In this episode of Business Edge, special guest John LeVering discusses his time in the Navy and how the lessons he learned as a student leader translated to his career. He also speaks to how he decided to join the Navy after graduating college, and gives advice to current students seeking a similar career path. Furthermore, he urges current students and emerging professionals to continue to learn and grow throughout their careers to become the best leaders they can be.
John LeVering [00:00:00] Never stop learning. Action is better than inaction. Move forward and if it's in the wrong direction, you can always change course back to whatever course you want to go to. Very few decisions in life are "I make this decision and this all goes away."
Finn Lambouris [00:00:12] You're listening to Business Edge, the podcast for professionals looking to excel in the workforce. In each episode, our guests take a deep dive into their personal and professional experiences to give you an edge in the marketplace. This podcast is brought to you by the Commonwealth Leadership® Alliance.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:00:26] Good morning and welcome back to the Business Edge podcast. My name is Chrissy and with me today is Nicole. We are at the 61st Convention in Miami. How are you doing this morning?
Nicole Klemp [00:00:35] I'm doing well. It's early, but I'm hanging in there and excited for the day.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:00:39] Yeah. What did you think about the trip to the Everglades?
Nicole Klemp [00:00:42] It was really, really cool. I was excited to go, but I didn't really know what to expect. But it was awesome. We saw some gators and it was really neat to be out there on the water and I'd never been on the airboat before. Yeah, it was really cool. What did you think?
Chrissy Vasquez [00:00:58] I wasn't expecting so many activities. I only knew about the boat. So when that guy put his head on top of the alligators head, I actually had to turn away because I'm like, it would be my luck. I see the tragedy. So, we've been so lucky to record here on site, so we want to give a shout out to our sponsor Synergos AMC, owner Lane Velayo. So thank you so much for making this possible. This morning we have John LeVering with us. I've known John for years. I've been fortunate enough to volunteer side by side with him on the Board. So we're so excited to have you with us. Can you share a little bit about your professional career with us? And welcome!
John LeVering [00:01:32] Oh, thanks for having me. Absolutely incredible to be here at the 61st Convention. And I agree, the Everglades Park was amazing, the boa constrictors and the turtles and it was just awesome to see all of it. As far as my professional career goes, I work for the U.S. Navy as a federal employee. I was active duty for nine years and converted to a civilian. With that transition, I transitioned into a job that I absolutely adore and it is I get to buy aircraft carriers and submarines, so I get to negotiate the contracts. it just gets you excited to go every day because you know that what you're building, it's going to last for 100 plus years. It's just, you know, the ships we're working on today, I'll be long gone and they'll still be out there.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:02:13] What's the price range on some of these ships? Like, what are we talking about? Billions?
John LeVering [00:02:16] The last contract we awarded that was a major shipbuilding contract was the two carrier buy, and that was a $16 billion contract for two aircraft carriers. And that was the first time that had been done in 30 years. And then the last submarine contract that we made was a ten submarine contract for about 24 billion.
Nicole Klemp [00:02:36] That is incredible.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:02:37] I can't even fathom being responsible for contracts that size.
Nicole Klemp [00:02:40] So I'm guessing that maybe you've seen Top Gun Maverick. Did you go watch that?
John LeVering [00:02:44] Absolutely. Awesome movie.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:02:46] Is that better than the first? Where do you think it is?
John LeVering [00:02:48] It's absolutely better than the first.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:02:50] I enjoyed it quite a bit.
John LeVering [00:02:51] I mean, I'm an 80's kid, right? So I loved the first one and had high expectations and it blew them out of the water.
Nicole Klemp [00:02:57] Yeah, it was pretty awesome. I can't believe Tom Cruise. I mean, he's amazing.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:03:02] He must go into, like, some sort of freezing pod at night to preserve himself.
John LeVering [00:03:06] What surprised me about that is that at work, you know, since I work at Naval Reactors we're in charge of the nuclear navy fleet. We get messages from the CEO of the boat where they film the crew and he gave us live video feeds, talking to us and telling us how great it was with the work that we did. And as it contributed to what he did and how it supported the movie, we got a huge movie poster that's in the command. So yeah, it's pretty cool.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:03:29] That's really cool. So do you think the movie is pretty accurate to life?
John LeVering [00:03:34] To life? Not so much.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:03:36] Okay.
John LeVering [00:03:37] I've met a few pilots and they're kind of the opposite of what you see in the movie. I mean, these are just some of the smartest people you've ever met and they're precise and precision oriented, and they get it right every time. The the concept of the pure recklessness of Maverick probably doesn't get anywhere.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:03:57] Got it.
Nicole Klemp [00:03:58] But it makes for good film.
John LeVering [00:03:59] It makes for good film.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:03:59] Exactly. Exactly. Wouldn't be as exciting. So tell us a little bit about your career in the Navy. How did the lessons you learned when you were in active duty really translate to your professional career?
John LeVering [00:04:12] Can I tweak that a little bit and talk about the lessons I learned as a student leader and how it translated to my early Navy career?
Chrissy Vasquez [00:04:18] Yeah, that's great too.
John LeVering [00:04:19] The Navy got me cheap, as I say, because I graduated college and then I decided to join.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:04:23] Oh, right. Yup.
John LeVering [00:04:24] And they put me on a submarine in charge of the food and parts as a business guy on board the submarine. And I was really excited about that coming out as a business major and approached leadership on the submarine the same way I did with what I learned in AKPsi at the time. 'Cause here, I've been in the Navy for a year and I'm in charge of guys that actually know what they're doing. And so I'm not the expert. I don't really know what's going on. When I got on board, I couldn't tell you which side the front of the submarine was if you spun me around and said, okay, point the front. Right? That's what it's like when you're on there for the first few months. And here I am, so I'm supposed to be in charge. And that doesn't make a lot of sense to me. It's like, how do they come to me and ask me what they should do when they know better than I do? And so I took those skills from leading a volunteer organization where you're always engaging, always talking, always getting input and saying, okay, what do we need to do? What do the rules say we're supposed to do, and how do we go execute that and caring about them? And we had a phenomenal time. I mean, some of my best friends I served in that submarine with.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:05:22] What's it like living in a submarine for months at a time and you don't see daylight?
John LeVering [00:05:27] When I was on the submarine, it's a little different now. Now it's co-ed. So that's changed quite a bit. But back when I was, it was more like a high school locker room that was with a bunch of the smartest guys you met.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:05:37] Interesting.
John LeVering [00:05:37] So it's kind of a tradeoff. There was a lot of humor, a lot of jokes, a lot of off color jokes. But the camaraderie was there. Whenever you put people together, you give them a really demanding job and then they find success in that job. It really just tightens the bonds and that's what it was like.
Nicole Klemp [00:05:51] Tell us a little bit about, you know, you mentioned AKPsi, I know during your student years. Tell us a little bit about what you've been doing in the last, you know, more recent years with the fraternity.
John LeVering [00:06:02] Well, I was honored in 2012 to be nominated and selected on the Board of Directors with Chrissy and Chad Smith. And so I think Chrissy and I have the record for the longest serving board members at nine years.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:06:14] Yup.
Nicole Klemp [00:06:15] Congrats, guys! That's great.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:06:16] Maybe like some of the OGs who, you know, back when it was nine years, but yeah, we're up there.
John LeVering [00:06:22] Yeah. And so it was an awesome experience. For me it was a surprise because I was just getting back into volunteering for AKPsi, and a couple of individuals said, "Hey, we want your thought because you're outside the traditional recruiting path for our board. You're not coming from the management team. You're not coming from, you know, recently volunteering for ten plus years. You've got professional experience. We want you to come have a diversity of thought on the board." So I got on the board and then nine years later, it was like I got to unplug from the board, which is really weird.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:06:51] Totally weird! You go from, like, knowing all to nothing. It's interesting you talk about, you know, you were recruited for the board because the same. I had some members come talk to me and say, "we really want your skill set. We think you need to be on the board," that weren't on the board. They were just, you know, everyday volunteers at the regional level actually. So the board was not even on my radar, you know, to run for, and then when a brother comes to you and gives you this compelling reason, you're like, "Wow, well, it is my duty to serve as a brother. So maybe this is where I need to be serving right now."
John LeVering [00:07:23] Yeah, we all have a problem saying no when the fraternity asks us to do something.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:07:27] True story.
John LeVering [00:07:28] I will share that the interview process was a little bit nerve wracking. When I got my current job. One of the requirements is everybody who's selected to serve at Naval Reactors gets interviewed by the four star admiral.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:07:41] Oh, wow.
Nicole Klemp [00:07:41] Wow.
John LeVering [00:07:42] And I remember being less nervous for that interview than I was for the board interview.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:07:47] Wow.
John LeVering [00:07:48] Because I felt, like, fully qualified, fully ready, ready for the admirals questions. It was only going to be like a two minute interview. So it was pretty straightforward. But the board interview was like, this is different. This is something that matters.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:08:02] Yeah. I wish the people here could see the emotion on your face. John is one of those brothers--there's a lot of brothers, but John is one of those brothers that really takes his duty as a brother very seriously. And it's lovely to see that passion for our organization and the care for the brothers remind you what we joined into all those years ago.
Nicole Klemp [00:08:22] It's really neat for me too, just not having been a volunteer for a number of years and now being back involved. It's reminding me of why I was a brother in the first place and what I loved about my student experience. And that's really cool. Speaking of student experience, so you talked about how they got you cheap because you had already graduated college before you joined the Navy. What kind of sparked your interest in that career path? And, you know, a lot of our listeners are students or young professionals just starting their careers. You know, what made you make that decision to join up? And what advice would you give someone who's thinking about a military career after college?
John LeVering [00:08:55] Well, there's a long story to that one. And I'm going to try to keep it to a short story.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:08:59] CliffsNotes version is what you're gonna call it?
John LeVering [00:09:00] CliffsNotes version. Every member of my family for generations has served in some capacity at some point, and so I always had an interest of serving. And when I graduated, really tough time for me and I'll try to avoid going too far into that because then we won't be able to finish this podcast. But I was looking around for what am I going to do next? And my mentor was on a board of directors for a bank company and I was going to go into international banking and do international trade and things like that. And I went to the interview and the manager told me I was too goal oriented to be selected.
Nicole Klemp [00:09:33] Too goal oriented?
Chrissy Vasquez [00:09:34] In a finance position.
John LeVering [00:09:35] Like, the fact that I wanted to go get an MBA within 3 to 5 years was just too much for him. He wanted someone who was going to work for him for ten years. And I'm like, okay, this isn't going to work. But that was, like, my first real interview and I was like, ugh.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:09:48] Yeah, how disappointing. And, you know, let down.
John LeVering [00:09:51] And I had a recommendation from, like, a guy on the board. I mean, this is a shoe in, right?
Chrissy Vasquez [00:09:55] Yeah.
John LeVering [00:09:56] And I was like on my way home. And I was just--I was really kind of irritated, right? So I was like, "You know what? I've always thought about the service. Let me go check them out." And so I went and I started looking and then I started researching it and I said, "Wait, they've got a business arm of the Navy called the Supply Corps, and they send me to school for six months to get, like, a more advanced business education," which, you know, at the time sounded a lot more than it really was. I think it was good, but it's more how the Navy does business, not like an advanced business degree.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:10:24] Right.
John LeVering [00:10:25] And then, next thing I know, I'm on a submarine out of Groton, Connecticut, and it was awesome. I loved it.
Nicole Klemp [00:10:32] That's so cool.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:10:33] That's awesome. And I think that's something great for our listeners to remember that just because you went to school for something doesn't mean that's where you're going to end up. And I think our lives unfold how they're supposed to, right? I'm sure you can think thank goodness you didn't get that job at the bank, right? Like, think of how different your life would be.
John LeVering [00:10:49] Absolutely. If you'd asked me in college, what am I going to do? I was going to go into international trade. In fact, I was going to open a business with one of my brothers in the chapter, Chad Brown. We were going to do import-export out of Taiwan. He spoke fluent Mandarin Chinese. And so I was going to go over and teach English and learn the language. And we were going to be doing international trade and we were going to be changing things. Right. And I think somewhere in there was open a country western bar in Taiwan at one point.
Nicole Klemp [00:11:12] Oh, wow.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:11:13] I'm sure it's needed. Yeah.
John LeVering [00:11:14] And if you'd asked me if I was going work for the federal government, I would have told you "no" a hundred times over. Too entrepreneurial, I want to do my own thing. And now I work at a place where it's government, but we're small enough and have control over what we work on, that we actually can affect change.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:11:30] That's awesome to know because I feel like the perception of government is you do what you're told. There's processes that outline everything. There's never a chance to do something creative or have the autonomy to do your job, so.
John LeVering [00:11:42] I would say there are few places in the government that operate more like a small business, and where I'm at is one of them.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:11:47] Okay, so it's not so much of a misconception, but there's exceptions to the rule.
John LeVering [00:11:51] Yeah, we as a government organization are dual headed, part navy, and we're very unique. We're responsible for the entire nation's nuclear powers military presence. So whether it's aircraft carriers, submarines, cradle to grave, who works on it, the industrial base, the sailors who are trained, all the way to the end with decontamination, disposal in a safe, responsible manner. We own everything. And so if you want to work on it, you have to talk to us and get our permission to. And it gives us a level of authority and engagement to make sure that it's done right. And that's the small business aspect where you get to manage it.
Nicole Klemp [00:12:23] I have to say I'll sleep easier tonight knowing that John is in that role, so.
Nicole Klemp [00:12:29] You've been listening to Business Edge, brought to you by Alpha Kappa Psi Professional Business Fraternity and sponsored by Synergos Association Management Company. Now let's get back to the conversation.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:12:42] What is your tip or advice for brothers as they're coming out of college to try to figure out what's next?
John LeVering [00:12:48] I would say the number one thing for me, which I didn't really realize at the time, was just never stop learning. Action is better than inaction. Move forward and if it's in the wrong direction, you can always change course back to whatever course you want to go to. Very few decisions in life are, "I make this decision and this all goes away." It's usually just not how it is. I remember thinking when I graduated and maybe I was a little bit young and maybe a little more arrogant than I am now, thinking, like, I was president of my chapter. I was a chapter advisor. I'm an officer in the Navy. I've got this leadership thing down, right? And then, like, it seems like almost every year there's something new comes up that I learn and I realize, wow, that's just completely different than where I thought I was. And I continue to learn and continue to grow. And that journey just doesn't stop.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:13:35] And it's a beautiful journey and it's a fun journey, right? Like, that self-awareness is so key. If you don't have that self-awareness, I don't think you get that level of growth when you're a little bit more seasoned in your life like we are.
John LeVering [00:13:45] And there are things that happen in life that, frankly, they're tough and they humble you. And that's part of the journey, right? Yeah. You enjoy the peaks because of the valleys.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:13:54] Yeah, exactly.
Nicole Klemp [00:13:56] Yeah. It's almost like the more you know, the more you learn, the more you realize there's so much more that you don't know.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:14:02] Yeah, and I think we've heard this time and time again from a lot of our guests that things happen in our life, they happen to us, and how we react to them is what matters. And how do we take away something that we can learn? We can learn something from everything, but we tend to learn more from those times where we've tried something and failed. And so how do we take that and not let it crush our spirit, but be jet fuel to fuel us to that next piece to pull in the Maverick.
Nicole Klemp [00:14:29] Jet fuel! That's very fitting. Good job, well done.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:14:31] Yep. Yep.
Nicole Klemp [00:14:33] So, John, we have a signature question on the Business Edge podcast that we ask all of our guests. So tell us about a time when your personal values were challenged. What happened and how did you handle it?
John LeVering [00:14:46] So we talked about those challenging times where you fall on your face. This would have been one of those times. I was on the submarine still and I was in charge of all of the inventory for the food, all the inventory for the spare parts. We were in a shipyard environment and our XO had left the boat early and the CEO came to me and said, I need someone to be my acting XO, which is not something a supply officer who's a very junior officer would ever be. But he goes, You're only working on the forward part of the boat. You don't know anything about the reactor plant, so you don't work on anything back there. You just handle essentially the admin and work with the chief's quarters, make sure everything's organized and running smooth and people are where they're supposed to be. So for three months I focused on that and that was a huge growth opportunity to learn what it's like to be in that role. But at the same time, I wasn't doing my day job, I wasn't overseeing my cooks that were on my team or the logistics guys, and the cooks were kind of struggling. And the way food works in the military, it's very important because if you don't know how much food you have and you're actually going somewhere, then it's really important. We weren't going anywhere. It wasn't as critical. But that habit, that culture, it's got to be right, it matters. And so I got back into the job, said, "okay, let's check the inventory levels." And, first check of 25 items, like, only 11 were right. And you're supposed to be like 24 of 25 kind of thing. I'm like, "All right, tomorrow morning, 6:00, we're going to do inventory of everything. We're just going to get a new baseline. We're going to go fix it," right? So we do the inventory and there's a shortage of food, meaning there's more on the books than there is. We had an inventory problem. So we have to deep dive and find out what the problems are. We find out, well, we had too much credit because the Navy gives you credit for every meal that you serve, and if you have too much money at the end of the month, that's bad. So they were reducing the amount of people they said they were feeding because they didn't want to have too much money.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:16:35] So they didn't have enough food.
John LeVering [00:16:36] But the problem is they weren't recording all the food they were using so they wouldn't have had an excess credit. The good news is there was no instances of theft or anything like that. The bad news is I have three months to fix it before the end of the fiscal year. Because if you're not within $500 by the end of the fiscal year, you have to write a letter to the chief of the Supply Corps requesting a waiver for your food balance. And if your career is, you're in charge of the food, that's really not good.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:17:03] Not to mention other hungry sailors.
John LeVering [00:17:05] Well, they were all getting fed. That wasn't the problem.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:17:07] Oh, okay, yeah. Got it.
John LeVering [00:17:08] We were feeding them. We kept getting more food. So I had three months to fix that. The irony of that whole thing was a week later I was receiving an award for the previous year of being the top submarine supply officer in the fleet. So I'm standing up there getting an award, feeling like a complete fraud, right?
Chrissy Vasquez [00:17:24] You know what's going on in the background.
John LeVering [00:17:26] And then the week after that, I'm going to Naval Reactors to interview for my current job. And this is a place that we talked about, hey, policy, rules, procedures, and like, I'm, like, in my head, I'm like, "are they even going to want me there?" So I go and I sit down. The guy who brought me in for an interview is still with me. I've worked with him for 20 years. I go, "Steve, before we even start the interview, this is what's going on in my boat. These are my problems. These are my corrective actions. This Is what we're going to fix it and we'll fix it. We're going to get it right. But before you send me through six interviews and go see the admiral, I mean, I got to tell you, I got a problem. And if you guys don't want to interview me, I understand." And he goes, "I appreciate that. Let's go talk to my boss." So then we went and talked to his boss and got to repeat the whole story. And he reaches over and he dials the phone, like, just by number. And he's like, "you worked for--" you know, I don't want to drop too many names. A gentleman that was my previous boss at another command. He goes, "You worked for him, right?" I'm like, "Yeah." He reaches over, dials in by memory. And he goes, "Hey, I've got a hypothetical question for you. Would you rather have an ensign who's never made a mistake, or an ensign who has screwed up and fixed it?" Not exactly the words he used. And my old boss goes, "Oh, absolutely. Give me the guy who screwed up and fixed it because the other guy just had a good team." And he says, "I appreciate that." And he goes, "Do you remember John?" He was like, "LeVering from Millington?" He was like, "Yeah!" He's like, "He's in my office. I'm interviewing him." And he goes, "Hire him."
Chrissy Vasquez [00:19:16] Nice.
Nicole Klemp [00:19:17] That's awesome.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:19:18] That's such a great lesson. And we've heard that from people, too, is saying something right away, right?
Nicole Klemp [00:19:24] Yeah. Don't try to cover up the mistake. It's just going to snowball and make it worse.
John LeVering [00:19:29] The end cap to that is I talked to Steve 15 years later. He says the only reason I was selected was because of that. He was like, "that's the attitude we wanted." If you have a problem, especially in our industry, you raise your hand. You don't hide it because it gets worse. And if you're the right person that's going to be open and honest and transparent, and say, "hey, this is what I'm working on. These are my problems. It's how we're going to fix it." That's who we want in our organization.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:19:53] And that's very courageous to be like, sit down right away and be like, "Hey, I want to put this out on the table, you know," and understand that there could be consequences.
Nicole Klemp [00:20:02] And I'm sure it was an indication to you that this is the kind of people you want to work for because they value honesty and integrity and, yeah, that's amazing.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:20:11] Yeah. What a powerful story. Thank you for sharing that. John, it's been a pleasure to talk to you this morning. Thank you for taking time out of your day. I've always loved serving with you. Those are some of my best memories in the fraternity and being on the board with you for almost a decade.
John LeVering [00:20:24] Yeah.
Chrissy Vasquez [00:20:26] We started as babies.
Nicole Klemp [00:20:28] Thank you so much, John. And enjoy the rest of Convention.
John LeVering [00:20:31] Well, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.
Nicole Klemp [00:20:32] Thank you.
Finn Lambouris [00:20:36] Thanks for listening to Business Edge. If you have questions, comments, or topic suggestions for us, email businessedge@akpsi.org.