Michigan's Defense Leadership, From Two Different Chairs

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I bleed green if, uh, if you cut me. I think I— my whole life was revolved around the Army.

From Others Over Self, it's Hardcore and at Ease, a show about people who are keeping their edge, I'm host Shelly Rood. Are you in a place in life where nobody's really checking on your work anymore, but you are going to do it the right way regardless? Well, that beautiful discipline, it's not about being watched, is it? Today you'll hear exactly how 2 men are still running Michigan's defense community on their own earned judgment. There's no rank required, no boss to answer to, just a passion for the work.

I'm a retired Air Force pilot.

And nobody's giving them orders. They just have instinct that they've never stopped using. This is Hardcore and At Ease. Picture the day that the orders stopped coming. There's no promotion board deciding what's next for you. Back when you were in the military, there was a commanding officer checking whether your call was the right one. But they're not there anymore. It's just you and the judgment that you spent decades building under someone else's watch. Now it's entirely your own to carry. In today's episode, we're talking about what it means to carry that judgment forward when people don't require it of you anymore. Two men spent decades in the military taking orders and giving them, and then they left. The solid judgment that they built—it didn't go away when the uniform did. Now, before we get into their incredible stories, I do need to take just a moment. To recognize someone that we lost this week. Julie Fath Bruckner was a very dear friend of mine, and she was one of the original leaders of Women in Defense Michigan. She was there from the very beginning, and for years she stood shoulder to shoulder with the Association of the United States Army and the National Defense Industry Association on behalf of our nation's defense. She had plans to retire soon, and she was looking forward to spending more time with her husband, Todd, also a good friend of my family's. She was well-known and deeply loved in the horse community, giving her time to Camp Casey, which lets sick kids ride therapeutically at no charge. I'm sure you can hear it in my voice how much Julie meant to me. I'm recording this on Monday the 31st, which is the day of her viewing, and tomorrow will be her funeral. So if you are listening to this on the podcast episode release day of September 1st, Your thoughts and prayers are deeply appreciated for all of Julie's family. Now let's get into today's conversation. First up today is Scott Davis, president of NDIA Michigan, the National Defense Industrial Association's Michigan chapter.

Excited about it. I think it's probably a little more activity given the transitional times that we're in. And I think, you know, most of the Folks that will listen to this understand that there's a lot of transformation going on really across the services, but inside the Army where they're transforming how the Army operates operationally, how they operate in an acquisition environment, and how they're opening contracting mechanisms and things to allow more non-traditional defense players into the space. And, you know, as NDIA Michigan, we're a subordinate element to NDIA National, but our overall mission as an organization is to maintain a healthy and vibrant industrial base should our warfighters need those capabilities to stay ahead of any potential adversaries.

Now, you had mentioned that NDIA Michigan is just one part of the fold, right, of the national organization. I know that I'm partial, sir, but I have to say NDIA Michigan is pretty freaking phenomenal because we've got the Arsenal of Democracy. We are the hub of manufacturing for aerospace and defense nationwide. How do you feel about how Michigan stacks up to the other players?

Yeah, so our chapter, I believe, and they, they sort of hold it a little close, but we're either the 2nd or 3rd largest in the country. We have around 2,400 individual members and around 630-ish corporate members. So it's always been a very influential organization. And to your point, largely centered around the arsenal of democracy because our chapter was formed in 1944 as the whole Michigan area was spooling up to support World War II, not just our forces, but the Allied forces. And I think I had, uh, I'd read somewhere that the Michigan component of the Arsenal of Democracy generated like 25% of all the tanks and airplanes and equipment for World War II, both, uh, U.S. and Allies.

And how do you personally feel when you hear a statistic like that?

Well, I mean, it makes me excited, but it also makes me a little nervous because I think as we look at sort of some of the shifts in the Defense Department to the Indo-Pacific region, there's been a large shift in budgetary priorities going more towards aerospace and maritime. And largely, you know, from '27 and beyond, the Army has held relatively level. And then if you dive into the Army allocations, the Army is pretty much flat over that time horizon, say 5 years. From 2027. And so in that kind of perspective, it does make me nervous that, you know, as a state and as Macomb County particularly, we've been sort of highly plugged into the ground systems. And I really am concerned what that does to not only the workforce and things at the arsenal and the R&D center, but also a lot of the companies and suppliers, many small businesses. that are anchored to that. And so a couple of things that I think I have on my priority list of things to do is making sure that we keep that ground segment healthy, but also help companies make connections to start to investigate how they can get into that aerospace and maritime space where it's— the manufacturing is definitely needed. And we have some wonderful talent and skills here in the Detroit metro area that can really help, I think, those other services.

Well, when you look at what's on your docket or your agenda, if you will, as the incoming president, there's a lot of opportunity coming from your unique perspective. And I say that because I'm familiar with your background, having worked for the United States Army and also having a background in procurement. Can you share with me a little bit about how your professional experiences lending you in this new role?

Well, I, you know, I, every time I see this and say this to somebody, it's the fact that I can't believe how fortunate I've been to have some of the things that, that I did, the experiences I did, which weren't planned. So I, when I graduated from college, I came straight down to the Detroit Arsenal and worked in PM Bradley in 1987. And ended up at the arsenal being both the program executive officer for ground combat vehicles, but also program executive officer for all of our combat support and combat service support systems. And I took a 1-year sort of hiatus, worked for consulting company in DC, and then got an opportunity to come back to the Detroit area to be the vice president for combat vehicle systems that BAE Systems makes. And then I was also in parallel with all of that, a 30-year Army Reserve officer that had opportunities to deploy a couple of times. And my last deployment, 2013, 2014 in Afghanistan, and really helping the Afghan governments, government entities anyway, plan their own acquisition priorities and systems and really controlled how they prioritized the donor nation money as well as the U.S. funds that were coming into the country.

That's so interesting. So help me understand this a little bit better. Were you a member of the military or were you a civilian that worked for the Army?

Well, I was a member of the military, so I spent about the first half of my military career in the Corps of Engineers side, mainly combat heavy. So, big construction. And that was wonderful because we did, oh, about every other year, maybe sometimes every 2 years, we would go to South and Central America and do a lot of humanitarian service work, building bridges and roads and clinics and schools and those sorts of things. That was about the first half. And then the second half of my Reserve career, I moved over and was in the reserve side of the Army acquisition entity. And that's what took me over to Afghanistan to kind of help as we were trying to rebuild their infrastructure and practices and policies. So yeah, I was in uniform there and it was kind of a funny thing because I was a colonel, but I was at the same time a PEO and another fellow PEO was a 2-star general. in Afghanistan who I worked for. So we were peers in one sort of sense, and then I worked for him there. So it was a great opportunity.

It is. And I'm smiling because, you know, I'm former Army myself. And if I could do it all over again, engineer was like— I ended up going intel, but engineer was the top of my list because I used to work construction. And I, I'm so jealous of the experiences that you must have had with those big vehicles.

Yeah, it was really nice and rewarding, and we oftentimes had opportunities to have soldiers from those countries join us and learn construction techniques and things that they didn't have access to normally.

That's such an interesting take on it. You often think about going in and doing the efforts to provide the service, but sometimes we forget about the training element that can come along with that. And right, that's where sustainability operations comes in. That's the whole point.

For sure.

So as you look ahead to NDIA, can you share with me how long you've been associated with NDIA? And, you know, I know that you're not brand new to the table.

Yeah, so I, while I was still at BAE Systems, I was asked if I would be interested in being an advisor on the NDIA board and kind of bring the perspective from sort of a large industry player in the Michigan area and kind of our concerns. And I was probably an advisor for a little over a year, and then we had the opportunity to run events. And I was interested in running our big ROTC recognition event, which brings in the ROTC cadets from all services across all universities in the state. And in order to run one of those, you know, we have fiduciary responsibilities. So you have to be a director. And so they elected me in to be a director, and I was only a director for maybe 2 months, and then the vice president job came open. And so I was elected into the vice president job. And in NDIA, the vice president is the natural successor to the president. So I ended up being vice president for maybe 9 months. And then just last month, Valde Garcia, our prior president, And I swapped. And so he'll stay on as our immediate past president, but it was a pretty fast ramp, maybe something again that I hadn't planned, but something I'm really enjoying. Being a retired guy, I have more time now to spend doing the things for NDIA Michigan that maybe Valde was stretched to do because he was still actively with a full-time job. So Hopefully I can, uh, put those, that extra time to good use.

Well, I feel like for a man like you, we're very similar in that our to-do list never ends. We will just add more pages to the back of that.

That's right.

So, Scott, as you're looking ahead to what's to come, is there one piece of the pie that you're most excited about, or is there one thing that stands out to you where you're thinking, you know what, I want to dig into this a little bit deeper?

Yeah. So I think, you know, and I don't want to get anybody excited, but, you know, I've seen a number of things happen around the arsenal that makes me concerned about its long-term viability. And I mentioned some of the budget allocations, but some folks don't know that if we sort of go back a couple of years and compare what sort of investment dollars were flowing into the arsenal then Versus what's projected going forward, it's about a $2 billion a year reduction.

Oh my word.

And what I tell a lot of people is that's truly understandable because as you think about the differing threats that the Department of War is facing and sort of this shift to Indo-Pacific as the principal threat, you can understand that ground vehicles might take a slightly lower priority. My concern, however, is I think we've lost a lot of key talent from the arsenal through some of the other adjustments and reductions. And now with this funding reduction, it's caused a number of programs to essentially go out of production. And what I always tell everybody, I understand reducing them, but really we should, if we can, keep them in minimum sustaining rates because that keeps the supply base below them active. And it then provides parts for those vehicles we have in the field, but it also protects our ability to surge. So if we found ourselves in some sort of ground engagement in the next 3 to 4 years, we would be able to surge and provide replacements and other things. But if you totally shut the line down and the supply base reorients, it's 18 months to 2 years to get a tactical vehicle back into production and can be as long as 3 years to get a combat vehicle back into production. And so there are a number of concerns that I really want to tackle, and I can't tackle them as NDIA alone. So we're in the process of partnering with Folks from the state legislature, state organizations. I want to pull in the county organizations as well as the other defense-related professional organizations here to really make sure that all of the decision makers really understand the risk that we've taken on. Doesn't mean that they're going to fix it right away, but I think it's really important that they understand that. So that they're aware of the risks and may have some opportunities to do some risk mitigation around those challenges.

It is, and you have such a unique opportunity to raise that flag, whereas they might not see it when your head is down and you're looking at numbers and you've got these directives. You might not be able to see the 3rd, 4th, 5th order effects that can come from those strategic decisions.

Yes.

So I know that you're moving away from a position of retirement in life and you just added all of these numbers to your to-do list. What impact do you think that's going to have on your family and how you spend your time outside of NDIA and the defense industry in general?

Yeah. So it's funny because my wife said, you know, I thought you retired, but you're down in your little basement cove here. I'm in what used to be the wine cellar. And she said, you're down there like 6 hours every day. I thought you retired. And I said, well, I didn't retire. I just stopped getting paid. So that's kind of where I am. But to get to the really the root of your question, and I'm sure you're the same way, it never comes outta your blood. I bleed green if you cut me. I think my whole life revolved around the Army. And this is an opportunity where I find that it's my chance to give back. So not only through my contributions to NDIA, but I still volunteer to guest lecture at what used to be Defense Acquisition University and then the Senior Service College Fellowships. And because I've had that unique opportunity to be a government executive in acquisition, wore a uniform for 30 years, And was a P&L person on a major defense in a major defense company. I really believe I have a unique perspective that I wished I would've had when I started, but of course you can't because it really then allows you to put things in better context and really understand how things are connected. And so I really love talking to those folks and Really helping them understand, you know, what I wished I would have known back when I was in their seats.

I hear that, sir. And I'm almost wondering if you have any white papers or articles that you've authored, because I feel like those would have such amazing legs to be able to continue that perspective forward.

Yeah, I have like the briefing that I use for their program management course, PMT 410, which is really around understanding industry. But I do think probably more so than when I was coming up, there seemed to be a more kind of us versus them relationship around industry and government. And I always used to say when I was in the leadership role on the Army side is I would tell my people, your job is to make sure that we, the Army, get what we need, but we don't make it. And it's our industry partners that do the legwork to put the engineering in place and get the production lines stood up. And so clearly, neither one of us are going to get to where we want to be unless we're very, very strong partners and collaborate through this. And yes, that we have mostly aligned priorities of what we're trying to do, and that's get the best equipment to our warfighters. There are business priorities that industry has that the government doesn't. and other priorities the government has that maybe industry doesn't. But that doesn't mean we can't come together as a team and really deliver the things that we need and really create a win-win situation.

So important for the young— I wouldn't say young, maybe just green people in the industry to hear. What advice, if any, do you have for those that are looking at being involved with NDIA? Because there's so many different things that NDIA does, from the events to the networking. I'm a member of Women in Defense. I have been for years. What would you say to those green people, to the industry, of how to get involved?

Yeah, so just get on our website. You know, for government employees, NDIA membership is free. For corporate industry, membership costs are scaled based on how big of a company you are. So if you're a small business or someone who historically hasn't been involved in defense, maybe you're a commercial company, but you're small, becoming a member is a great way. First, it's affordable, but secondly, I think it gives them opportunities to make connections that they wouldn't have otherwise. And I think you're aware, we just came off this week with our Ground Vehicle System Engineering and Technology Symposium out in Novi. I think we had about 3,500 attendees and hundreds of companies that had booths there. And so it's a great opportunity to connect, you know, business to business, government to business. And then on the first day really is set aside for technical papers. And I think we had nearly 100 of those and they were grouped in various technical areas like Autonomy and autonomous system development, in AI application on combat systems, power and energy. So lots of things where people who are really leading researchers talking about technologies that are emerging and becoming ready. And so I just think, you know, if folks want to get engaged and they want to be part of the defense industry, coming to events like that. that we sponsor is just a fantastic way to get connected.

Well, and you said it, you have to want to get engaged. You have to want to be brave enough and courageous enough to step out of your door, get out of your comfort zone, go meet some people that are doing some incredible things. There also seems to be this air of defeatism amongst a lot of people, and I don't get that sense from the NDIA crowd. Can you tell me a little bit about the atmosphere, the environment? Of what, what do you feel in the air when your people are together?

Well, I think from what was really pleasing to me and why I sort of was so happy to stick with NDIA and really proud to be leading this organization is everybody is passionate, you know, and it, I think, what is it, Simon Sinek, who has a bunch of things and it says, you know, start with why. And the why for anybody who's in the defense industry is very apparent, right? And very clear. And so it drives passion and it drives energy with people. And I think couple that with the fact that we here in Michigan were really the hub of the arsenal of democracy and probably, maybe you almost say certainly, caused us to prevail in World War II. And so it's that deep legacy as well as the passion to provide the best capabilities we can for our warfighters. To put them in the best possible position, I think is just an amazing thing to be a part of.

It is. How can you be depressed when that's the thing that we're working towards, the defense of our incredible nation? Yeah. Well, as we wrap up here, is there anything else that you would like to make sure that our listener or our reader is able to take away from you?

Yeah. So I think the one other thing that I didn't touch on around NDIA is We're a nonprofit, as is WID and many of the other organizations, but we also are all volunteer. But through these big events where we raise money, all of that gets turned back to the community. And I'd tell you that probably the most significant giveback from NDIA Michigan is in STEM scholarships, which we give sort of somewhere around $100,000 a year.

That's amazing.

STEM scholarships. And this year, as we go into our budget planning cycle here in the next month, we are really going to look hard at how do we expand that? Because the one thing I do note that the defense industry folks need the most is skilled trades. And they're struggling to get folks, you know, they've lost the people that are my age. That were, you know, real craftsmen and artisans and running machines and welding and doing all the things it takes to fabricate some of these complex components. And so we really need to improve that pipeline of young folks that are coming out of high school and want to take a career path in skilled trades. So a couple of the things that I'm going to be looking at is how do we provide them scholarships? But also how do we work with our member companies to provide internships? So we not only help them get the training, the formal training that they need, but get 'em in and get 'em the hands-on experience. And so I brought Chris Riley from Macomb Community College, and he leads all of their sort of skilled trades activities there, and he's a board advisor now to us. So he's going to help us in a great way there. But I think that's one of the big key things besides just making connections at NDIA. How can we help educate, you know, the workforce through scholarships and other opportunities so that, that our industrial base has the talent they need?

Yeah. And you're the perfect example of that, where right from the beginning, right out of high school, you were able to make your way into the industry and you just haven't left.

Yeah, it's been a long time now. 40 years.

40 years. Can I ask, did you work with Angie Lohmann?

I did, yes. She worked for me at BAE Systems as one of my program directors.

Yeah. I, so I interviewed her not that long ago. She's got a full episode. I'll send it to you. Scott, it's been an absolute joy. Thank you for taking the time to connect with me. Is there anything else you want to make sure to throw out?

No, I think that's good, Shelly. I really appreciate you taking the time. Getting these messages out is really, really important because a lot of times, I think if you mention Michigan, people think of auto and they don't really put defense at the forefront. But, you know, we've been such a huge influencer in that space for decades. And I think it's really important that we keep that active and keep it alive and keep innovating for our warfighters.

Scott just told you what happens when the orders stop, but the judgment is necessary. He's still teaching what people didn't certify him to teach. He learned it the hard way. And he's doing this because the judgment that he built in uniform, it didn't come with an expiration date. Up next, Chuck Cogger built that same judgment under a different chain of command. And in a minute, you'll hear him lead an all-volunteer chapter on his own earned trust. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsors.

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You're listening to Hardcore and at Ease with certified business and life coach Shelly Rood. Now back to the show.

Welcome back. We're going to jump back in. In the first half of today's show, you heard Scott Davis. Talk about carrying judgment past the point that anyone requires it. And so now let's hear from Chuck Cogger, president of the Arsenal of Democracy chapter of the Association of the United States Army, AUSA.

My background in the military and how does it affect my ability to have these conversations? One, I think it's absolutely prepared me in the, over the long term. Various roles and positions I've had. I did 23 years active duty as a field artillery officer and 4 in the Guard and Reserve when I enlisted out of high school and going through college. And all, one, it's taught me how to plan and prepare and execute and assess an event. So whether I'm, when I was a young lieutenant playing a rifle range or a senior leader playing a major, training event, that process translates over into, hey, how do I plan a community partner event? How do I plan a T2COM engagement event? And then it also helps me coach some of our other board members and some of our young professionals that are developing into young leaders and wanting to be able to take charge of these events and be responsible for planning and executing on them. A lot of the other aspects that's helped me with this is I've had positions where I've been a senior advisor to foreign military forces and being a military advisor to Army forces in various roles as an observer coach trainer at the combat training centers or mission command training program. It's all about customer engagement and key stakeholder engagement, how to communicate and so forth like that. Those skills I've learned over the military translate over tremendously into the business realm. Trust me. There's many a times I think, I wish I had this planning process ingrained in this culture so they would understand that's how we get— this is how we get things done. And there's a lack of these processes and systems in place to do that in some aspects. So you have to take charge and execute properly accordingly. And then also I came out with— I'm a project management professional certified and so forth like that. A lot of those skills through Project Management Institute are definitely transferable over into running an organization like the Arsenal of Democracy chapter. It's program management at its best. And what's interesting about that is it's like you are leading a bunch of high-performing, excellent volunteers. How do you influence them to do what we need to do to be a successful chapter? A lot of that's through indirect measures. A lot of thank yous and being pleased, can you help me out with this? Because I tell them, I get it. Being a board member or a volunteer with the Arsenal of Democracy chapter of AUSA, it's not your number one priority. It should be family, work, then maybe AUSA somewhere below those two. And so it's whatever bandwidth they have of the other. We have a great group of people, not only just within our chapter, But also within what we call the Michigan Military Coalition. And I think you might've heard of this. We partner up with National Defense Industrial Association Michigan, Women in Defense, National Guard Association of Michigan, Air Force Association, and Space Forces Association. That is what we call the Michigan Military Coalition. We found out that when we partner and collaborate together— Very cool. When we have better events and we don't have event for after side, as we're not stepping over each other since we communicate, hey, this is when we do our events. This is when so people will try not to conflict with events. That is something that I've been told multiple times is unique only to the Arsenal Democracy chapter within AUSA. I talked to some of my counterparts and I talked to our. National-level leaders and they say, hey, we don't have what you're doing in Michigan with your partners, when your other nonprofit professional organization partners is something that's not anywhere else within our footprints. So the Michigan chapter, HSL Democracy, is one of one when it comes to partnering with our fellow professional organizations.

Yeah.

Because we don't look at it as an adversarial role. We look at it as a benefit. Prime example, it's an offset of that, is every president of each of those chapters belongs to what's called the Congressional Delegation Breakfast Committee. We help plan the quarterly congressional delegation across the state every quarter. So we just had one up at Camp Grayling supporting the National Guard and the National Guard Association of Michigan. Our next one will be, I believe, on September 11th. In, uh, I believe that General Dynamics is hosting that one. So we'll have that one in Southeast Michigan.

There's so much wisdom that you're sharing with us here, Chuck, because I see on the large landscape of people who are trying to do great things and they are almost championing this competitive mindset. Well, your event was good, but mine's gonna be better. Don't go to that one because mine is bigger and offers XYZ. By having something like the Michigan Military Coalition, like you said, you're not stepping on each other's toes. You're respecting the events and the unique skill sets that what everybody else is bringing to the table.

Absolutely. Not only do we not step on each other's events, but we support each other's events. They'll come and support our events. Like you said, we have— you talk about Inspiring speakers and so forth. We usually have those at our annual Army birthday ball events. We just had a reception last June for the 251st. We're going to do a full-up military ball for the 250th. Speaker, that's a more— other events, when we talk about supporting these and kind of backing up all those, the partners, a majority of them attended that. birthday event or those birthday events that we do. We also reciprocate in, I think one of the better ones is 2 aspects. One, we support the annual NDIA ROTC Awards Banquet and we sponsor the Army Awards along with the Army Cadet of the Year Award. We purchase a sponsorship, sponsor the table and sponsor the award, and we present the We do an internal board in conjunction and partnership with all the Army ROTC programs across the state at the senior ROTC level. So Western Michigan, Central Michigan, Michigan State, Michigan, and now Michigan Tech, down to the— I think that's 5. Yeah, if I can count right. I collaborate with them. They submit me a nomination and every nomination gets a complimentary premium membership, 2-year membership. And the best cadet out of those 5 gets selected as it, and I partner with our senior leadership at TACOM, and they help present the award at the annual event. If I didn't do that in conjunction with NDIA, they would have to either do it themselves and so forth, but it just makes sense because AUSA represents and supports the Army within the state. They also present awards for Navy ROTC, Air Force ROTC, and so forth. So the Air Force Association, I believe, supports the Air Force one. And then I think it's the Navy Association supports the Navy and the Marine Corps awards for the—

Yeah, you're right. It does make sense.

So it's a collaboration and it's a mutual supporting effort across all these events.

So talk to me about AUSA. The next annual meeting is coming up in October. What is on the docket for How are you going to make that event unique and special? Because you've thrown some pretty banger ones in the past.

Yes. So every year we have the annual— it's called the Annual Meeting and Expo. It's held in Washington, D.C. It's on or about the 2nd Monday of the month of October. This year it's held starting the 12th of October through the 15th, which is that Thursday. Our chapter holds a reception for all of our industry partners and our government and military, government military partners that first evening on Monday from 1700 to 1900 hours. Which is 5 to 7 for the rest of us. What's that?

5 to 7 PM for the rest of us.

Yes. We are the first basic reception after the first day, which is, I tell everybody, AUSA's annual meeting and expo is a marathon. You cannot sprint it. So the first thing you want to do is decompress after that first sprint or that first stage of the expo. And they come immediately off the floor and we hold a reception at the convention center. I think it's in room 200 A and B. It's up on the second floor. We hold it in the same spot every year because we already reserved it actually. So that's basically ongoing. We've just opened that up. On our, you can purchase tickets at the USA, arsaldemocracy.org. You see the links there to go purchase tickets or go to our LinkedIn, Arsenal Democracy, and see the links to that as well. That's pretty much the bait, the first thing we do. And then we've broken down by region. So the Arsenal Democracy chapter is part of Second Region. Second Region holds a breakfast along with all the other regions. On the morning of Wednesday the 14th. So when it comes to specifically what chapter stuff goes on, that pretty much is how we support that. And we just give those events to where we can connect our membership, our industry partners, our community partners with their military. You know, it's what I was laughing about earlier. It was funny. Somebody came up to me and said, you know, it's pretty interesting when we hold events outside of the state of Michigan. And when you have something like a chapter reception at the annual meeting, or you do a no-host reception at Global Force AU in March, you get this tremendous attendance at an event outside of the state. But when it comes to something inside the state, it's always a little bit hard to get everybody to come to because we're just so busy. And it's like, and I looked at him and was like, yeah, you're kind of right. That actually does happen because we do, We do get a relatively great turnout at all these events. So yeah, that's what I found very interesting. Somebody told me that the other day.

It is very interesting. The Macomb County Chamber of Commerce and, and the county themselves, we were chatting about AUSA and the fact that this reception exists and how wonderful it is so that you have to go to this big work event in another state, but yet you feel like you've got a team that you're there with, and that's really special.

I mean, yeah, you bring that up. That's a very good point too, is like people feel comfortable when they're with their tribes or they're running their teammates. And when they can see that even Michigan has a great presence at the annual meeting, I believe the Office of Defense and Aerospace Innovation, ODAI, they sponsor a whole, I don't want to call it like not booth, but a whole block with the expo floor at AUSA National. And it gives a lot of small businesses to piggyback off that to showcase their tech, their solutions, and so forth. So that, that's another thing, how Michigan comes together and leads the way with this. I don't see one from like Redstone or Alabama or Picatinny and Aberdeen Proving Ground. So you always see Michigan has its own. And I think even like you said, I think the Macomb County team has a reception at the Army Navy Club as well for another place where Michigan people can get together and network and talk about business related to the Michigan Defense Corridor. So we do relatively well at national with those 3 events, taking care of our membership and working in partnership with our partners. I mean, AUSA, our Arsenal Democracy chapter is a member of the Macomb County team and so forth. So we all come together and it basically works out and we take care of each other.

So what would your message be for the small business that is in the state of Michigan or in the region looking to do more business in aerospace and defense? What is it that AUSA can do for them?

We give them the opportunity to connect with military leaders. What any of these organizations, they're all great. I highly recommend you get involved. You have to network and get your name out there and market your brand and your company. That is the first step. Even at the individual level, I've had some conversations with individuals who I've brought on as new volunteers. And yeah, I was told this 3, 4 years ago when I got out, but now I'm just realizing the importance of it. And so yeah, I'm never going to say no to a volunteer, but For those small businesses and companies, join these professional organizations, attend the different events, and get, get out there and network. You have to network, whether it's an individual requirement or a company requirement. Networking is— communicating is the key.

I love that you just separated a community requirement or a work requirement, like whether your boss says you have to or whether it's an individual requirement, like, no, Shelly, you should just go to the event and network. Because you know it's the right thing to do.

Yeah. I mean, like I said, this is a great point, is networking is always going to be a consummate skill you need to have. And that's something we're teaching our young professionals, which is kind of like a subset of AUSA and something new that they've been promoting over the last 2 to 3 years. We have a young professionals team. It's led by my young professionals director, Austin Nerole. He's a key leader in the defense industry, works in the project and program manager at one of our industry partners. And he leads, and he's curating and asking and reaching out and networking with other young professionals. And what we're doing with that is, hey, we're teaching them how to network by actually creating opportunities to network. We give different things out to talk about how the— what are some techniques and procedures and tactics of networking, and then sending out different things on here are some of the tools of networking and why it's important. That's that professional development aspect that one of the things we do under our educate line of effort is educate not only the industry and community partners about Expiry, but teach, coach, and mentor future leaders within business in the defense industry. And we have various events out there. And our next one for the young professionals is on September 17th out at The Hub in Auburn Hills. You can go to the Arsenal Democracy Young Professionals page for that and check it out. It's a networking event. We're going to have fun. There's going to be bowling, axe throwing, and different things at that event, that venue.

So, it sounds very—

And obviously networking opportunities. Yes. Well, our national says, hey, you can't just have it. It's like, defensive donuts is great. It's certain things they want to accomplish at these. But when it comes to a young professional, they want to have— not only do they want to learn and network, but they want to have fun as well. And that makes sense. We all want to have fun.

So, as you look forward to all of the goodness that's coming up, That's a lot of pressure. And I imagine if I were in your seat, I would feel like my checklist is never-ending. How do you stay at ease as you work through planning these high-stakes, high-level events?

Well, one, you can't do it by yourself. You have to have a great team. And I'm always recruiting volunteers. And like I said, you have to delegate responsibility and use a lot of indirect influence to have these volunteers accomplish what the annual strategic plan has put in place. Our plan is generally the same year over year, except when we get these outlier events like the T2GOM event. But it's one, having a steady plan that's well communicated. We just, we started our new fiscal year and I just sent the annual plan out. And we do 5 major events. We do our annual meeting reception, Our community partner luncheon in October. Then we kind of have a winter break, and then we come into March where we do our DOHO reception down in Huntsville, Alabama, at USA Global Force. And then our next one is our annual member breakfast in conjunction with MDEX. We do our golf outing in May or early June, and then we have the RV birthday ball. And those are the 5 major events we do every year. Is it 6? I can't count. It's 6 major events. Excuse me. We added on the 5th one was the no-host, but the no-host is like such a low pull. It was like, we put it out over our LinkedIn. It's like, hey, if you're attending Globalforce, come to Yellowhammer Brewery on Tuesday, the first day of Globalforce, that evening at 5:00 PM. We just come hang out. We'll have some small hand-passable type appetizers. And then we just go there and have fun and enjoy each other's companies and continue on the networking and so forth and communicating. So having that stable plan, having everybody, having a great team and me learning to delegate as much as possible. I mean, there's certain things I have to do when it comes to like inviting senior leaders to so forth like that, but it's, I have to delegate as much as possible and so forth. And that's where I have a great team behind me that helps me out. They keep me propped up and they do a great job. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for them, that's for sure. And then that's like that work— we always kind of say that work-life balance. You got to like, one, take care of yourself, mind, physical, spiritual. I try to stay active, working out pretty much regularly, about 5 to 6 times a week. And then making sure I spend time with my family. Taking vacations and enjoying that. It's like if I have a family event that can that conflicts with an event, then I know I have a great team that'll step up and cover down for me. A prime example was our when we had our golf outing back on June sixth, I think it was that Friday. The committee chair, who's an avid golfer, which is why he's the committee chair, his son was in Michigan State High School Golf Championship and he placed to compete that weekend. And I said. Hey, you're not going to come run the golf outing you plan so diligently for. We want you to spend— you're definitely going to go to that. Don't worry about it. We've got it covered for you. Just give us all the information. We coordinated with them and covered down and everything worked out well. So, and like I said, that's where we come together as a team and make things happen.

Well, it sounds like you've got an incredible footprint planted in the state of Michigan, and I love that it's a traveling footprint.

You're not just doing things here, but you're moving across the nation as you should as part of the We travel across the state when it comes to engaging our senior ROTC partners and providing them resource contributions and keynote speakers at different events and so forth and awards presentations. So it's always good. And we try to be— we are definitely across the state, that's for sure. At our events, we have sponsorships. Anything— we always try to break even on that, but anything above and beyond that is revenue we reinvest back into The communities where we do sponsor, then that gives us the opportunity to sponsor events like for Fisher House or provide resource contributions to the different ROTC programs or even provide resource contributions to JROTC or the different, the 2 recruiting entities, the Great Lakes Recruiting Battalion, which handles active Army, Army Reserve, or the Recruiting and Retention Battalion for the Michigan National Guard. It allows us to support awards for all their Soldiers of the Year, NCOs of the Year, Recruiters of the Year, and so forth. All that money is reinvested back into those different programs to help benefit the soldier, the family, the veteran, and so forth.

And once again, it's not just about what you're doing and making sure that your name is on things. It's about what are other people in the community doing and how can we lift them up? So thank you for bringing that mindset into the work that we're doing. Chuck, do you have any other mentions that you want to make sure that my audience gets to hear?

Oh goodness. I think the big thing is if you're interested in joining, you can reach out to our team at our LinkedIn profile, Arsenal Democracy Chapter of AUSA. There's also, you can go to our website, ausaarseldemocracy.org, or go to our national website, ausa.org, and look under chapters, Arsenal Democracy. Different ways to connect with us. LinkedIn is probably the best way. And then you can always reach out to me at presidentaod@ausa.org or membership.aod@ausa.org for more information about it.

Well, it's been an absolute joy to connect with you today, Chuck. Thank you for fitting us in.

No problem, Shelly. Thank you for the time, and I appreciate the talk with you. It's been great.

And there you have it. First up today, we had Scott Davis, president of NDIA Michigan, and rounding things out, we had Chuck Cogger, chapter president of the Arsenal of Democracy chapter of AUSA. Scott said something that I want to bring back to the front. He said that the years in uniform gave him a perspective he wishes he had on day one, and there was no way to get it. Except to live through it first. Michigan built the arsenal that helped win a world war. Nobody ordered every person who kept it running. People just kept showing up. And that is still true today. There's no form that gets a sign-off from someone else. When your judgment as a professional is ready, you just start using it. And whether or not you're still wearing the uniform, that's irrelevant. Your decision on moving forward has to come from within. You have to understand where you've been, what you've lived through, what you've learned, and how you can bring that out into the world. Here's your homework for this week. I want you to name the one decision that you're sitting on. You might already know the answer to this decision. You might just feel like you're still waiting for someone else's permission to move forward. I want to encourage you to think on it, and if you really don't need their permission, stop waiting. Go ahead and act on what you already know. Today we saw what it looks like to keep building something bigger than yourself without a title that tells you to. Nobody claps all the time for us. Nobody signs off all the time for us. You, you just move, and the arsenal of democracy, it gets a little bit stronger for it. Portions of today's conversation are also featured in A&D Intel, Macomb County's Chamber of Commerce puts out for the aerospace and defense community. The subscribe link is in the show notes, so I want you to go ahead and grab that link and subscribe, even if you don't live in Southeast Michigan, because if you are in aerospace and defense, this is the premium newsletter for the industry with over 6,000 subscribers nationwide. Thank you again to my 2 incredible guests today. Links to both of their organizations are in the show notes as well. The Arsenal Democracy chapter of AUSA and NDIA Michigan. Go see if membership is right for you. And if what Chuck described about the AUSA annual meeting in DC this October, if that caught your ear, registration details for that are in the show notes as well. Now, Michigan has been building the arsenal of democracy since before either of these 2 men put on a uniform, before I put on my uniform. It needs people who are willing to build it long after they take off a uniform. This is the unfinished work, and it's ours to continue forward. And I am out of energy for today. It's been a tough week for me with the passing of Julie Fath And I want to thank you for keeping us in your thoughts and prayers. I'm host Shelly Rood, and I want to remind you, especially this week, that life doesn't move in a straight line. You navigate life, you don't win it. And with every move, you're the one that's holding the pen, authoring each experience as it comes. That's lived authority, and it's already yours. I am so grateful.

Thank you.

I'm grateful that you chose to spend this time with me today. You made it to the end of the episode. Next Tuesday brings more ground for us to cover together. So until then, stay hardcore, be at ease, and trust the process.

You're listening to Hardcore and At Ease. Keep the conversation going at join.othersoverself.com.