and then, then that goes over into Instagram. So between the four of those, you can always find me. But LinkedIn is probably where I am most active and definitely you can pick me up there.
[00:50:11.04] - John S. Berry
And finally we'll end up with this. You don't even have to explain why. Who is the leader that you admire most?
[00:50:17.17] - Mark Fava
Gosh, it sounds like it's probably the same as you, as my father. My dad commissioned me in the military like you. My dad was a Navy captain at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, at the old well, the day after graduation, he commissioned me and he told me, he said, son, you're going to do well. Take care of your sailors and listen to your chiefs and you're going to do just fine. And he didn't say, salute the senior officers, follow the general. He said, take care of your sailors and listen to your chiefs. And to this day, my dad went on to be the county administrator for Charleston County. Took him through Hurricane Hugo. But to this day, I'm sure, just like your father, when I bump into people in Charleston and they say, oh, yeah, you're Ed Fava, son, I smile because, you know, I, you know, it's just such a wonderful, wonderful thing. And he was the one that provided me so much advice and from a leader, both in the civilian capacity and as a military captain.
[00:51:16.23] - John S. Berry
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