JMC Aspiring Leaders Program, Module 9

By Teresa Hutcheson, JMC Human ResourcesJune 17, 2021

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HQ, JMC recently hosted Module 9 of the Aspiring Leaders Program, Presentation Skills, via MS Teams. The Aspiring Leaders Program includes several phases of training such as strategic leadership, conversational leadership and dialogue skills, and decision making.

In order to enhance JMC leadership engagement, JMC senior leaders serve as champions and participate in the monthly webinars. The champions discuss relevant, personal leadership experiences and philosophies, and provide insight into developing effective leadership traits and behaviors. Jim Veto, JMC’s Director of Demilitarization, discussed Presentation Skills as a leader and how to develop skills needed to communicate to senior leaders and outside customers across the enterprise.

Veto graduated from St. Ambrose with a Bachelor’s Degree in Environmental Management and a Master’s of Business Administration. He began his civilian career with the Government in 2004. Over the years, he’s served as the lead JMC author for the Ammunition Industrial Base Strategic Plan and Program Manager for the Industrial Base Assessment Tool (IBAT). In his most recent role as the Director of Demilitarization, Veto provides leadership to three divisions of action officers and subject matter experts whose mission is to enable and execute demilitarization of ammunition for the Joint Services. These positions have provided him with a wealth of experience to understand how important it is to develop and sharpen presentation skills to communicate to senior leaders for the success of the enterprise mission.

During Module 9, Veto discussed his leadership style and stressed the importance of being able to understand and communicate our overall mission and how it impacts our country and the Warfighter. He discussed how he prepares for presentations to senior leaders and outside customers; explaining how important it is to know your audience, take a step back and look at the big picture of what you’re presenting, seek diverse perspectives to improve the messaging, and anticipate questions that may arise during the presentation.

“It is important to never stop learning and to keep stepping out of your comfort zone. We tend to fall into day to day tasks and stop challenging and developing ourselves…take the opportunities to learn something new, seek creative solutions, and then come back and share what you’ve learned with your teammates.  Two keys to making a lasting difference are improving processes and developing people. The impact made through people and processes will outlive our individual contributions.” said Veto.

The current participants of the JMC Aspiring Leaders program will attend an overall program review followed by class presentations to Senior Leaders in June.