Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
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.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/@PTSDLawyers/podcasts
Follow us on social media:
https://facebook.com/veteranled
https://twitter.com/veteranled
https://Instagram.com/veteranled
[00:00:03.140] - James Suh
In my head, I just start going down a rabbit hole and I had this 30-page business plan. I found investors, we found a location, and I was about to sign on the dotted lines. And my wife is like, what are you doing?
[00:00:15.670] - John S. Berry
Welcome to Veteran Led. We are recording at Veteran Edge. I'm John Berry with Freddie Kim. And today we are interviewing James Suh, founder of Nashville Analytics and Marine Corps Veteran. Welcome to the show, James.
[00:00:26.470] - James Suh
Awesome. Thank you. Marine Corps and Navy Veteran.
[00:00:28.960] - John S. Berry
Marine Corps and Navy Veteran. Tell us about that.
[00:00:31.240] - James Suh
So, I actually left high school, and I was looking for something a little bit more structured than going to college. I think I was a little bit lost in high school, so I wanted to enlist. And the Navy had a really difficult program that was aligned with my academic interests. It was the nuclear power program. So, I spent 3 years going through the nuclear power school as a reactor operator. The Navy sent me to college afterwards to come back as a nuke officer. And about my junior year, I realized that I did not want to be stuck on a submarine for 8 to 9 months at a time. So, I started to hang out with the Marines, did a lot of workouts and realized, hey, this is, this is actually my people. I spent about 6 months just grinding and asking people, please let me out of the Navy. I want to join the Marine Corps. So, I took quite a few recommendations and writings, but eventually they relented. And late my junior year, they, the Navy allowed me to switch over to the Marine Corps, and I spent 5 years as a logistics officer.
[00:01:23.660] - John S. Berry
And you got out as a captain?
[00:01:25.010] - James Suh
Yes.
[00:01:25.430] - John S. Berry
What did you do after that?
[00:01:26.730] - James Suh
So actually, I had two outs. I was with 2nd Marines in 2002. We were out at Twentynine Palms in 9/11, and my unit was not supposed to deploy, 2nd Marines. So, our commanding officer said, hey, if anybody is getting ready for their terminal leave and want to get out, you need to do it now before they implement a stop loss. So, me and probably several dozen other Marines decided to sort of take that literally about a month after my terminal leave ended, my unit was deployed to Iraq. So, I felt like I missed something on that side. I spent a year at Anheuser-Busch in operations at the brewery in Newark. And around October, November of that year, I called Marine Corps up and said, hey, I need to get back. I need to get reattached to a unit. And they assigned me to MWS's— my gosh, 324. Uh, and I deployed with an infantry unit, uh, to, uh, uh, Ramadi in 2004, spent a bulk of the year out there and just kind of, I don't, felt like it was a thing that I needed to do to feel like I completed my service in the Marine Corps.
[00:02:34.510] - James Suh
And then after I got out of the Marine Corps, I came to DC and, uh, started a defense consulting gig, one of the first or earlier engagements with DHS in the early days.
[00:02:43.960] - John S. Berry
And now you're the founder of Nashville Analytics. I know there's some stuff that happened between there, including a pop-up taco stand, but, but let's, let's talk about what is Nashville Analytics and what does it do?
[00:02:53.230] - James Suh
So, Nashville Analytics started as a data analytics company. I spent a lot of time developing operations and business expertise with organizations, and I happened to have a data analytics skillset. So, I appreciated very specifically what executives needed insight-wise in order to make the decisions that they needed to make to drive organization strategy, tactical execution. So, when I brought in my co-founders, I realized that when I was doing this kind of project work, it was very segmented. I would go in there for 2 months, 6 months, maybe 9 months at a time. The project would end because I would solve their problem and all the messy stuff with the data architecture, the pipeline, CRM implementations to help drive those insights, I really wasn't doing. So, I was always handing this business off to other clients and I recognized, you know, in bringing on my partners that we can actually manage and support the entire pipeline. And what that does for us and for the clients is, you know, oftentimes our clients will do a data warehouse implementation, and they'll create this massive system. It takes 18 months, 2 years to implement data warehousing and the data architecture to create the reporting when what an executive needs, a business needs is like a really small piece.
[00:04:05.700] - James Suh
Because we understand the entire pipeline and what an executive needs to drive decision-making, we can actually optimize that delivery. So, we go and do the data availability, the data accessibility that drives the insight stuff. About a year and a half ago too, we made a pretty notable pivot internally. We wanted to start doing work that was more fulfilling to us. So, we made a pivot towards nonprofits. We wanted to have at least one nonprofit that we work with. And, you know, fast forward 18 months, 75% of our clients are in the nonprofit space. We recognize that when you start supporting nonprofits, there's a common base set of needs that they have, so we can optimize around that. So, we're delivering world-class service to a nonprofit organization at a cost that you would not expect with the type of service that we provide. So makes the team excited. We feel good about what we do. Uh, in past lives for all of the founders and everybody on the team, we worked in organizations that were just purely profit-driven, and I think coming from the military that is just a little draining and wasn't fulfilling for us.
[00:05:07.970] - Freddie Kim
James, we kind of breezed by this, but you're a very cerebral guy. Can you tell us how your experience was when you were in the nuclear reactor, you know, when you first joined and all the qualifications required to do that? And then you transitioning as a ground pounder, Marine Corps, right? I mean, how did that fit? But yeah.
[00:05:37.420] - James Suh
Yeah, you know, I think the my childhood was such that school was kind of an escape for me. So, I always enjoyed the academic stuff. I didn't have a chance or an environment that allowed me to participate in sports, any of that stuff. So I was, I mean, I was 112 pounds when I graduated high school, right? Really skinny kid, no strength. I think I had a little bit of cardio, but I didn't really know that. But I was really like, I escaped in math and the sciences and history and stuff. So, when I looked at what I wanted to do, the nuclear power program just offered something that wasn't available. And I was terrified to go to university college because I didn't know anybody that provided that. I didn't get any counseling. So, it was sort of like a foreign concept for me. And my stepdad being in the Army, he was actually in the Army Nuke Power Program when they had it for a number of years. It felt like something I understood, which is kind of weird for a high school kid to like feel like he understands like nuclear power. But I felt like I understood that in a, in a different way.
[00:06:39.580] - James Suh
And I went through the program, and it was phenomenal. You effectively got an undergrad in nuclear engineering in a couple of years in that side. It was just like grinding and grinding. And I did well enough as a reactor operator going through the pipeline for the Navy to say, hey, we're going to send you to college and, and sort of come back. And I think from the time I graduated high school until I went to college in the ROTC program, I had gained about 40 pounds. I was starting to get a little bit fit, so I felt like I can start exploring other things that I missed out in high school, missed out as a kid, and realized that, hey, I've got an opportunity to do something. And then when I started working out with the Marines, I was way behind. I started to keep up, then I started to pass individuals. My fitness level came up, my confidence started to increase, and I realized, okay, Academics is fantastic. I really enjoyed that. And I think had I not had the child that I had, I would've probably continued to pursue that side, maybe research and physics and things.
[00:07:34.710] - James Suh
But this part was missing. And I was like, this is, this is something that I like really drives me. So, I think that switch from the very cerebral, like Nick Power, the academic side to the more physical, like leadership, outward-facing military, the Marine Corps, sort of culture was really invigorating for me. I think ultimately when I reflect back on it, I still culturally fit better as a Navy nuke, but I am presenting— I think I present well as a Marine Corps officer, a Marine Corps Veteran in some contexts. So.
[00:08:09.520] - Freddie Kim
How has that— just that attention to detail, the data focus, the— what you've learned as in the nuclear program, how's that impacting you today with working with data for your clients? What kind of problems do you solve for that?
[00:08:27.290] - James Suh
Maybe I'll talk about a primary reason, like another reason that I left the Navy. The academic part was really invigorating, and I think I started to really appreciate the value of structure and checklists and like there's a right and a wrong way to do things. The downside of nuke power, I think, for individuals that are exploratory and creative is there's a lot of rigidity, a lot of left and right lateral image. You have to do this. So if primary steam pressure drops by 5 PSI and the core temperature goes up by a few degrees, it tells you something very specific happened within the reactor. And you've got like 12, 20 sailors just like checking off, like you have to do this, this, this in very sequential order. And I think that, that felt like something was missing for me because the Marine Corps, we have the fewest resources, the fewest people, high urgency, high demand. So I think for me, like blending that, there's opportunities to be very rigid and structured where you have to do that, but then also being able to pivot and say, okay, this situation actually calls for a little bit more creative problem solving.
[00:09:36.920] - James Suh
It's like a non-traditional. And I think being able to step into a room with executives and say, hey, what problem are you facing? That's a pretty standard issue. Like, just go through these checkboxes. You just need a list and a process and you should be able to solve the problem. Or that one's kind of interesting. Like, yeah, you may be able to use a checkbox, but there's some things that may not work for that. Let's start looking for and exploring a different approach and then we can start brainstorming. And I think the Marine Corps created that, that skill set.
[00:10:03.260] - Freddie Kim
You know, one last thing on the Marine Corps and then we can move on. But with your background, right, with your background, with your attention, again, your academic background as well, going into Marine Corps, How did you think about firefights in Ramadi? Like, was there a different way you assessed how to react to contact, for example, in a firefight? Or was it the standard SOP and everyone followed the Marine Corps way? Was there any ability to adjust to the environment?
[00:10:35.510] - James Suh
So first, like, I wasn't in any direct firefights as a logistics officer. I was more in the periphery on that side. You know, going out into— when I was outside the wire, it was within infantry, and we're doing patrols. So in that context, we received a lot of fire when we were like going back and forth. But I, you know, and I think the context that I brought, just like being in the environment— my son was a Marine as well. He was in Afghanistan during the withdrawal. He was really close to Abbey Gate when the bomb went off. And so he came back like really struggling. And I think we, we both went into the Marine Corps with very different contexts. So I think generally being in an environment like that, just being in country, I had a very traumatic childhood and upbringing. So my brain was sort of like wired for kind of unstructured, unpredictable environments. And so I was able to sort of manage through that where my son came in much more stable, things were predictable. So played a lot of video games and he wanted to join the Marine Corps because it was like a cool thing to do, right?
[00:11:39.060] - James Suh
Where mine was an escape from the reality that I was like living in. And I think, you know, going into that, that piece. Yeah, I don't know. That's a, it's an interesting question. I think because I didn't like deal with like a lot of the trauma that a lot of Veterans deal with in the direct engagement, it was difficult for me to, and maybe it's like hard for me to answer.
[00:11:58.380] - Freddie Kim
Yeah. I mean, not to put you on the spot or anything, but I personally, I've overanalyzed firefighting and, and, you know, combat, just like, oh, we could have done this better, we could have done that better. But there's a fog of war as well. So I was just curious from your academic background if you've—
[00:12:18.130] - James Suh
yeah, so interesting thing that I did when I was there, we got into, um, Camp Manhattan. Man, it's been such a long time ago. When I got into that space, we actually did a lot of patrols, meeting a lot of the individuals that the Iraqis that were living in, in this specific area and just like identify some pretty big gaps. And the, the piece that I had been missing as a kid, you know, not having the resources to do what I need, I saw that like magnified so much more in that environment. We were in Habaniya in that area. So one of the things I started doing is, hey, let's start collecting and getting donations because it was 2004. The public was like, how do we get engaged? How do we support? So, we started sending messages out and having communications back to the States. We probably collected half a million dollars of donations. We had hundreds of soccer balls that were being sent in, school books and school supplies and things. And we used that, I think, because of the things that I had lacked when I was growing up. I started to see a need for that there and then found a way to start driving some of that.
[00:13:21.640] - James Suh
So, we had large GP tents just filled with things. And anytime we would go out on patrol, we would take a bunch of these things and hand it out to the kids. It was before things got a little bit wonky, I think, in 2005, 2006. So that's, I think, a way that I had to kind of approach, like, rationalizing and normalizing what we were doing. And some of the stuff that we did over there, even on the patrols, despite not being in firefights, you know, having weapons drawn on, like, women and children, like, outside while we're looking for, like, you know, maybe their husband that was out there, like, that, like, did something that just felt irrational to me at the time. So then finding a way to sort of, like, how do you normalize that and like do something positive to sort of offset some of those experiences?
[00:14:04.640] - Freddie Kim
Well, I think this leads to the after-action review. Do you have examples of great leaders you serve with and bad leaders you serve with? No names required.
[00:14:16.770] - James Suh
Yeah, so this is, um, I had every expectation of staying in the military, especially the Marine Corps, as a career. I loved the camaraderie, the stressors it put on me, like in a good way to like make me improve and expand. I somehow with my academic background, I had an engineering degree in computer systems engineering. The Marine Corps made me a logistics officer, put me in MWSS 274 in the air wing. And my first assignment was as a training officer. So, I was like looking at physical fitness for the unit. So absolutely no consideration for what I was bringing to the table. But in that experience, I was actually in charge of assessing the fitness of all of the different Marines and the officers that were in the unit, up to and including the commanding officer. And my very first experience doing that, about 6 months in, the commanding officer was not physically fit, but the Marines had said, hey, we always grade them and like, we feel obligated to like count more pull-ups and count more crunches and like overlook his slow run. And the S3 was definitely overweight. So, he had come in to me and said, the S3, and said, hey, I'm going to go for a run.
[00:15:29.310] - James Suh
I'm going to be a little bit sweaty, but you need to take off 5 pounds because, you know, water weighs something. I was like, excuse me? He went out for a run, and I printed the Marine Corps regs and I pasted it on the scale. And he came in, measured himself, clearly overweight. He's like, you need to drop, take 5 pounds. I'm like, Sorry, sir. Marine Corps regs. Put overweight in the system and hit submit. And the commanding officer did a— he was a lieutenant colonel. He did pull-ups. I was like, you got 3 pull-ups. He's like, I got 8 pull-ups. I was like, no, sir, your chin cleared the bar 3 times. And his sit-ups were terrible. So, he came in, he's like, this is the worst fitness score I've ever gotten in the Marine Corps. I'm like, that's what you got, sir. So that prevented him from getting— picking up colonel. So, I was building databases. I had the highest fitness score. I had expert on rifle, pistol. And when I got my fit rep back, it said I was diamond shape among the worst officers in the Marine Corps.
[00:16:26.500] - Freddie Kim
That's the backlash.
[00:16:27.320] - James Suh
So that, like, I didn't care about that particular piece, but I was like, if I am dealing with this kind of politics as a second lieutenant, like, I don't have a place in the Marine Corps. I made a decision less than a year into the Marine Corps that I was going to get out. Right. So that, that bad leadership sort of like ended it right there. Which was kind of remarkable to me because just a few years earlier, I had an MOI at Rensselaer and the assistant officer, the Marine instructor, gunnery sergeant that were phenomenal, right? They're the driving force that said, hey, this is the type of leadership that I would expect, the support, seeing like the unique skill set everyone brings to the table and like really pushing you to like, like achieve your best. So those two are like juxtaposed almost right next to each other. I'm like, I can't, like, I know this is good, but the Marine experience I had first, like, felt more like an anomaly. And then what I experienced in the fleet felt like, hey, is this the norm? And I may be wrong on that, but I think like it's the amount of influence.
[00:17:29.490] - James Suh
Had I not had that experience, or maybe I was in an infantry unit first, almost certainly I would've stayed in for at least 20, you know?
[00:17:36.480] - Freddie Kim
Yeah, I would agree. Anomaly. Some Marine Corps officers, some of the infantry officers I served with, some of the most professional, phenomenal folks I've worked with. So how can people get a hold of you, James, and why should they reach out to you?
[00:17:50.360] - James Suh
Yeah. So, I think one of the things that we're really striving for, we are a bunch of tech nerds. We love this AI, the agentic, the coding. One of the things that we recognized early on is that organizations are not able to keep up with technology because they either don't have the academic background, and most times they just don't have the capacity to do that. So, a lot of the things that we've been doing is how do you lower the barrier to adoption, right? Because I feel like if you get over the initial hump and realize not just the prompts inside one of the chatbots, but truly using AI to its potential, if you get over the hump and appreciate like this is how you install GitHub and here's how you actually write really good code using Claude Code or Codex and build these multi-agent systems that are governed, when they see, okay, it's actually not as difficult and there's a resource we go out to just ask a question, people tend to adopt that. And for us, I think from maybe from a semi-selfish perspective is the organizations that appreciate the value of that and get over that hump, they start to grow and then, then they need services that we provide.
[00:18:58.330] - James Suh
So, and it makes us feel good because, you know, we've, we've given money to nonprofits in the past and, we don't really know where it goes. But when we take, instead of money, we spend our time and host a free one-day workshop and like show them how to implement that stuff, like that we feel is a meaningful like legacy we can leave to the organization on that side. We're online, nashvilleanalytics.com, and then you could just email me directly or you could text me. It's 615-354-7888. And yeah, happy to chat about anything and everything.
[00:19:31.520] - Freddie Kim
Awesome. Thanks so much.
[00:19:33.120] - John S. Berry
Yeah, thanks so much, James. And as we end, I think one, one last story, the, the pop-up taco shop. Now this is, I think, you know, we all get burned out from time to time. So, you, you had a period where you thought maybe you need a little change. Tell us about that just in a minute.
[00:19:45.580] - James Suh
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I was, I was trying to scale my business and, and companies kept on pulling me and saying, hey, this is great, you got your own business, but we want you to be full-time, whatever it is, right? Our CIO or COO or operations to help. And I kept on going into that and, burning myself out very quickly, then leaving and then trying to scale the business. I got to like a really bad place in life and a kind of like reflecting back on all the things that were aggregating stress-wise. So, I just needed something else. And I got into this international taco shop thing. I'm like, you know what, we can actually do tacos that are, you know, there's Korean tacos, we could do a German taco and an Irish taco and an Indian taco and started putting recipes and people loved it. And then, in my head, I just start going down a rabbit hole and I had this 30-page business plan. I found investors, we found a location, and I was about to sign on the dotted lines. And my wife is like, what are you doing? Like, you know how many tacos you need to sell to make up for 1 hour of consulting work?
[00:20:40.130] - James Suh
I was like, that's right. This is a Marine Corps side, like trying to start a taco shop. And then like Carrie woke up the kind of the logic side from the Navy saying, oh shoot, you guys need to, you need to think about this a little bit more before you like Yeah, flip the switch on that one. So, but it's still something I love. I like cooking, I like baking, I make macarons, and I love coffee and stuff, but it is more as a meditation, and I want to keep it that way. And I think, uh, thinking about it as a business was a fool's errand at that time.
[00:21:15.040] - John S. Berry
Thank you for joining us today on Veteran Led, where we seek to help Veterans build an even bigger, better future after military service. Unfortunately, for some of our Veterans, the roadblock to a better future is that they are not receiving all of the benefits that they earned. If you need help appealing a VA disability decision, contact Berry Law.