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When we think of social change, our minds often go to protests, new laws, or stories of redemption and social justice. And social change is all those things. But often, it's also a long process where a community comes together, looks for solutions, and learns through trial and error.
Welcome to Impact in Action by MGT. On this podcast, we dive into the real stories behind every social impact solution.
From the vibrant heart of Baltimore to the rural depths of North Dakota, we discover what really goes into social innovation and community development. We ask the critical questions:
• What can we do to create economic empowerment across our local communities?
• How do we improve our schools to offer young people a better start in life?
• How do we help veterans transition their skillset to find the right job in their new life?
• How can we help those who manage our local communities provide for their community more efficiently?
Our guests step up to the microphone to reflect on their work, whether they're government professionals, social impact advisors, community engagement officers, or members of the public on a mission. They share their expertise and insights, show us what social impact looks like in the real world, and share their personal stories of empowerment.
Technology solutions, school transformation, or human capital solutions - a lot goes into social impact work. So, whether you're seeking advice to support local communities or you want to untangle key issues enabling economic empowerment, Impact in Action will help you grab the tools you need for yourself and your organization.
MGT is a nationally recognized technology and advisory solutions leader. As trusted advisors, we deliver enduring results that impact school districts, state and local governments, and other critical organizations with specialized technology, strategy, and managed solutions. We partner with clients to solve complex challenges, build resilience, drive meaningful change, and succeed together. At MGT, we're committed to impacting communities for good.
Impact in Action is the brainchild of MGT's dedicated advisors, produced in collaboration with the team at Lower Street. The podcast is hosted by Chase Christiansen, previously the host of the Cicero Podcast.
Through technology organizations, government, education, non-profits, or even social entrepreneurship, we all have a part to play in bringing about change. So, join us on Impact in Action, and start on your own journey of social transformation.
We all know someone who has been in the military. Whether it's a grandparent, a friend from school, a new colleague, you've heard their stories. And you might think you know what life in the force looks like, but do you? Signing up for duty, deployment overseas, moving from mission to mission, sure, that's all a part of it. But what skills do you learn in the force that you don't get anywhere else?
Chase Christiansen:And what happens when you decide to leave? There are close to 18,000,000 veterans in The United States. That's 6% of the adult population in this country. All of them have had to start a new life, and finding out how to begin again is really not that straightforward. So for our first series, we bring you a tale of reinvention.
Chase Christiansen:From the air force to local government, this is a tale about public service.
Michael Brethorst:In the service, there's all types of jobs out there. There's jobs from being a cook to being the J2 for the state of Minnesota's National Guard being in charge of all intelligence collection operations.
Charlene Stevens:If you are in local government, and if you've also been a veteran, you're very committed to public service, and that's a natural kind of alignment.
Tom Joyce:The last thing I wanna do is feel like I'm getting kicked off a team when I love. I'm a go ahead and retire and then prepare myself over the next year for the ultimate transition into the rest of my life.
Chase Christiansen:Over the next three episodes, you're gonna hear from people whose life mission through and through is to serve others, and you're going to follow one man on his journey to open the next chapter. You ready? Often when we talk about social change, we think about protests, new laws, people helping people, and stories of redemption and justice. But social change, it can start with one person changing their life and finding support to make that jump. Social change, it's finding hidden talent and giving people an opportunity to do good when they're needed.
Chase Christiansen:This is Impact in Action. On this podcast, we travel around the country to see what social transformation looks like on the ground. We tell the real stories behind every life changing impact solution. We're MGT, a provider of specialized technology and advisory solutions. Social impact, it's what we do every day.
Chase Christiansen:So let's take you to the heart of the action. Today, we're moving across the map from North Dakota to Virginia, Florida, and beyond with our special guest, Tom Joyce.
Tom Joyce:If you have something to say and it can add to the conversation, say it. You can't be sitting on your hands, and what that means is whatever you do, do your best at it and have an impact. Take action.
Chase Christiansen:I'm Chase Christiansen. Welcome to Impact in Action. Alright. Let's get started. Our story today begins with one man.
Chase Christiansen:His name is Tom, TJ if you know him.
Tom Joyce:My name is Tom Joyce. I'm the assistant city manager in the city of Minot, North Dakota. So for those who are not familiar with that, it's in North Central, North Dakota, city of about 50,000, fairly isolated, and about 50 miles south of the Canadian border.
Chase Christiansen:Over the next few episodes, you're gonna hear his voice a lot. So it's only fair we got to know each other better. Tom lives in North Dakota in the city of Minot. Minot is is a smallish place with, like, 50,000 residents. It's not tiny, but it still has that community feel.
Chase Christiansen:You've got the outdoors, and life goes at a pretty easy pace. Now there are essentially three things that put Mynah on the map. One is the weather, which you could say is extreme. We're talking snow and some brutally cold temperatures in the winter.
Tom Joyce:I got up here in mid January of last year, and, you know, it can be cold here in North Dakota, and it's funny a lot of my friends, they were going, Why not? And then, way up there, and, you know, they're questioning me, looking at me with a quizzical look, and I said, You know what? If I told you I was moving to Winnipeg, you would say, That is cool. You're going to Winnipeg. That's in Canada.
Tom Joyce:That's cool. And then I would say, well, you know, Winnipeg is significantly more north than Minot. Right?
Chase Christiansen:The second thing that you might need to know about Minot is their Scandinavian festival. Norse host fest, if that rings a bell, comes around every fall. And the third thing, the thing that they're most famous for, is the Minot air force base. A lot of military families and people from all over the country go through Minot. Keep that in mind for later.
Chase Christiansen:As you can guess, it plays a part in how Tom got here. For now, all you need to remember is that Minot is a vibrant little city, and Tom's job is to look after it. Tom works for the city government. As an assistant manager, he serves on the executive team to lead important public work, stuff like engineering, public utilities, water recycling, that kind of
Tom Joyce:stuff. On a day to day basis, you know, I try to move the organization forward, and that may be just regularly scheduled one on ones with my direct reports. That might be some other standing meetings that encompass the entirety of the city, be it public works, emergency services. And then I try to leave a little bit of white space in there where I can do some learning. I am awful at sitting behind my desk all day.
Tom Joyce:I tend to be a little bit of an energizer bunny. I like to get out and about and seeing the folks and seeing what they do and the people who are really doing the heavy lifting for the city.
Chase Christiansen:I'm sure you can tell already, but Tom is active. He likes to roll up his sleeves and work in the field. That's how he spends every day. Now the story of how Tom got here, we're gonna get into it. And, well, it's a long one.
Chase Christiansen:Because Tom has had a whole other life before this, one that took him to Germany and Kyrgyzstan, but also to some remote places like Alaska. Once upon a time, he worked in the Pentagon too. Yes. The very same Tom who is now braving his alarm every morning to help his city, he was there. So to really understand where Tom comes from, let's go back to the very beginning.
Tom Joyce:I was the youngest of three. I have two older sisters. And my formative years, I grew up in Newport News, Virginia. My dad was an army aviator, both rotary wing and fixed, wing. And early on in my life, we moved to Germany, and I think my dad was stationed over there for four years.
Tom Joyce:I think I was kindergarten through third grade. And then we actually came back to Newport News, Virginia.
Chase Christiansen:Tom comes from a military family. Service is in his blood. Or if it isn't, then there's definitely something that's quite different in the water in Virginia because somewhere along the way, he also decided to dip his toes in. When he was finishing high school, he started to look into military colleges.
Tom Joyce:I don't know if it was so much that I thought my dad's job was cool because, I really wasn't overly interested in being an aviator. But, really, it was just the concept of duty honor country and positive winning attitude and just disciplined approach, rigor, that kinda just tied in with who I am.
Chase Christiansen:It seems like Tom already knew who he was then. I mean, it can be hard to fathom. Right? Most people at 17, they don't really know who they are, what they're doing, and probably aren't quite ready to set their sights so directly on their future. But Tom was different.
Tom Joyce:We had this thing in high school I like to share with with folks sometimes. Right? And so we have this thing called senior prophecies. Right? And so I had a lot of my really good friends that were on this committee before the senior banquet, and then they're kinda announcing the the the prophecies.
Tom Joyce:And and they said, you know, it's like thirty years from now. Tom Joyce wrote a book, and it's entitled I'm Tom Joyce and You're Not. And so afterwards, I'm talking, I go, what was that? And everybody's laughing and laughing, and I'm like, what's that? You guys are dissing me.
Tom Joyce:What's going on? And they go, well, you know, you've just been a cocky son of a gun, you know, your whole life, but we still love you. So, you know, my mom and dad have video of me playing, flag football over in Germany in American youth activities, and and I'm sitting there yelling at a kid because he's watching the cheerleader and not concentrating on the game. And literally, I think I'm eight years old at that point.
Chase Christiansen:So, yes, even at a young age, Tom was a confident guy. His friends and family, they'll say cocky, but we won't go there. Either way, one thing's for sure, he knew exactly who he was, and he was going to get into an ROTC program. Now I don't wanna take anything for granted. So in case you're not familiar, ROTC stands for Reserve Officers Standing Corps.
Chase Christiansen:It's a leadership training program that prepares college students for service. At the end of their degree, they go on to serve in the army, the marine corps, navy, air force.
Tom Joyce:I ended up selecting the air force. I don't know, but I kinda think my parents were more in favor of me going into the air force because if you've been on United States air force, installations, they really are focused on quality of life and, you know, good infrastructure, good people, and I guess they had noticed that.
Chase Christiansen:So Tom applied to the University of Virginia. He got in, and that was it. Scholarship was in the pocket. He was ready to do the college thing.
Tom Joyce:Spent the next four years of my life doing what young college kids do, you know, enjoy life as a college student and participate in fraternity, intramurals, and and get enough schoolwork done that I passed, and knew at the end of the at the end of the four years, basically stay out of trouble and you're gonna be a second lieutenant in the United States Air Force.
Chase Christiansen:In that way, Tom's college experience was kind of a breeze. He got to enjoy it because he knew exactly where he was headed. Plus, he felt supported in pursuing his vocation. He didn't have firsthand experience yet, but at home, he had his very own personalized guidance counselor.
Tom Joyce:I think, initially, it was more my mom than my dad. But over time, my dad was very proud of me as well. And, but, you know, it's funny. I remember distinctly when I was departing Newport News, Virginia to go to my first duty station in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. It was about a two day drive, I guess.
Tom Joyce:And, two and a half day drive. And, you know, he gave me some really good guidance on the way out. And particularly, the guidance that has stuck with me was don't delegate and disappear. And what he meant is as an officer, you're gonna be given a lot of things to do and delegate it. Be responsible in your delegation.
Tom Joyce:Know that you're always held accountable. And then and he was exactly right. They carried me all the way through my
Chase Christiansen:career. When I hear this part of Tom's story, I can't help but think it's kind of like inheriting the family business. You know? Like, he grew up in it. He identified with the values, and his family moved around.
Chase Christiansen:So really everything in Tom's life was building up to that moment. But even so, once you're there, things start to look a little different from the inside.
Tom Joyce:There's a little bit of a culture shock. Just being in a different part of The United States is huge, geographically. So even though it was still Southeast, United States, I was living in, Northwest Florida, which some people finally call LA as in Lower Alabama. And, you know, it was just different. I was fortunate.
Tom Joyce:I had a great roommate that I met on day one of the Air Force, and we found a great apartment right on the beach in Okaloosa Island, and you can't beat it. So we're living a good life as as young second lieutenants, but the Air Force gives you a lot of responsibilities. And if you succeed, they give you more responsibilities. And so somewhere along the line in that first tour of duty, I was given the opportunity to apply for a graduate school program. And I'm like, you can't beat this.
Tom Joyce:I mean, they're gonna send me to graduate school, like, on their dime, and it's gonna count for my time. And they kinda throw you a bone, and then with that bone, you take it, and then you're you're you're adding more time that you owe back.
Chase Christiansen:The Air Force is smart. They know that there is an active duty service commitment at the end of their offer. Right? So it's a deal. It's like we give you more education and you give us a few more years.
Chase Christiansen:But from the get go, Tom was given opportunities to grow within the Air Force, and that was super motivating. It got him hooked.
Tom Joyce:They give you great opportunities, and there's great coaches and teachers and and mentors that to help you through it. And, next thing you know, twenty eight years added up. It went by real fast, though. Let me tell you.
Chase Christiansen:Now you might think you know what life looks like twenty eight years in the military. Often with the force, what comes to mind is being deployed away from family or maybe being in command of a unit on the front lines. But, actually,
Tom Joyce:I'm a 80 degrees from that. I'm a I'm a combat support services person. Right? I mean, I I work in the background providing quality of life, emergency services is really to the installation itself. The difference between an installation and our local government is that the installation just has this big, big fence around it, right?
Tom Joyce:And it's a secured complex and probably more physical security measures, but that's about it. You know, we have families. We have, you know, we have grocery stores. We have child development centers. We have schools on a military installation.
Tom Joyce:Right? We have roads. We have water treatment plants, the whole nine yards.
Chase Christiansen:Tom runs quickly through those ideas, but it's good to pause here, I think. A military base is run like a small town. It's something most of us don't really think about. There are residential quarters, schools, grocery stores, emergency services, and people working in them. Tom, he spent a lot of his career overseeing these services and managing teams.
Chase Christiansen:He built his life in these communities. In fact, that's how he met his partner.
Tom Joyce:I was fortunate to meet my wife, Caroline, in our first assignment. She was also a lieutenant in the air force. And then, you know, we've been yeah.
Chase Christiansen:Come on, Tom. You can't leave it there. We need to hear the details.
Tom Joyce:Yeah. So I think I was running a five k race or something, and and she was part of the sign up, and I was late getting there. It was like signing up at the end, so I just signed up and went and ran. And I guess she, like, you know, she said, gotta meet that guy, whatever. And then a week or so later, we're at a a meeting, and she plopped down and sat next to, me and my buddy.
Tom Joyce:And my buddy keeps asking me, who's that? And I go, I have no idea. And then next thing you know, I introduced myself and asked her out on a date the next week. I think we went out for lunch, and then here we are thirty plus years later.
Chase Christiansen:Now they're married and have three kids. So, you know, when you hear this, it's easy to see why Tom spent three decades in the air force. He built his whole life in it. For him, the military wasn't just a job. It was an entire lifestyle.
Chase Christiansen:Having said that, his career was phenomenal. He got his master's degree, and he went from a lieutenant to a captain. He got to work in Central America, in Panama to be specific, where he stayed for four years. And that was only the start of two decades he spent moving from opportunity to opportunity. Inside the air force, Tom felt he was valued for his talent, and that wasn't nothing.
Tom Joyce:Then I'll tell a quick little story that I share with a lot of my teammates because oftentimes, leaders don't take the time to tell their subordinates and not even their direct subordinates, people in the ranks, how good they are and what they could be, and help steer them. So I I was doing this job that I really loved. It tied in to, my master's degree, and I really was enjoying it. And then I was asked to do a job where I worked for the number two officer at the wing in Panama, and the colonel asked me if I wanted this particular job where I was gonna be leading exercises and also doing some not so great work where we should call inspector general, but it's important work where you listen to complaints and and you try to work through it as kinda an ombudsman. Right?
Tom Joyce:So, he thought I was the right person for the job and called me in his office, and, you know, he could read that I was, like, not too keen on it. And so, he said, dude, he goes, hey, how about this? This was a Friday. He goes, how about thinking about it this weekend? Let's get together again Monday morning.
Tom Joyce:So, I went home that weekend, and the whole time, you know, I'm talking to Caroline, and I'm just kicking myself. I'm going, what a wimp. And he sees that I can do it, but I'm scared to do it, and I don't want to fail. And I came back in his office on Monday morning as scheduled, and and I just said, hey, sir. Thanks so much for the opportunity.
Tom Joyce:I appreciate your confidence in me, and I'm gonna go ahead and take you up your offer, and thank you very much. And he looked me straight in the eye, and he said, I knew you'd say
Chase Christiansen:that. Taking that chance on a job he wasn't sure about, Tom didn't know it then, but it was about to open some new doors. His career was about to take a turn. Because when you show up and take on a challenge, people notice.
Tom Joyce:Out of the blue, I was asked to go to the Pentagon as a young captain, and then I didn't you know, like, how did I get selected for this? I didn't know anybody up there. And then I I I meet with a senior leader who's become a great friend and mentor of mine over the years, and he goes on and tells me that these two colonels on his staff had recommended me to come to the air staff. And I'll tell you, you know, always be on the lookout for, who's out there that could potentially succeed you somewhere down the line. You know, you gotta look for talent and then help them.
Tom Joyce:That's my practice. That's what I try to do myself, is always be on the lookout for talent.
Chase Christiansen:From then on, Tom moved through jobs fast. In total, he was in Washington DC for five years in the early two thousands. Post 09/11, his role was to do strategic planning for potential war efforts. Later, he also directed installations in Germany and Kyrgyzstan. But the way he learned to be in command, his first time in an executive role like that, it was in Alaska.
Chase Christiansen:Now I wanna stop on this experience specifically because I think it gives a really good sense of what Tom was like in his job. You see, moving to Alaska showed Tom what he loved to do, and that's taking care of the community, organizing resources.
Tom Joyce:There was about 600 plus on our team. We are taking care of all of food and beverage operations on the base, a lodging, both temporary and permanent lodging, dormitories for the airmen, and a very broad scope of what we call morale welfare and recreation activities. That's child and youth development centers, school age programs for kids, golf courses, bowling centers. So just a a wide variety of taking care of airmen and civilians and their families.
Chase Christiansen:If a military installation was a city government, Tom was basically in charge of housing, education, social services, and parks and rec. I mean, what's not in there? Oh, yeah. The city planning. Yeah.
Chase Christiansen:He did get a slice of that too.
Tom Joyce:When I was in Alaska, we had an old facility. It's an old retail facility, what we call an exchange, which is just like a basic target type of, facility. And they they had moved, and we had an opportunity to change that. So we turned that into what we call the Arctic Oasis. We got a team together and got some great ideas, and we made it really an indoor community center complex for everything from walking track, age appropriate playgrounds to skateboard park, you know, etcetera, coffee shop.
Tom Joyce:So that was fun. That was I was able to get that done in two years. So that was our job there. And then, you know, you can it's not just day to day. You gotta do your day to day work, but you gotta have time for planning for the future.
Tom Joyce:Because if you need a new facility, if you need a new equipment or what have you, you gotta program that, plan for that, and so you can get the funds for it so you can execute.
Chase Christiansen:So a lot of military life can be this too. It's a different version of service, something a little closer to community engagement, but it's equally valuable.
Tom Joyce:I'll tell you what the skills are that our our service members are. They're disciplined. They're trainable. They're motivated. They're passionate, and they can learn something.
Tom Joyce:Right? Everything's learnable.
Chase Christiansen:Truth is, this kind of service, it's a skill. It's a talent, and you can't get trained for this everywhere. So Tom might not have always been conscious of it, but from mission to mission, he was refining his expertise.
Tom Joyce:About mid career or a little bit before mid career, the chief of staff of the Air Force at the time, general Ronald Fogelman, came up with what he called the little blue book, and it was the Air Force values. Every airman in the United States Air Force knows his values, and that is, integrity first, service before self, and excellence in all we do. And so we talk about integrity. We talk about service in that public service motivation, and we talk about striving for excellence. You know, winning matters.
Tom Joyce:There's no second place. We don't talk about this frequently, you know, in in the in defense and armed services, but there's no second place. You know, our armed services are there to protect our way of life, and that means you gotta win. And it all wraps up into the duty honor country. So having those values as an organization, no matter what organization you're in, that everybody can put their arm around those values, and they mean something to them and have a discussions about them, to me, is very, very important.
Chase Christiansen:The other thing that's baked into the dynamic of military life is teamwork, cooperation, and that is needed literally everywhere.
Tom Joyce:Over time, you understand that you can't get it all done yourself. And even, you know, one person, LLCs probably can't get it all done themselves. They probably gotta lean on IT support for a contract, or they gotta lean on, some a CPA to help with their finances. So there's this domino effect of we're better together, and, you know, we work together and be honest and open with each other. These concepts of trust, you know, they're meaningful, and you gotta talk about them because, you you spend most of your waking hours at work, and you want work to be a
Chase Christiansen:a place that you're comfortable, and and you can have these tough conversations, these candid conversations with your teammates. Building that trust matters because the nature of the job is that oftentimes your mission ends before you can see the fruit of your labor.
Tom Joyce:You're typically only in the job for one to two years, and then you move on. And and most people look at it like, well, that's crazy. So when you take a position, you have to understand what your predecessors have been advocating for and what's planned for, and you have to carry that torch. And so sometimes you can't do your legacy project. You got to carry the torch because this has all been planned out, it's programmed, and it makes sense, and you just gotta continue fighting for it so you can get the resources for that.
Chase Christiansen:So a career in the military, it's often a succession of opportunities linked in a chain. Tom's life in the air force was no exception. By the end of his career, Tom had lived abroad, and he was a colonel. He was known for his ability to step up where and when he was needed.
Tom Joyce:And I remember I got a call out of the blue as the next assignment was coming, and it was from a former boss of mine who called and said, hey, Tom, just I'm gonna tell you what your next position is gonna be. I said, okay. So what's that? And and he says, we're gonna move you to Dover, Delaware to be the commander of the the mortuary. And, again, this is at the height of the buildup in Afghanistan, and and I, you know, I was stunned.
Tom Joyce:I didn't really say anything. And then he goes, TJ, TJ, are you still there? And I go, Oh, I'm here. And I said, Sir, I'm the fun guy. You know, why are you sending me there?
Tom Joyce:I'm the fun guy. And he said, because you're who we need.
Chase Christiansen:Lesson learned there. Sometimes it's not about what you'd like to do next. It's about what you're good at, where you're missed.
Tom Joyce:You know, resilience matters. Right? People are doing a very difficult job. The duty, honor, and respect for our fallen and and the care and the support that we're gonna give their family members, they were going through some, tough times, and the Air Force thought I might be the right leader to help them through that. That was about a twenty twenty month job, and it was a lot.
Tom Joyce:Probably compartmentalized a lot of that personally. But, from there, I kinda got my dream job, to be honest.
Chase Christiansen:The dream job, it was really big. Tom was sent to San Antonio in Texas to become the director of services for welfare and recreation. This time, he was going to do this at the agency level. That's the most strategic operational level in the US Air Force. In this role, Tom was in charge of support and guidance to over 47,000 base level leaders.
Chase Christiansen:Yeah. It's hard to top that, and in fact, he wouldn't because the dream job was also going to be his last in the air force. At this point in our story, I hope it's clear to you just how rich Tom's life in the air force had been, how much he'd learned, which is why leaving, it felt out of the question to some extent. Like, let's just say Tom was not expecting it. Not now.
Tom Joyce:I'm there in San Antonio, and I was hoping to do that last job for four years, which would give me thirty years, which is kind of the max at the time for colonels to retire. But about a year and a half in, or maybe even a year into it, the Air Force realized that we had more colonels than we need.
Chase Christiansen:Overstaffed. Yeah. That kind of thing happens, even in meticulous organizations like the Air Force.
Tom Joyce:It's not frequent. They're always making adjustments. They're looking, you know, it's a zero sum game. We need some money for something else, etcetera, etcetera. So they were gonna have what they refer to as a CERB, selective early retirement board.
Tom Joyce:And that means you're competing against all your peers that came in when you did to stay in. And, I was working for the Air Force Personnel Center at the time, and some of my good friends were telling me, like, hey, TJ. I mean, you got a great track record, but there's people with a better track record than you. You know, they kinda gave me some inside baseball, we call it. Again, this is all colonels.
Tom Joyce:I mean, you've all been successful leaders. You've been commanders of thousands of people, you know, so you make it easier for everybody if you just go ahead and say, hey. Thanks for allowing me to serve for twenty eight years. I'm gonna leave with my head held high and and go look for what's next.
Chase Christiansen:Tom knew what was at stake. He wanted to leave on good terms, so he was ready to bite the bullet, but he wasn't gonna go without a negotiation.
Tom Joyce:So, here's the deal. If you meet the board, if you select to meet the board and you don't make it through, you have to retire in ninety days. But if you opt to voluntarily retire before the board meets, they give you a year to retire. So I said the last thing I wanna do is feel like I'm getting kicked off a team that I've given my whole life to and I love. I'm gonna go ahead and take the voluntary approach and retire and then prepare myself over the next year for the ultimate transition into, the rest of my life.
Chase Christiansen:The rest of my life. This is what gets me. At that point, Tom had been part of this world, this microcosm. You know, it's like, you get how everything works. You're looked after.
Chase Christiansen:You know your community and their needs. You're confident about what you bring to the table. And then, just like that, you gotta get back out there. Some people have to turn that around in three months. I mean, that's so short.
Chase Christiansen:Tom, he at least got a year, but that is not a whole lot of time to figure out what you want to do. In fact, Tom will tell you.
Tom Joyce:You know, I probably rushed into it, to be honest. I ran through the tape, and then I really didn't plan the way ahead as well as I could have. We had three young kids, you know, one in high school in San Antonio. So I kinda say, I'd like to stay in San Antonio, but, you know, I didn't know. And I ended up taking ultimately what I would just call the wrong job for me.
Chase Christiansen:So, yeah, Tom jumped at the first opportunity. That got him a job in banking. And in fairness, I don't think it was really such a bad call. The company was USAA, a banking and insurance company headquartered in San Antonio. They cater to the military community, which means it was a known entry point.
Chase Christiansen:Yes. We recruit veterans, and, yeah, we recognize your skills.
Tom Joyce:I was really looking for initially, like, some leadership opportunities maybe in the hospitality, business, and then I also was looking at some city and county government type of roles. And then ultimately, I talked to a friend slash mentor of mine who was a senior leader with USAA, and so I just had lunch with him and was getting his opinion. He retired as a general officer in the Air Force, and I'd worked with him years ago in in Panama. And then at the end of the lunch, he said, hey, we'd like to have you on our team. But so then I got really fixated with USAA, and I'm not saying that negatively.
Tom Joyce:They're a great company, but I think I got overly fixated.
Chase Christiansen:And the thing is, it's easy to understand how that happened. For veterans, it's often very difficult to reenter the job market. They're really not sure if their skillset will be recognized. I mean, most people don't know what you do in the forest besides combat. Right?
Chase Christiansen:So what will they see in your CV? A recent study from a nonprofit called Call of Duty Endowment shows that Veterans often take their first job available after they leave the force and they don't really wait to find their best fit. That's exactly what happened to Tom. He made a decision that felt easy, but it wasn't right for him.
Tom Joyce:I kinda knew it a week getting into it, to be honest with you. I had been given a lot of freedom of maneuver prior to that. And, you know, I liked working with people. I liked the I liked the work that I was doing. But from where I had been, my transition, I felt like this wasn't even close to a lateral, that it was more along the lines of work that I had done maybe fifteen years prior.
Tom Joyce:And it I'll be honest, it was a little bit of a blow to the ego, and I just couldn't deal with it as well as I should have. You know, maybe that's where it goes back to lacking in patience, and I realize that now. And, but it was my own fault. I shouldn't have accepted that job. It wasn't the right fit for me.
Tom Joyce:It's a great company, great people, great mission. I just took the wrong job. I don't blame anybody but myself.
Chase Christiansen:Back then, Tom knew that his next career would need to give him leadership, but he didn't see the full spectrum of his his skill set. Tom was good with people, and he had worked with many communities. He liked to engage, and he needed a job that would let him do that. So at this point, it might be worth reconsidering that high school premonition. Do
Chase Christiansen:you remember it?
Chase Christiansen:I'm Tom Joyce, and you're not. It was a joke then, but it said something about our friend, TJ. He knew exactly who he was. Now it was time to see what that meant outside of the force.
Tom Joyce:It might take you three tries to find the right fit, and you have to be okay with it. You've been putting on the uniform for over twenty years, but at this point, it is me incorporated. You know, it's not going from selfless to selfish. It's about if you wanna contribute and feel good about what you're doing at the end of the day, you gotta be in a position that you enjoy in a role that you enjoy.
Chase Christiansen:Tune in next week to continue Tom's journey and to hear some insights from brand new guests.
Michael Brethorst:When you leave the service, you definitely leave something behind. But at the same time, you're gaining a new family. When you start participating in your local American Legions, your vets program, VFWs, your American veterans programs, you name it, there's opportunities to participate.
Chase Christiansen:That's right. There's a lot more to come from our veteran story. You've been listening to Impact in Action, podcast from MGT, a provider of technological and social impact solutions. Thank you to Tom Joyce for sharing his life with us. We genuinely love speaking with him.
Chase Christiansen:If you enjoy this podcast, then you should subscribe right now. Just go do it. Couple of clicks. You can also leave a review or a five star rating. Every little bit helps.
Chase Christiansen:For this episode, our production coordinator was Sara Balli, supervision from Tiffanie Reynolds. We make this podcast with the team at Lower Street, writing and production from Lise Lovati, sound design from Ben Crannell I'm your host, Chase Christiansen. Thank you, and see you again next time on Impact in Action.