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Life is timing and mine was pretty good. The Vietnam War
was at flank speed in the mid to late 1960s, and though I
was sworn into the Navy in January, I would not report to
Officer Candidate School in Newport, Rhode Island, until June.
I needed a job.
I interviewed in a hurry with several different companies
in different industries. There was mutual interest in most
cases, until I informed them that I was sworn into the Navy
and would be leaving in June for active duty. Only one company,
the industrial gases division of Union Carbide Corporation,
thought that was all right with them. I spent about 100 days
in the Cryogenic Equipment Department, learning to sell the
Polarstream Liquid Nitrogen in-transit refrigeration system,
a baptism by fire at cryogenic temperatures.
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| U.S. Army Staff Sergeants and
Professional Praxair Drivers Joel Brekke (left)
and Ed Selzler outside their U.S. Army National
Guard welding tent somewhere in Iraq, which they
used for uparmoring vehicles. Says Brekke, “Having
access to welding and metal fabrication equipment
was an essential part of completing our Iraq mission.”
He adds, “I am sure this is the only welding
'store' in Iraq with a Praxair sign on it.”
Both men are back on the job; Brekke in Fargo, ND,
and Selzler in Aberdeen, SD. |
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Discharged following four years of active duty and another
26 in the Navy Reserve, I was able to sustain parallel careers
in the Navy and at Praxair. I retired from the Navy at the
rank of Captain, with my final assignment of Navy Liaison
Officer to the State of New Jersey during Governor Christine
Whitman's administration.
Emergency response and preparedness was the Mission and the
Navy's response, if needed, to the state's needs as they would
arise. Simultaneously, over the years at Praxair, I was in
various assignments in Cryogenics and then in Bulk Gas Sales,
and ultimately into Welding, Gases and Distributors, which
is where I've served for over 20 years. My current assignment
is Director of Distributor Relations, based in Cary, North
Carolina. My focus is the East Coast and the Independent Praxair
Distributors who serve as Praxair's channel to the numerous
strategic markets located here.
“Earn Your Bones”
Though I was not consciously aware of it at the time, my preparation
for a business career began the day I raised my right hand
and swore an oath to protect and uphold the Constitution of
the United States, and to obey the lawful orders of the officers
appointed over me. That cold January day, I was placed on
notice that as a commissioned officer in the United States
Navy, my Mission would, for the foreseeable future, be the
welfare and protection of my country and the preservation
of the Constitution upon which the United States rests. I
would be accountable to as-yet unnamed but soon-to-be-identified
senior officers who would lead me and my cohorts in discharging
our duty.
The conscious awareness of what had actually happened that
January day was not long in coming. It was sobering, yet comforting,
that we had a clear Mission that would validate and give real
meaning to all our activities. Very importantly, we were being
inducted into an organization that brought a tradition and
history of making all this happen. These people knew what
they were about. They were professional in what they did in
every encounter, every day. They led by example and that made
all of us newcomers want to be just like them. “Lead,
follow, or get out of the way” was not a clever mantra.
It was how the Navy operated, and it was up to us to learn
fast and to learn to lead as well. As in any undertaking,
we had to begin with ourselves.
The core values of Loyalty, Integrity, Respect, Ethics and
what I would call Decisiveness were demanded. In an operational
environment, we quickly learned who it was we were working
with. We also found out about ourselves. Achievement was cross-functional.
It took many skills and specialties to produce the desired
result, and we developed an acute awareness that as individuals
we were all accountable. The Team was depending upon us to
do it right, and do it now. You had to “earn your bones,”
and the quickest way to do that was to have yourself trained
and ready to respond. We were all challenged and motivated
to find a way to “make it happen.”
Once a person was identified as someone who wasted their
life finding reasons why something could not or should not
be done, their career was over. Nothing happened unless we
made it happen, and there were no excuses. We owed it to each
other to do it well and do the right thing. The last thing
anyone wanted was to look into the faces of his teammates
and see the look of reproach over a false word or a job left
undone or left for others to do. The Team knew.
The military was cutting edge in bringing down racial and
gender barriers. The Department of Defense (DoD) was light
years ahead of private enterprise in recruiting, hiring and
promoting a gender-neutral, multicultural workforce, both
civilian and uniformed. Awareness and sensitivity training
was the order of the day, long before “Zero Tolerance”
became a byword inside and outside DoD. Absence of Respect—for
authority, lawful orders or each other—destroys effectiveness.
It was and continues to be rooted out whenever it is encountered,
along with all practitioners of this black art.
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| Captain John S. Gilsenan, United
States Navy, 1996 |
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The Ethics of the Navy and the expected comportment for all
its members was always on display. As noted earlier, getting
the job done and done right was a given. Equally important
was how the job was accomplished. In fact, the Navy required
that every reporting senior would take specific note in every
Fitness Report for officers and Annual Evaluation for enlisted
personnel as to what was accomplished and how it was done.
The end did not justify the means. You had to be high performing,
but never at the expense of your shipmates or the overall
good order and discipline of the Command.
Decisiveness was always valued as essential to good order
and discipline. Morale flows from both of those. Leaders who
lose sight of the Mission grow ambivalent and ineffective.
Keep the Mission in sight at all times, do all it takes to
support it, and discard the rest, ruthlessly.
Safety at all times and in all activities was stressed without
compromise. We had to be able to take the word of our Teammates
and act upon it without hesitation. People's lives depended
upon it. Going to sea is not for the faint of heart even in
peacetime, which is most of the time. Ships are engineering
marvels, but like so many marvels, they can be dangerous places.
The ocean is not cooperative. Combustible fuels and ammunition
of lethal capability surrounded us. Hazards to navigation
in the form of other vessels or the rocks and shoals commonly
encountered during every entry and exit from port all combine
to create a degree of life-threatening difficulty that demands
vigilance.
As an aside, I often hear business and warfare compared to
each other as if they have a whole lot in common. Nothing
could be further from the truth. Business does not demand
anyone give up their life. Warfare, by contrast, is designed
to do so. To compare the two demeans the sacrifice of the
people who die in service, the cause for which they did so,
and the families that mourn them. I suspect that the speakers
who engage in this hyperbole are personally unfamiliar with
warfare. They would do well to refrain from commenting about
that of which they know nothing.
Tradition of Achievement
I left active service and entered the business world with
a keen understanding that in order to achieve anything I would
have to start with myself. Did I have a clear picture of what
the Mission is for Praxair? What are my Team or Group goals
for contributing to the overall Mission, and what is the Strategy
that guides our actions? What is my contribution to be? What
training do I need to secure for myself immediately and in
the future so that I am not found wanting?
Like the Navy, Praxair has a long tradition of achievement
and talented professionals who are accustomed to winning and
to being a part of a Team - a part of something really fine.
As in the Navy, this is a cross-functional opportunity to
work and share the ride with motivated professionals, and
I was comfortable with the challenge, having done it before.
Getting the Job Done and Getting
It Right
In reviewing all the traits, virtues, values and challenges
that were drilled into me and which I attempted to describe
above, one can readily see the parallels to our Industrial
and Specialty Gas and Welding Industry. There is not a businessman
or woman in our midst who is not confronted with similar hazards
and opportunities of product or environment that our military
personnel don't encounter every day.
We all need to know The Mission and our role in achieving
it. We owe it to our people to ensure they understand their
role as well. We must do it all with our Integrity intact
and our Loyalty to each other and our organizations uncompromised,
with Respect for our colleagues and the customers and communities
we serve. Again, we must be Decisive in all our dealings inside
and outside our company. No one wants to be a part of a lukewarm
effort. If you believe in what you do, then act it.
Finally, while doing all of the above, we must do it in a
Safe manner. We are all familiar with the hazards and challenges
our products present to our people, our customers and our
communities. We all have homes and families to go to at the
end of each day, and we should all work to make sure we all
make it. I believe we as an Industry do an admirable job of
doing this today, reflected in the enviable safety record
we have achieved. However, we can all get better at anything
we do in life and Safe Operation is an area in which continuous
improvement is not an option, but rather a noble imperative.
I try to keep the U.S. Navy's long tradition of honor, courage
and commitment as an unfailing part of my daily life, the
core of how I operate in business and in life. Just as I learned
as a sailor “non sibi sed patriae,” that it is not
self but country, I've learned in business that it is not
self, but customer. For those lessons, I am grateful.
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