In this episode of the Veteran Led Podcast, John talks with US Air Force Veteran, Laurel Mitchell, at local VFW 2503 about how her experiences in the military gave her the drive and discipline to succeed as a civilian. Laurel shares stories from her journey as she went from Air Force electrician to Associate Professor at Bellevue University, earning her MBA, Masters in Contract Management, and Doctorate in Education along the way. Tune in to hear Laurel’s story and message to other veterans about finding community at the VFW.
Welcome back to Veteran Led. I’m your host, John Berry. Today, we have Air Force veteran and guest, Laurel Mitchell. Welcome to the show, Laurel.
Thank you.
Just brief, I’m going to talk about Laurel’s bio. After her 13 years of military service, she had obtained her MBA, Master of Arts in Contract Management and Doctorate in Education and Educational Leadership. She is currently teaching at Bellevue University. She believes her military experience has helped her with the drive and discipline to move much further ahead in life after her military experience. So, Laurel, welcome to the show.
Thank you.
Tell us how your military experience… Well, let’s talk about your military experience. What did you do in the Air Force?
I actually was two different career fields. The first the first five years, I was an electrician, a CE electrician, an interior electrician. So I’m the Jack of all trades. I can actually go in and tell you if there’s something wrong with the electrical part. Lights, everything. One of the biggest things that everybody liked about me as an electrician is I could bend conduit better than anybody, where it would take somebody three or four times to do it, and they’ll be like, Laurel, come here. Can you do this for me? I’d do the measurements, and I was able to do it one time. Then I cross-trained into finance, and that’s really where things blossomed.
Yeah, two different skill sets. So when you initially enlisted, it was for to be an electrician, and then they figured out you had a skill, and they allowed you to change your MOS or branch transfer, whatever the Air Force would call it.
We called it career services. We called it a career change, basically.
Okay.
Yeah.
And so you move into finance, and what were you doing for the Air Force in finance?
Finance? I did a lot of different things. One of the biggest things that I like to do is when we went down country. So when I was stationed at Panama, we were told…We learned how to go down and pay contracts. So we would actually leave with a briefcase full of money, and we’ll go down to Columbia and Peru and actually pay contracts. And then we’d fly back. And we’d always have that mysterious, the plane broke down type thing, where basically the pilot and the pilot crew wanted to stay there for a little while and do their shopping or eating, depending on where it was that we were at. It was pretty funny. I really did a lot in military pay and travel pay. And I also did behind the scenes. I would look at the financial piece in regards to that. We actually looked at a lot of documents. Everything was done by documents, where we were able to see what was committed, what was obligated, and what needed to be paid out. Then when DFAS opened, Defense, Finance, and Accounting Services, was this big push for finance. We went in and then they started combining bases.
So even though I was stationed at Offutt Air Force Base, we actually worked with all of the local areas like McConnell and places like that. And so that was a lot of fun, too, because you got to see different accounting documents, different accounting classifications, because everything you’ll know based off of what the number started with on what you were paying. For example, 57 was finance or Air Force, or if it was DFAS or defense, it’d start with a nine. So we would learn how to basically break down the classification kind of decide where the money is going to go. And that was a lot of fun. And we did a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff. And I was basically the fix it person. If there was organization or an office that was broken, I’d go in and I’d fix it. And it was all based off of the documents.
Well, I can remember as a commander, we would talk about, well, that’s green money and that’s blue money. And if you spend this money, you’re going to jail. And we would hear that we are always scared about making financial moves as commanders because we had to make sure it was right. And I can remember in Iraq, we had the soldiers that would leave with a backpack of money. We called it foo money, where they were supposed to spend it on the economy, too, for the supply services, whatever. And those weren’t like the big jarb contracts that we did. These were the joint acquisition review board contracts, stuff like that. We had a ton of money, right?
Exactly.
But these are like small things to help the economy. I remember we’d have people leave the base with backpacks full of money. That was me. But you’re doing in South America. I’d be worried people think that you’re going to come back with c****** or something.
No, we were very clean. Actually, we were actually secured a lot. We always had a security guy with us, obviously because of the amount of money that we had. There was always somebody hidden with the gun because in a lot of the third world countries, having an open arms weapon out was against the law in most of those countries. So we had to have it secretly hidden so that we were protected in case something were to happen. Because you never know, especially with this being Air Force and being military and being women not looking like the people down in the third-world countries. We were targets, basically. We want to make sure that we were protected. We always had somebody’s security when we did have those briefcase of monies. You just wouldn’t know. When you had a group of six people, you wouldn’t know who was the one who was security versus who’s the one that was packing the money. Because we all have backpacks on purpose to make it look like everyone looked the same. You know what I mean? Just for protection purposes. It was a lot of fun. I can tell you a whole bunch of different stories.
The whole reason why I went into the Air Force is my sister is three years older than I was. After she went into high school and graduated, my dad sat down with me and my brother. My brother and I both joined the military. He went into the Coast Guard, and I went into the Air Force. It was a big adjustment going from being in Florida and then going overseas. The one thing that helped me grow up real fast is back when I was in the military, back in the 1980s, 1990s, we had to have a phone card. And those phone cards is how you made phone calls back to the States.
I remember.
And that first phone bill, $300, you might not think it’s a big amount of money, but when you’re an airman, when you get that first phone bill, there’s $300 on that phone card, and you got to pay that because you don’t get payments. I had to grow up real fast because I was always calling home. And my dad would… Back then, it was snail mail. Everybody wanted everything by snail mail because we didn’t have the internet and the cell phones and things like that or FaceTime.
So everything was done through the phone or through mail. And I enjoyed getting those packages.
The APL, right?
The APL yeah. And we look forward to that. And the biggest thing is they started learning that a lot of the people that I worked with didn’t get those packages, so they would actually make a bigger package and bring it over and send it over to me so I could share it because that’s what I would do.
Care packages.
Yeah. Those care packages were a lifesaver. And same when I was stationed for Southwest Asia, that was during Desert Storm, Desert Shield. I actually served during Desert Shield. And those care packages were amazing. So now they have these organizations who actually do that for those that don’t have anyone to do that with. And I think that’s amazing because we didn’t have that when I was in the military.
Yeah, I can tell you, first deployment, care packages were really important. By my second deployment, we had a PX that was pretty close by, in most bases then had some form of a PX. And I can remember I flew into, I can’t remember where it was, but I flew in somewhere and some young Lance Corporal picked me up and was driving me and said, Sir, do you need to go to the PX? And I was like, yeah, come to think of it, we don’t have a PX where I am right now. So he drives me to the PX. And then, of course, what I didn’t realize was he was taking me there because he wanted to go to the PX. So I got punked by a Lance Corporal who wanted to go to the PX. And he said, Sir, I want to make sure you’re taking care of. Do you want to go to the PX? Yeah, I could probably pick up some things. Yeah, but now, I picked up a few things. He had loaded up.
Exactly. That’s strategic thinking. You learn that like, okay, I got to take care of you. So if I take care of you, I can take care of myself.
Right. So that young Marine either became a great noncommissioned officer or part of the E4 Mafia. They just ran the junior enlisted that run the organization behind the scene. So, Laurel, let’s transition to your civilian career. So you get out, and I know now you have several degrees, and you work in education. Tell me about that transformation, some of the challenges moving from active Air Force to now being a civilian and building a new career.
Well, the good thing is the Air Force did have the transition program that does help you and prepare you, but it doesn’t really prepare you. I was stationed here at Offutt Air Force Base. I was moving back home to Florida, and the transition was really tough. I left with a bachelor’s degree because I took advantage of the tuition assistance because I didn’t want to use my GI Bill until I got out. I did leave with a bachelor’s degree, and even that wasn’t enough because my education and my experience didn’t match. It was really hard when I first came out. Within a week, I decided I needed to get my master’s degree. I went in and I got my master’s degree. It took me a couple of years, and then I just kept going. The Masters of Business Administration really is the one that opened the doors. That’s where I was able to move in. But then I wanted to be more specialized. That’s why I went and got the master’s in acquisition and contract management. Because I was currently in government contracting. A lot of the training that I was getting in government contracting was helpful.
I was able to actually get a graduate certificate in government contracting, which opened the doors at Bellevue. Because when I got out of the military, I was working back when Ford had the recalls on their tires. I don’t know if you remember that there was a big thing on that, and it was a call center. That’s basically what I could do. Then I finally found a job where I worked in education, but I was a territory manager. What that is, is I recruited all of the military to get for this degree. Then I decided to come back to Omaha. I transitioned back to Omaha. But the good thing is, is because I worked at DFAS, they knew my name. When I applied for the position, they knew how strong I was. So I got to be a civilian at the Defense Finance Accounting Services. After a while, I decided I wanted to get into contracting because when I was in the military, we did this competition between finance and… Not between, but there was different teams, and the team consisted of finance and contracting, government contracting. I really got an interest in that because of my background in finance.
And so that’s why I got into government contracting. And because of that certificate and my master’s degree, I was able to have that window to get into Bellevue University. Bellevue University, at first, I was just what they call a SME, a subject matter expert. And that really is what really opened my doors. But the fact is, you have to have a master’s degree to even teach at a bachelor’s level. I was also doing a PhD program at that time, but I ended up stopping as I got to my dissertation because my mother passed away. My focus from there went straight to my family. It wasn’t until 2017 that I actually went back to college to get my doctorate degree, which I did get my doctorate degree in education with a major in educational leadership. From there, it’s just opened doors. The dissertation I did was on first-generation student-athletes, and I really have a passion for student-athletes. Right now, because of the dissertation that I did is we actually, my husband and I started a program at Bellevue University for students who have food insecurities. We actually grocery shop each week for those students. But I’ve been at Bellevue for 19 years and I love it.
To me, people talk about working. I don’t work I love what I do. To me, it’s a career. Every day I get to see different people make their milestone, seeing them graduate, going to the graduation. That’s what I like to see and seeing them succeed. Because to me, if my students succeed, I succeed. It means that I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing.
I think as a leader in the military, we learn that, that if our team succeeds, we as a leader have succeeded.
Exactly.
Tell me a little bit about what you’re doing right now and what this has blossomed to. I mean, you love what you’re doing. You love education. You’ve got a lot of missions. But I think there’s a lot going on. So what is the thing that you’re doing right now that you’re most proud of?
The one thing I’m doing most proud of is taking care of those people that are having issues with food insecurity. That’s a big program we started at about three years ago. Right now, we have 24 students that have been identified with food insecurities, and we shop for them every week to make sure that they have what they need because the idea is to get them to not… We want them to succeed on the field, but we also, as a professor, I want them to succeed in the classroom. How can they do that if they don’t have what they need to sustain themselves, their bodies, and that is the biggest thing right now, because one of the things that a lot of people don’t know is we do have a strong presence of traditional students at Bellevue University. To get them to get what they need, like I said, to succeed both in the classroom and on the field, we need to make sure that they have what they need. Our food services right now don’t serve breakfast or meals on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Then our program is to subside for that.
That’s the biggest thing. Then graduation, seeing those smiling faces walk across that stage because I go to every single graduation and we’re standing on the stage with them. I have a lot of really close relationships with a lot of the students. There’ll be times where I’ll just jump up and go hug them at the end after they take their pictures just to let them know how proud I am of them.
Yeah, I think, like I said, taking care of, especially those junior leaders, the people who have the potential to do great things and being able to help them is a reward in and of itself. I want to go back to my experience in the military. With the junior enlisted, there wasn’t food insecurity. You want to know why? Because you lived in the barracks, you ate at the dining hall, and you had no choice in it. For all those junior soldiers, I think these 18-year-old kids, had we not had a barracks for them and food for them, they might not have eaten. Because the reality is when that 18-year-old gets that first paycheck, we know where that paycheck goes.
Yeah, it goes somewhere else.
It goes somewhere else. And sometimes it’s out having a good time. Other times it’s going to the predatory car dealerships and other organizations right outside of base that take advantage of the soldier. Then the soldier doesn’t have money. Then I remember as a commander having to deal with some of the stuff where the soldiers would get behind in payments. It was always interesting to me that all of a sudden now that’s my problem. Somebody took advantage of the soldier. The soldier can’t pay. And now it’s the commander’s problem to deal with the soldier who can’t pay. There are things like that that always bothered me. But in terms of the reward for helping those individuals, and I think about it, the 18-year-old that goes into the military, we take care of them. We make sure that they always have a place to sleep, enough food to eat. You send an 18-year-old to college, they’re on their own for the first time, maybe. And they don’t have that same supervision. And not every young person needs that, but several of them do. So I’m going to move to the After-Action Review. I want to know one example of great leadership that you observed, or maybe it was your leadership.
And then one example of horrible leadership that you learned the lesson of what not to do, the cheap lesson, the mistake that someone else made that you will never make.
So the biggest thing I wanted… One of the stories that I tell my students is that at one time when I was a sergeant in the Air Force, I kept getting pulled for the extra duties, how we always had those extra duties. We just had a big, huge assembly about sharing the wealth. We’re going to spread it around some more. We’re not going to have the same people doing the extra duties. But my name kept coming up. And so finally, I went to my commander and said, We just had this conversation. You just had this assembly. Why do I keep getting pulled out of my office? And he said, Because you’re being requested. Because not only would I tell them what we needed to do, but I would actually do it with them. One extra body, I wouldn’t sit there and just watch them do it. I would actually start doing it. To me, the quicker we can get it done, the quicker we can get back to the office. And so I think that is one thing that I can help with that lead by example. I’ve had a lot of experience with micromanaging.
I’m one of those people in the military, born and bred. I know what I need to do. I don’t need anybody to babysit me. But you have supervisors that want to babysit you. I’m sorry, I just feel like I don’t need that. Give me my instructions, give me what I need to do, and let me do it. Don’t come back at me every five minutes. Where are you at? Where are you at? Where are you at? You’re going to get the same attitude every single time. That’s one thing I make sure that I don’t do. I don’t go over and harp on those individuals to make sure they’re doing what they’re doing. Then I’ve had great leadership. My boss from the military when I was in civil engineering, we’re friends now. We just spent 10 days of vacation with them in California. We have a very strong bond. In fact, he walked me down the aisle when I got married because my father had passed away already. Those relationships are really important. I think that’s what really brought me here to the VFW is because we just came back from visiting with my military family, and I felt like I needed that.
I just recently joined the VFW two months ago because I felt like I still needed that family because my family isn’t here. I only have my husband and my son and their family. And so that camaraderie, I think, is what I was missing. I learned that just recently That that’s what I’ve been missing because I’ve been out since 2001.
Yeah, and I think the service organizations like the VFW that do so much, sometimes the focus shifts over to all the stuff that they’re doing and all the help that they can provide. But it seems to me the greatest benefit is community, is bringing us back together, giving us a place where we can meet with fellow service members, because the real value in the military service is always with the people. People will complain about everything that happened, but nobody… What I always hear is, I don’t miss digging holes. I don’t miss deployments. But, man, I miss the people. And it’s places like the VFW where you can come and meet with fellow service members. And it doesn’t matter what branch. Yesterday, I was celebrating the Marine Corps birthday with a bunch of Marines. I was the only army guy there. But it’s just I think that organizations like the VFW, especially strong ones like the one here in Omaha, they build a community where we can reconnect. And it’s people who understand each other. We have the same values. And so it’s easy to have a conversation and talk about things that civilians will never understand.
Well, my husband, I didn’t get married until I was well into almost my 40s. I was not married during my military service. So my husband didn’t get to see any of that. So being with my family and my Comadres from when I was in the military, he loves hearing those stories, and he can’t get enough of them. But he doesn’t know how to experience that. So now he’s seeing that. He’s seeing that experience, even though his brother did serve, but he wasn’t around for that. He’s starting to learn more about what I’m doing because I didn’t talk a lot about my service, but now I am. Seeing the videos and talking to my old supervisor from Civil Engineering in California, he was just eating up the stories because he’s never heard them before, mainly because my parents have been gone for some time now, and that’s where we really talked about it with my family. He missed that. I think now he’s starting to see like, wow, I didn’t realize you did that, and I didn’t realize you did that, too. I didn’t know that you did these things. I think that’s helping him as well as to understand how I am as a person because he knows that if I set my head something, if I’m setting myself to something, I’m going to get it done, and I’m going to stick to that.
I’ve done that the entire time I’ve known him, and we’ve been together for 14 years. So now he’s starting to see like, okay, that’s why when you say you’re going to do something, you’re going to do That’s why you’re going to dedicate yourself to that. And he sees that now.
Yeah. I think as veterans, we are resilient. We’re relentless. And the civilian counterpart may see you as stubborn or very driven. But the reality is this is who we are. I think it’s what drove us to military service. Then once we were in, then all of a sudden, there are people like us. Exactly. Then there’s this community of just driven individuals who want to work together as a team, accomplish a mission, and then for those that didn’t serve, they don’t understand, where does this drive come from?
Exactly.
Well, thank you so much for being on the Veteran Led podcast, Laurel. Where can people get a hold of you, Laurel Mitchell at Bellevue University?
Oh, no, it’s L.Mitchell@Bellevue.edu
Okay, L Mitchell. Anything else? Today on Veterans Day, anything you want to say to your fellow veterans?
The biggest thing is, if you’re missing those things that you’re used to having when you’re in the military, go to the VFW, go to the American Legion and see what you can do because volunteer is really important. We’re serving our veterans is what we’re doing here. We’re not asking you to volunteer for everything, but what you can, because the veterans now, we’re still working veterans, so we still have a very busy schedule, so fit in what you can. Even if you can’t volunteer, come and sit and have a soda or a water. Even if you don’t drink, come and just talk to people. You’ll hear their stories. At the VFW, we go from the Vietnam War all the way to current. There’s so many different age groups here. And I’m one female here that there’s women here as well. So just come and join us as much as you can. It’s a very big family, and somebody will get up and sit down and talk to you and introduce themselves. Whether you’re an introvert or extrovert, it’s really fun.
.Yeah, it’s all about community. Thank you so much, Laurel. It’s been an honor to have you on the show and to hear your story. And thank you for all you continue to do for our veterans.
Thank you
Thank you.
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