DETROIT ARSENAL, Mich. – “Let me tell you a short story of the journey to this present moment,” Valerie DeVries, U.S. Army Tank-automotive and Armaments Command’s deputy chief of staff for Human Capital, told an audience gathered Oct. 11 at a Detroit Arsenal auditorium for the inaugural TACOM Talks event.
She recounted how Maj. Gen. Darren Werner, TACOM commanding general, had told his staff to create a workforce development strategy supporting all of TACOM. That, she clarified, was around six to eight months ago.
“He was really focused on our people,” DeVries explained regarding Werner’s guidance and what he wanted to accomplish. In response, her team developed two workforce-centric initiatives — the TACOM Talent Development Program and TACOM Talks — over the more than half-year period following Werner’s directive. The TACOM Talent Development Program, or T2DP, had kicked off several months ago. The TACOM Talks initiative that DeVries was currently presenting had taken more time to develop.
Invitations sent to the TACOM workforce further described the event’s goal: “TACOM Talks is designed to be a forum for TACOM leaders, teammates, and enterprise partners to share their unique and encouraging insights, best practices, and successes. It’s also a great way to get to know our colleagues as we continue to build and strengthen the TACOM team!”
“Our very first speaker happens to be Brian Butler, our Deputy to the Commanding General,” DeVries told the audience in her introduction of the senior leader.
Butler, she noted, had a “long and illustrious career,” having served previously as the director of TACOM’s Integrated Logistics Support Center and had also been an Army commander.
“I don’t know about a long and illustrious career as much as it may have been just a series of opportunities that presented themselves,” Butler stated, bridging to the point of his talk.
“What I’m going to talk to you about today is finding opportunities and developing opportunities into things that turn into a successful career.”
Butler discussed growing up in nearby Pontiac, marrying the girl next door, and deviating from the familial career path. Even though most of his family – and the family of his future wife – worked in the auto industry, the industry was experiencing decline and jobs were fewer and harder to come by when he was nearing the end of high school.
The military career option was closed, at least for a while; even though his family had a history of military service, his parents strongly rejected the idea of allowing him to join the Marines at 17 years of age.
Poor grades in high school, he figured, limited his employment opportunities elsewhere and his job stocking shelves at a grocery store wouldn’t be enough to marry his high school sweetheart and start a family.
“What I decided to do was to leverage those setbacks as opportunities,” he said.
After weighing his options, he decided to give college a try. He could always give it a year, he thought, to see how it worked out. If it didn’t, he figured, he could enlist, get married and see the world. He thought, “Why not?”
“You’re looking at the very first Butler college graduate,” he told the audience, skipping ahead somewhat in his story.
While attending Northern Michigan University (where his girlfriend also attended), he joined the Reserve Officer Training Candidate program.
“It turned out that I really liked ROTC. I also found myself really excelling in my course of study.”
He got married, graduated with honors, was selected for active-duty, and began his 20-year Army career at Fort Knox.
“I learned a lot along the way,” he said. “You’re going to hit all kinds of obstacles in your personal life, your professional life.” Obstacles, when looked at more objectively, he asserted, presented opportunities and a chance to re-focus.
“What is it that you want to do? How do you get there? Maybe it’s taking a job that no one else wants and excelling in it,” he said. “Run with that. Be the best in everything you do.”
Knowing one’s strengths and weaknesses, he added, is how one becomes successful.
“Know yourself and be honest with yourself as you leverage those (strengths and weaknesses).”
“I embrace my strengths and exercise them when I need to, and I leverage my weaknesses with you,” he told the TACOM team member audience.
“That’s how you become successful. You build teams, you care for those teams, you trust those teams and you move forward. That’s the secret – taking those setbacks, developing them into opportunities, knowing why you want to do something and then figuring out how you’re going to get there.”
“And,” he emphasized, offering one more bit of advice, “not giving up.”
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