On October 18th, 2000, I made a commitment to something much bigger than myself: I enlisted in the United States Marine Corps (USMC). Through the crucible of USMC boot camp, I developed a strong foundation of personal discipline on which I have built the rest of my life. I earned a meritorious promotion to Lance Corporal by graduating first in my Field Artillery Fire Direction Control School class of twenty Marines. I then joined my reserve unit and trained for large scale conflict in which field artillery dominates. My reserve unit was not needed in Afghanistan, but in May of 2004, eighty of us were selected to be cross-trained as truck drivers and activated as two truck platoons for Operation Iraqi Freedom. While driving the roads of Iraq, I experienced first-hand what an improvised explosive device made of $10 in materials did to my vehicle’s $10,000 ballistic windshield (a 100,000% return on the insurgent’s investment). I emerged with ringing in my ears and great appreciation for armor. Three weeks later, my appreciation was increased further during a firefight in Fallujah, when my front armor plate stopped an AK-47 bullet from entering my abdomen and exiting through my spine. These brushes with death and other war experiences gave me an important perspective on how defense industry products are used during actual combat operations.

After returning from Iraq, I completed my Computer Engineering degree and applied for multiple engineering positions. I was selected out of hundreds of applicants for the National Instruments (NI) Engineering Leadership Program. I chose NI because it leads the industry in innovative graphical system design and rapid prototyping tools. I helped customers use NI tools to design, prototype, and test their products, saving them thousands of hours and millions of dollars compared to traditional product development tools. I was promoted ahead of schedule into a position in software Research and Development where I focused on integrating third-party instrumentation into NI systems and managed multiple software releases totaling over seven thousand hours of development effort. To learn more about customer applications, I volunteered to travel to customer sites to teach them about our software, and to attend industry trade shows. Senior management selected me to travel to our Shanghai branch to work with our developers. Outside of my normal responsibilities, I co-authored two formal research papers about best practices for increasing efficiency and lowering costs through innovative software design. As a result of my excellent performance, I was promoted to Staff Software Engineer to prepare me for a group manager position.

A management career at NI would be good, but I don’t want to settle for a good career. I crave a great career that combines my military understanding and technical skills with proven business tools to revolutionize the defense industry. The world-class business education that Kellogg provides will prepare me to start my own boutique firm that specializes in optimizing defense product development by leveraging the approaches of graphical system design and rapid prototyping. Competing in the Kellogg Cup and other student competitions will provide a collaborative and rich environment to further develop my business plan. My previous experiences combined with a Kellogg MBA will enable me to advance our military’s operations to save more lives and promote peace through innovative and cost effective firepower.