I started in cybersecurity in the Navy 30 years ago. But I didn't start as an IT. I started as a mechanic. I joined the Navy in the summer of 1993 through the Sea and Air Mariner program. I went through boot camp in Orlando, Florida, followed by diesel mechanic school in Gulfport, Mississippi. I graduated in February 1994 and became a reservist, serving first with PHIBCB 1 in Coronado, California, and later with NMCB 18 at Fort Lewis, Washington.
I was a Seabee. And one of my earliest lessons as a Seabee involved a rusted construction vehicle, a six-foot piece of pipe, and a trip to the ground.
The Breaker Bar
When I arrived at the shop in Coronado, the shop manager figured out pretty quickly that I wasn't his most experienced mechanic. Rather than have me work on something important, he put me on the vehicles that were already on the deadline—large construction vehicles that were out of service.
The engines had already been removed, and I was given what seemed like a straightforward job: remove the motor mounts from the chassis. These vehicles had spent a lot of time near the beach. Salt, sand, and time had done their work. The bolts were badly rusted. But I was undaunted. I climbed into the empty engine compartment, sprayed the bolts with WD-40, put a 30-inch socket wrench on one of them, and started pulling. Nothing.
Eventually, the shop manager brought me a six-foot breaker bar—essentially a long piece of pipe that slipped over the wrench to give me more leverage. I put the wrench on the bolt, slid the pipe over it, grabbed it with both hands and thought, All I need to do is put a little body weight into this. So I leaned backward over the fender and pulled. The bolt turned. Unfortunately, so did the six-foot piece of pipe. It hit me square in the forehead, and I went straight to the ground.
Everyone in the shop came running out to see what had happened. I was awake, but I had managed to give myself a concussion.
I learned several things that day. The mechanical lesson was never to pull a six-foot breaker bar toward your head. Some lessons are more practical than others. The lessons that stayed with me, though, were persistence and humility. You aren't always going to know how to solve the problem when you start. Your first approach might not work. Your next one might hit you square in the forehead. Learn. Adjust. Get back up. Keep working the problem. Never give up.
From Wrenches to Computers
My Navy career eventually took an unexpected turn. As a reservist, the Navy asked me what I did for my civilian job. By then, I was working in technical support at Symantec. Their response was pretty straightforward: you're not a mechanic anymore. You're an IT worker.
It made sense. My civilian employer was already developing my technical skills. The Navy could use that experience rather than spend taxpayer dollars training me to do something completely different. So the diesel mechanic became an Information Systems Technician.
That eventually led me to work on submarines, supporting sensitive systems with a Top Secret clearance. It also became the beginning of a career in cybersecurity that has now taken me from practitioner to product marketing leader.
What CAN DO Means to Me
The Seabee motto is CAN DO. Difficult tasks are done immediately. The impossible takes a little longer. I've carried that idea with me ever since.
To me, CAN DO doesn't mean pretending you have all the answers. It doesn't mean blindly applying more force until something moves. I've already learned where that can get you. It means being willing to take on a problem you don't completely understand. Observe what's happening. Figure out what you have to work with. Make a decision. Act. Learn from what happens. Adjust. And keep going.
Sometimes the most important thing you bring to a problem isn't knowing the answer before you begin. It's refusing to give up before you find it. That's what I learned as a Seabee. And it's still how I work today.
Why IBM Sent Me Back to School
When I was at IBM, the role of product marketing was changing.
The traditional model was that the product marketer knew the product and market, but an outside agency did much of the writing. The PMM coordinated the process, supplied the subject matter expertise, reviewed the copy, and sent it back for another round.
That wasn't how I worked.
I was closer to the product, the customer, and the problem we were trying to solve. I believed I could tell that story better myself. So I wrote.
IBM was beginning to recognize the same opportunity. If product marketers could become better writers and communicators themselves, we could bring subject matter expertise and storytelling together instead of separating them.
That was part of the thinking behind IBM e.school.
And it was how I found myself going back to school to learn how to write.
272 Words
The assignment started simply: write about something you're passionate about.
I wrote about animal rescue.
Every day, a professional editor reviewed what we had written. Then we had to rewrite it with a new objective. What is your call to action? Now tell the story in 500 words. Now do it in 272.
By Thursday, my story had become Reveille, Reveille...
It started with a chicken unexpectedly joining our collection of rescued animals, but the real story was about Buster, my first adopted dog.
I adopted Buster after returning from a deployment to the Middle East. At the time, I thought I needed a cause and that rescuing a dog meant I could save a friend. What I hadn't acknowledged was how much I was struggling after coming home.
Eventually I had to ask myself: Who was saving who?
The answer was that we were saving each other.
On Friday, we had to do something different. Stand up and read our 272 words aloud. Then our peers voted.
They chose my story.
The Story Left the Classroom
I won the exercise, went home, and that could have been the end of the story.
It wasn't.
While traveling through the airport, I started talking with people I didn't know and shared the story with them.
That conversation led to an invitation to a neighborhood block party being held as a memorial for a family's dog that had passed away.
I shared the story there, too.
That event raised about $1,200 for animal rescue.
That number has always mattered to me because it made the lesson tangible.
This wasn't an IBM assignment anymore. There wasn't an editor grading it. Nobody was going to vote on it.
The story had left the classroom.
People heard something that mattered to them, connected it to something they cared about, and acted.
Move People to Act
About a month later, our team had an opportunity to return to e.school.
This time, the conversation wasn't about what we'd written. IBM wanted to know what we had learned and what we had done with those skills.
I told them what happened after I left.
A 272-word classroom assignment had traveled to an airport, then to a neighborhood memorial, and helped raise about $1,200 for animal rescue.
And following that interaction, our marketing project was funded for a year. I also came away with something I still have today: a book inscribed by IBM CMO Jon Iwata.
He wrote:
“Congratulations! You spoke well, but more importantly you moved your colleagues to act!”
I still have the trophy. But the lesson mattered more.
Marketing isn't about saying something well.
It's about giving people a reason to act.
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