{"id":54933,"date":"2022-05-30T00:45:38","date_gmt":"2022-05-30T07:45:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/?p=54933"},"modified":"2022-05-30T00:45:39","modified_gmt":"2022-05-30T07:45:39","slug":"transitioning-from-the-military-to-an-mba-at-stanford-gsb-podcast-episode","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/transitioning-from-the-military-to-an-mba-at-stanford-gsb-podcast-episode\/","title":{"rendered":"Transitioning from the Military to an MBA at Stanford GSB [Podcast Episode]"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Podcast: Play in new window<\/a> | Download<\/a> | Embed<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts<\/a> | Google Podcasts<\/a> | Spotify<\/a> | Android<\/a> | Stitcher<\/a> | TuneIn<\/a> | RSS<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Football, Air Force Academy, and business; hear how they come together in this Stanford MBA\u2019s journey [Show Summary]<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Captain David Harris has been a leader since childhood. Growing up and in college, he played football. After graduating from the U.S. Air Force Academy, he served as an officer in the U.S. Space Force, and now he\u2019s preparing for an MBA at Stanford GSB.\u00a0In this episode, he shares his story<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interview with David Harris, US Air Force veteran, Stanford GSB MBA candidate [Show Notes]<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Thanks for joining me for the 471st episode of Admissions Straight Talk<\/em>. You\u2019ve seen the stats that most people have a great return on their MBA investment, but what about you<\/em>? Are you going to see that return? We\u2019ve created a tool that will help you assess whether the MBA is likely to be a good investment for you individually. Go to accepted.com\/mbaroicalc<\/a>, complete the quiz, and you\u2019ll not only get an assessment, but also the opportunity to calculate different scenarios. And it\u2019s all free.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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How much could NOT using an admissions consultant cost you?\u00a0
Take the quiz >>\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d like to welcome to Admissions Straight Talk<\/em>, Captain David Harris of the U.S. Space Force. I first met David when he won a free consultation after attending an Accepted webinar. I was very impressed with him and here\u2019s why: In addition to being a delightful person to speak with, David graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 2017. While there, he was a football team captain for the Academy\u2019s Division I team. Upon graduating, he worked first as a Nuclear Cruise Missile Manufacturing and Production Program Manager for the U.S. Air Force and is currently serving in the United States Space Force\u2019s National Reconnaissance Office. Parallel to his service in the military, David has pursued internships in private equity and venture capital, participated in Management Leadership for Tomorrow\u2019s Professional Development Fellows\u2019 program, and co-founded his own investment management company, Ikon Capital Group. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can you tell us a little bit about your background? [2:38]<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

No problem. I\u2019m David Harris. Originally from Dallas, Texas so a Cowboys fan by law. I was actually born during a Cowboys game and that kind of laid the framework for my early pursuits. I played football growing up and that ultimately opened the door for football scholarships at the Air Force Academy, which I chose for the leadership and academic challenge. I majored in management and played football, as you mentioned, and then graduated. That\u2019s where I caught the bug for finance. I was really interested once I got into my major, specifically the finance course to dive a little deeper into private equity. So I got an internship at Pharos Capital down in Dallas before I went into active duty at the Nuclear Cruise Missile Program Office, where I was working for three years. It was a great opportunity to lead<\/a> with decent size team of up to 30. I got the real challenge when I went to the National Reconnaissance Office leading a team of about 125 and managing $250 million worth of software development satellites. It was definitely an amazing experience. I tell people all the time I had the luckiest military career of all time. Then from there, I was able to do a venture capital internship before I head to GSB where I\u2019ll be looking to go into private equity post-MBA. And a quick update, I\u2019m headed to Blackstone at the beginning of June for a pre-MBA internship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So you have three parallel paths: football, Air Force Academy, and business. What do you like to do for fun? [4:19]<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ll give you two things. One, I really love volunteering with the Riordan Programs from UCLA. I\u2019ve really enjoyed helping out the youth in southern California. That\u2019s been a big passion of mine<\/a> for the past four years. I\u2019m actually flying out next week to go to the Riordan Gala where we\u2019ll be presenting a few awards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Outside of that, really, I really enjoy cooking. When I was tall enough to reach a stove, I was cooking scrambled eggs under my grandmother\u2019s supervision, of course. I\u2019ve been cooking ever since. She\u2019s been that stewardess for our family, and we\u2019ve grown up cooking the entire time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What do you like to cook? What\u2019s your favorite cuisine? [5:09]<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Ooh. That\u2019s tough. I\u2019m going to be a little basic and say I love steak. Steak is absolutely an all-time favorite. I\u2019ll put my steak against any steakhouse. I\u2019m definitely experimenting now. My entire family loves to cook and during Christmas, we actually have like an Iron Chef cook-off. My mother and grandmother will pick the ingredients and we have to create a dish so I like to try definitely different recipes. I know my sister and my brother do too \u2013 to practice different recipes throughout the year. Right now, I\u2019m firming up my cacio e pepe recipe. I really love that. And I will say I\u2019m the reigning champ in the family just in case anyone from the family hears this. It definitely brings us together as a family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How did you decide to start your professional career in the military? [6:19]<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s really a long story and it\u2019s kind of how I got interested in business as well. It all started when I was younger. It\u2019s one of those core memories. I was five and I was at a family event and all the kids were together and the adults started asking, \u201cHey, what do you want to be when you grow up?\u201d My cousins went before me and when it was my turn, I proudly stood up in front of everyone and said, \u201cI want to be a manager when I grow up.\u201d The music stopped. Everybody was like, \u201cWhat do you mean by that?\u201d And I said, \u201cI want to be a manager at McDonald\u2019s.\u201d My mother is a teacher, so everyone is expecting a more studious answer from me. I\u2019ll never forget it. My uncle started dying laughing. My mom was like, \u201cExplain it to me.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even though I was five, I did kind of get what was happening around me. I remember family members getting laid off. There was some discrimination in the workplace. I heard about bad things going on. So if I was a manager, I could be in control of all of that. I could provide a safe atmosphere and workplace for my family and the community around me. That was my whole purpose. I just kind of explained that in five-year-old terms to my mother and she was like, \u201cThat\u2019s perfect.\u201d She kind of hit my uncle and told him to stop laughing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has been that common theme throughout. I think that sense of being in a community and serving the community definitely pushed me towards the military and team sports early on. That\u2019s initially how it started. Then I went to the Air Force Academy. It\u2019s kind of a meld of both playing football, of course, getting the academic rigor, but also then, after graduating, serving and continuing that sense of serving the community. That\u2019s initially how I got started in the armed forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How did your interest in business develop? [8:21]<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I always kept that sense that I want to serve. That kind of grew upon me through volunteering. Having more free time after graduating from the academy, I was able to do a little bit more. Once I got that edge for business and I went to Pharos Capital before I went on active duty and there I actually saw the transformation that could happen through access to the capital and impactful investments. We were specifically working on a roll-up of oncology companies in the Midwest. We were able to combine and create access with over 30 physicians and that opened up access to thousands of people in the Midwest. When I took a step back, I realized that the money that we invested didn\u2019t cost people jobs, it actually helped people find access in a very rural community in the Midwest. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After seeing that, the wheels start turning. That\u2019s something I definitely want to get back to. This has been the common thread that\u2019s leading me here. I was selling candy in the eighth grade. I was very industrious. At my football banquet, I got a student athlete of the year award, but with an asterisk for the high candy seller in the district as well. So business has always been there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But building on the Pharos story, that\u2019s only something you can do with access to capital. Looking back at communities I\u2019m involved with I realized the abysmal funding numbers that we have in the Black community, for example. It\u2019s just something that really ignited me to make the pivot to finance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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