52. The Value of a Degree in the Hands of a Veteran with Ryan Pavel

Brock Briggs  0:00  

Hello and welcome to the Scuttlebutt, the destination for current and former service members looking to make better decisions, think deeper and earn more money. I'm your host, Brock Briggs. Thanks for tuning into my conversation today with Ryan Pavel. I have to take a moment here to also say thank you for being with me up to this point. This is episode number 52. 52 weeks of consecutive weekly episodes is so wild to think about. Starting a year ago, I couldn't have told you that this would happen. 

Naturally around any milestone, you have the desire to reflect on what you're doing and things you may wanna change. I've got a solo episode coming where I'm gonna talk about the things I've learned in a year of podcasting, what I've learned about myself and the veteran community, and also the things I've changed my mind on. Here's a hint, it's a lot. The thing I know for sure is that what I've learned and the things that I've gained from doing this, have shown me that I need to double down on this project. The last few weeks, I've been taking some steps to do that. And I'll talk more about that in the coming episode. 

I appreciate you being on this ride with me and supporting me. I have a big announcement coming next week to celebrate the anniversary with more details on that to come. But for now let's talk about Ryan. In this conversation, we talk about why growing up playing video games as a differentiator. Ryan landed a job at a law firm from playing Destiny. He had a really great LinkedIn post on kind of a funny story to get the conversation started. We also talk about understanding the quantitative and qualitative impacts of your military service and how higher education plays into the life of veteran. We talk a lot about higher education because Ryan is the CEO of the Warrior-Scholar Project, a nonprofit focused on preparation for education after service. 

As someone who is very intimidated about returning to school after service, this resonated with me in a big way. Not only are you preparing to transition out of military life, going back to or starting in the education system is a bit scary. If you're like me, I bombed out of college the first time and couldn't cut it, didn't have the discipline to make it happen. The military helped me with that. But that's only in hindsight and I didn't know it right away. Warrior-Scholar Project helps vets prepare for that transition to education with a really rigorous program that sets the tone, encourages, and gets you plugged in with some great people at the university you're gonna be attending. But I'll let Ryan speak about that more. Enjoy my conversation with Ryan Pavel.

Brock Briggs  

I was kind of thinking of different ways to introduce you, judging by your LinkedIn title, but it has changed every day that I've looked at it. So I don't really quite know the best title to give you. I think maybe a more apt way to start the conversation might be for you to tell me the story of how you landed a job in law from playing Destiny.

Ryan Pavel  3:11  

Yeah, it's one of my favorites because it has the benefit of being, I think, unique and true and funny. So yeah, so I changed my look, my goal is to make LinkedIn a place that isn't just so repetitive. I'm really tired of every LinkedIn post following the exact same formula and kind of being something where there's a really clear path to engagement on LinkedIn, if you wanna get there. And there's a formula that is really successful and arguably is one that I should be employing, but I just kind of get tired of it. And the ways that people tag each other, the sort of topics and I wanna be able to inject some personality and some reality into LinkedIn. And not to say that everybody on there is fake. There are a lot of real people on there. But I don't know, I have this idea of doing something on there a bit different. 

And we can talk more if you're interested in sort of, you know, sort of the overall state of social media and I think if it wasn't for my job, I probably would have at some point just taken a complete hiatus from all social media, but it's not really in the cards here. So in essence, yeah, I made a post five or six weeks ago that I hazard a guess that nobody else has ever uploaded a picture of Phil Goff the unchained or you know whatever his name is from destiny to LinkedIn and so I was thinking alright that's kind of arresting right in a clever way and people would be interested in reading it. 

And so the story essentially in a nutshell and then I can go through more of the details is that I legitimately got my job and you know, corporate litigation in big law to Amlaw top 50 firm and through a connection that I made while slaying this monster folk off on Xbox playing a game called Destiny, right? And my father, my late father, who you know, really detested the amount of hours that I poured into video games, right? For me to be able to call him up after I got that offer and say, you know, Dad, look, told you the video games weren't all a waste of time. Here you go. It all worked out.

Brock Briggs  5:29  

I have like a personal note here like, in my outline, talking about how interesting gamers are just in general. I don't know if you would consider yourself that. But there are a lot of like interesting stories and interesting, like companies founded by people who are like, you know, it's always like d&d or like some kind of like, strategy game. I don't know if there's something that how gaming kind of works, the mechanisms in our mind or whatever and gears people towards that. But I think that that's an interesting correlation. And we're gonna get into you being the CEO of a company now a little bit later. But I think that that's an interesting correlation. 

Ryan Pavel  6:13  

Yeah, so I mean, I agree, I think that, so I've gone through different stages of gaming, you know, video games played as in many of our lives have played this really interesting role. And even about something to another real part of myself, I don't gain much now. But it's not for lack of desire, I have a condition called chronic multisymptom illness, which is, in essence, the VAs diagnosis of a cluster of symptoms that they don't know what else to call it. And the working theory is that it's tied to toxic exposure. And so that's now getting a lot more, you know, attention because of the Pact Act, which is a good thing that it's getting more attention. 

But in 2016, I basically started getting pain in my hands and my wrists that never went away. So it's kind of like started out as like a small carpal tunnel. And I had that for years. And I thought it was something which wasn't anything bigger. And then it's just like a switch flipped in August of 2016. And so that essentially shut down my ability to play games right for any sort of sustained period of time. So I think that there's an on again, off again, gamer, right? You know, the halo lands from high school, those are some of my fondest gaming memories, right? Getting everybody into somebody's basement getting hopped up on Mountain Dew and, you know, and Reese's and whatever other junk food we could find and just play until late in the night. 

And yeah, and then when I was gone, you know, when I joined the military and one of the ways that I stayed connected to my friends was just through Xbox Live, right? And being able to maintain those friendships and you know, so it really played this pivotal role. And then, ultimately, that same group of friends, it was a friend of a friend that we were killing some time in one of these missions, right? And then and Destiny and that's what led to this conversation that ultimately led me this job. So, I mean, I think that there is, you know, for me, the biggest aspect is really like the community element. Like I'm a very relationship driven person and a very connection driven person. And I found that video gaming for one way or another, I'm not particularly interested in just like single player games on my own, right? I like the multiplayer. I like being able to be with people. I like being able to build those connections. So yeah.

Brock Briggs  8:36  

It's interesting how the public perception of gaming and communities online has like changed over like the last I don't know, particularly the last five years but maybe it's been coming for like the last maybe 20 years. I remember playing like Diablo One online and went down the whole World of Warcraft and like, Xbox rabbit hole and the whole thing and I remember being and playing on dial up too. So like the pain and struggle of that but explaining to my parents and friends like oh, I'm playing with this person in this other country and thought that that was really interesting. And back then it was more like kind of scary and then now there are like, you know, streaming really took off and like a whole bunch of money started pouring into the space and it's drastically different now.

Ryan Pavel  9:31  

Yeah, I think it is. I think things have changed a lot you think about even something like you know the bane of microtransactions and pay to win, right? And I think that there's something about part of the reason that I long for those are I think finally about the setting up a land in somebody's basement, it's just the simplicity of it, right? I mean, at its core, people were just you know, we were having a lot of fun with each other and it's very innocent fun, right? And this is also kind of falls in the category of like, oh, like the world used to be so much simpler. So I'm aware of that bias when I look back on it, but I do think that it was simple, right? And it was safe, right? I've been thinking about, so I have a two year old and a four year old. 

And I've just very recently started introducing them to, you know, to some games. They don't see at a time again because I can't really functionally game. I can but I don't because I have a really small amount of time that I can actually like, manipulate a controller, so I just like I just don't really do it, it's not worth it. Because then I start to like, want to do it more, but then I can't because otherwise I'll have that sort of pain ramped up for a couple of days. But I've just started introducing them to games. And it's really interesting thinking about, as they latch on to that, right? They're latching on in a very different, a very different world than when I first started playing, you know, Super Nintendo way back when N64. You know, as soon as they get a phone, right? Everything is accessible, right? On a phone and on these devices. So yeah, I mean, it's formative for all of us. But I think you're right, that there's been some really big shifts in how these things have, you know, how they shape us over time.

Brock Briggs  11:11  

What gets you interested in joining the Marine Corps?

Ryan Pavel  11:16  

Yeah, I think so. There's a few different aspects to it. One is I am fairly confident that had I been accepted to my college of choice I would have gone to college, right? And so I'm very thankful, shout out University of Illinois for rejecting me, you know, as a high school senior. I got accepted elsewhere, but no places that I really wanted to go. And again, I'm a relationship driven guy. And so my friends were proud that most of them are going to the University of Illinois, right? And so that was the place that I really wanted to go. And I was half in half out. I was very apathetic high schooler, you know, more interested in Halo 2 than I was in, you know, anything else. Which side note, by the way, I will say part of the reason I joke about, you know, my dad and how grateful I was to be able to go back to him and say, hey, I got this job. 

But you know, Winston and Strawn as a result of networking, literally, through gaming was in Halo 2 came out, I snuck out of the house and we all bought it at midnight. And then went home and played it and just for the next, you know, month, like that's all that we did. Everything was this game. And I came up from the basement late one night and just on the coffee table, right at the crest of the stairs. My father had printed out just in big bold letters addicted, right? And then he printed out the Webster's dictionary definition of you know of addiction, right? And, you know, it's like, I'm not addicted. If I was addicted, I couldn't stop. And he said, so stop. And so then I went and sold my Xbox. So he won, I guess, right? 

Brock Briggs

He got what he wanted. 

Ryan Pavel 

Yeah, but years later, I just bought another one, so. But in any event, I mean, that's kind of my mindset, right? I grew up in a household that was very, very driven. My parents are both very driven and, you know, accomplish in their own right and have their degrees. So it's just very apathetic. And so when I was applying to college, you know, I was doing it because that was the next logical step, right? Like, it seems like the thing that people do, but I didn't really like the idea of going and, you know, either using money that my parents would, you know, would pay or taking out my own loans, whatever that is, it didn't seem like the right usage of money. But I still would have gone. I'm fairly confident had I gotten to do it. So that was in yeah, late 2000 or yeah, 2004 when I got that rejection. There's a lot going on in the world and in the news at that time and so I think that everybody, at that time, I paint with a broad brush and say just about everybody probably had some sense of like, okay, like call to action and patriotism and service. 

And so that was in the back of my mind, this rejection is here, right? I kind of acknowledged that I'm not really rising to my potential. And then there's a persuasive Marine Corps recruiter, right? Who comes along and as soon as I started having those conversations, it's like, okay, this is the thing. I was really sold on the idea of meritocracy, right? And I think that that holds true. I think at the junior ranks, junior enlisted ranks, at least it is meritocratic in the sense that you either can do the thing or you can't, right? They don't really care where you came from or what your background is. And so it yeah, it snowballed into this is the right thing for me to do at this time.

Brock Briggs  14:34  

At that time and then maybe compare to now, would you have considered yourself a person for others?

Ryan Pavel  14:45  

A person for others in the sense of service oriented and trying to be able to, yeah, not really then. You know, I didn't really have many service oriented things. I grew up in an evangelical Christian house and so there's church. And there's, you know, there's volunteer opportunities through that. But that was probably the extent of it, right? I didn't have much of a drive to really be able to put others first. Again, I go back to this thing of like the relationships and these people that I still and you know, and close to all these years later, but that's not really putting others first. The Marine Corps was an important time for me to be able to really embrace service in a way that I hadn't before even though I had, you know, deeply mixed feelings about the outcomes of that service. By the time that I left, it still does instill in you coming together to be able to serve something more. 

So now, yes, right? I mean, now I actually have a very hard time imagining not being in a service oriented industry, right? I was having a conversation with a couple of friends recently. Both of whom are doing very well at their, you know, for profit companies. One is the founder and the other one is sort of somebody else who's on the ground floor. And just thinking through 10 years from now, what kind of companies are we gonna be at? And I have a hard time seeing myself not in the something the nonprofit industry or potentially government work, but really something which is service oriented because that's now I know, a bit later in life, that that's the sort of thing that I'm actually that really drives me, that I'm interested in doing.

Brock Briggs  16:23  

What were those outcomes that you said that you were conflicted about after your time in the core was closing?

Ryan Pavel  16:29  

Yeah, I mean, you know, we could pass along, you wanna roll the tape for right? We could just, I could ask you the, you know, the same questions, having listened to a bit of, you know, your own take and your thoughts on service and, you know, your journey. You know, as a side note, I think that that's part of the richness of the veteran community. I really push back on most broad statements about veterans. I think that they're often overblown. I think that they're misleading. And sometimes they're misleading. And like people are trying to paint veterans with too positive abrash. And sometimes it's too negatively, right? Like hero worship or you know, PTSD, people like as if every veteran is dealing with those things. But I think that there are some things that unite veterans. 

And most people have some degree of some aspects of their service that they agree with and some that they disagree with, right? Some things that they wish had gone differently. And part of the richness of the veteran experience is understanding what people derive from their service and how they leverage that into whatever comes next. I feel like there's some commonalities for transition, but there are, you know, I've yet to hear two stories that are exactly alike. You know, for me, a lot of it came from being deployed. We got to Iraq in 2008. And back and forth twice and then we came out in February 2010. When all Marines were out of Iraq, we're back in, you know, a couple years later, so. 

But we thought we were gonna be one of the last continuous Marines to leave Iraq for good. But a lot of the things that we were doing there was post surge. And so I was an Arabic translator. And so the materials that we were translating and the things that we were part of, it seemed I got a sense from the work that I was doing that not everything was copacetic, right? And that some of the decisions that we had made as a country and as you know, the coalition forces and Coalition Provisional Authority, early on in our occupation in Iraq made a really set the stage for some really difficult things down the road. So policies like what we did with Iraqi military or Iraqi politics. And that really started to trouble me when I was there, right? And as I was getting out and thinking about like, did we, is it a net positive? Is the work that we're doing there, is it a net positive? And are my contributions and net positive? 

Alright, so you talked about this notion of service, you know, I'm very proud of my, you know, I'm very proud of my service. But there's sort of this cognitive dissonance because at the same time, I still have this enduring question about, you know, whether the things that I did in service, were a net positive, you think about sort of the global scale of, you know, what somebody can do with their time. If I had spent those five years and some other sort of occupation, could that have led to a, you know, a greater good. And then I unpacked a lot of that when I was at Michigan, when I was completing my undergrad after I left through an academic lens, right? And reading about all of that and writing about all of that and trying to get a different perspective as a veteran as opposed to somebody that's boots on the ground. And that helped, right? I think a lot of this also falls into the category of moral injury. 

So you know, I certainly consider myself to be somebody that, you know, works through that and I think a lot of us do. I don't really think that there's enough conversation around that too. Sometimes it can feel kind of like a weak position to be talking about moral injury when there's so many people that are dealing with physical injuries. But I think it's an important part of the conversation.

Brock Briggs  20:13  

A former of my guests, Tom Schueman, is in the Marine Corps active duty still. I believe he's a major. He talks about moral injury a lot. And it's a very important concept. I think it's interesting that you said that you got a lot more from your service and learning about it from writing about it and through an academic lens. And for a moment there, I was thinking about our capacity to process the things that are going on while you're active. And while you're carrying out the day to day mission, and I don't know that anybody is thinking about that, like so many days, I just tried to like make it through a day, much less thinking about the repercussions of actions where I fit in, like the larger scheme of our nation's defense plan and what that looks like in a practical sense. What do you think that you took away from your academic studies that maybe wasn't in front of your eyes at the time?

Ryan Pavel  21:21  

Yeah, I mean, I think that there's a couple of, let’s to go back to what you were saying before I use that to answer your question. I think that you're right, that part of it is, you know, it's the wolf closest to the door, right? It's accomplishing the mission. It's doing the thing that's right in front of you. And so you don't necessarily have time to process. But I also think, you know, it's remarkable. I was really surprised. It makes sense. But it was really when I thought about it more, but it's really surprised when I learned that the Marine Corps plans on replacing some people that are really another numbers would cringe when they hear me say this with my broad estimations, but it's something like 30 to 40,000 Marines every year, right? That like the churn rate is built in. It's not the assumption like it's not a problem if there's 30 to 40,000 Marines that are leaving each year. 

And people like me that did one enlistment, right? On its face, that seems like a loss leader, right? Like they were treating these men, they trained me up and then they only got a few years of real use out of me. But that's part of the way that the military functions, right? As folks that are they know are only going to do one enlistment or two enlistment or if you commission, right? It’s not as if everybody who's commissioning is you know, is doing their 20 or 30, right? Certainly not. And so you're relying on people that are willing to execute the mission for a certain period of time, but that, you know, I think one of the reasons, one of the main reasons that people would get out is they start to have some version of these questions, right? Of like, what is the work that I'm doing here? 

And as you develop, right? Even, like, developmentally, what could I process when I was 17 as compared to 22, right? You know there's a meaningful growth and perspective there. I was thinking about this recently with the recruitment challenges where there are some MLSs I think, in particular for Air Force Special Forces where the initial enlistment bonuses are somewhere like 60 to $75,000, right? For like an initial contract signing. And to me, that's wild because I was thinking, you know, I've been through a healthy enlist. I would have been eligible for healthy enlistment bonus and I've been deployed to be tax free, all of these things. But I had already made my mind up, right? Like, no, I'm doing one enlistment and then I'm out. So you know, it didn't swim even temporarily. 

But I'm thinking about like the incentive structure, if you're throwing that amount of money at somebody who's 17 or 18 years old, right? Like, I'm not sure I'm down for that incentive structure of these massive enlisted enlistment bonuses, not only, you know, not just the reenlistment bonuses and those are few and far between, right? It's not, this article is from a couple months ago, but I was reading. So it's not as if this is something which is made available in anybody who raises the right hand now is getting this huge chunk of change to do their initial enlistment. But, yeah, the incentive structure really matters. And you don't necessarily have time to stop and think. And I also think it's fairly clear to say that the military doesn't want everybody to be processing those things on all those levels, right? 

Like you need a certain number of people that are gonna take the mission and accomplish the mission. Even embedded in the oath, I like doing this with Warrior scholars. The Oath of Enlistment and the Oath to Commission are different, right? And a lot of people don't don't know that. And so it's this interesting exercise to actually tease those two things out and to identify the differences. They're largely the same, but in essence, officers are entrusted with a certain amount of discretion, right? Which makes sense, right? They are that's the part of the reason for the separation between commissioned officers in the enlisted ranks, whereas enlisted folks are not past that same amount of discretion, right? It's much more in terms of accepting the orders and file following through on the orders. I mean, it's just it's fascinating to me, right? Because we don't think about that when you're 17, right? You just enlist, right? Or after you do a little bit of college, you say, alright, well, you know what? My original plans didn't work out, so let's go Navy.

Brock Briggs  25:14  

Right, exactly. I was just reading an article before we started this conversation. A random post from LinkedIn that was saying that the Coast Guard was offering enlistment bonuses for culinary specialists, which there's a need for every job in the military. But I thought that it was healthy. I think it was 40 or $45,000, which is very healthy for somebody with no experience.

Ryan Pavel 

Right

Brock Briggs 

It does make you kind of question the incentive structure. What do you think the incentives ought to be? 

Ryan Pavel  25:54  

Yeah, I mean, so I guess I should clarify to you that I don't even necessarily think on its face, it strikes me as problematic, right? The initial hefty enlistment bonuses but that's not I haven't spent enough time thinking about it or had enough conversations with folks to really be able to come to a judgment of this is a problem, right? It's just sort of my internal reaction to that is hot, right? There's something different about reenlisting at a period of time that you know, what this is, you know, what you're signing up for versus when you actually have, you know, frankly, no idea, right? No matter what a recruiter tells you, no matter how many family members you have in the military, right? Like you don't really know, right? What you're signing up for, that's part of the package. 

I think that the, you know, the incentive structure for something like indirect benefits as opposed to just like pure compensation of a signing bonus things like the GI Bill, I think are the right incentives, right? Like, I think that that is an, you know, I got out in 2010. And so it was right after the post 911 GI Bill came out. I am a very fortunate beneficiary of the post 911 GI bill for you know, for undergrad and graduate school. I think that that's a loosely, broadly speaking, that is the properly calculated incentive, right? Because you do this service, you earn these benefits, right? You have to serve X amount of time to be able to unlock these things. And to the extent you as a 17 or 18 year old, and also I keep saying 17, 18. I understand that people enlist outside of that range, but I'm kind of thinking about like the bottom, you know, that you can't be younger than 17 and enlist and then it needs that parental waiver and at 18, you don't need that waiver. 

But you know, you as a high school graduate, you know, you wanna go to college at some point you're maybe like me, you're looking for some additional purpose. You know, you need to you know, get yourself in gear, but you need to do a certain amount of service in order to qualify for those benefits. I think that's right. You know, yes, you do have some people that sign up just for the benefits but I don't know if that's a problem. In fact, I don't think it's a problem, right? Like if that's the reason that somebody is signing up. Not everybody has to do it because they're you know bleeding heart Patriot America, right? Wanna serve my country, you know, in any sort of thing. I think that you have to have the desire to serve your country. But I think that's okay if that's your third or fourth fifth, you know, thing down the row of what you're actually enlisting for.

Brock Briggs  28:19  

Thinking about incentives and I just kind of stepping back for a minute. I have learned so much about my service just talking to people over the last year and have learned leaps and bounds more and prot maybe it's just processing more than what I actually kind of took away from being in. Thinking about money as an incentive visor or an incentive for people to kind of stay in, it's interesting to me when that is thrown around as a reason for people to stay in and even schooling to some extent not that that's not schooling is it's expensive, hands down is and quite frankly, out of control outside of the GI Bill. 

I mean, we're not writing the checkbook anymore. But it's interesting when money becomes an incentive when you look at the pay structure of corporate America and then compare that to like, I had a Ben Kolhmann on and he was talking about how as like a first year McKinsey associate is making as much as like an O-6, like where is the you're certainly not staying in for money. And I think that that serving your country really needs to be the reason you need to stay in and or if you're going to stay in that should be at the top of the stack. And I don't know if there's anything that is actually understanding I think what I know about the world now. There's not much that can supplant that when it comes to what the actual value of the other things that should getting are.

Ryan Pavel  30:00  

Yeah, I mean, I think it's a really interesting point, right? I mean and I would push on that a little bit for two reasons. One is, I would say, just trying to think I mean, is that do I agree that the reason should be for somebody to re enlist that at that point, you know, the assumption would be they know enough about the military and they're enlisting because out of a desire to serve. I don't know if I agree that that should be the primary reason for them. You know, because even there you think about what happens, what happens a lot of times, it's somebody at that point, this is what they know, right? 

They might like the individual, they might like the job that they do, they might have a family at that point. They see this as you know, as the next step for them to be able to a reenlistment allows them to be able to continue this thing that they enjoy doing. Even there, I think if desire to serve, right? If a call to serve is secondary or tertiary, you know, I think somebody could still be a good leader. But the thing that you know, I struggle with and that I know a lot of veterans struggle with as well is you look at the folks that got in and those that stayed in and those that got out, right? And you think like, well, like, could we exchange a couple of people on that? 

Could we get some of the people that got out, right? We need them to stay in, right? Because they're the ones that like, you know, I think they're thinking about things in the right way. And that's the reason they got out. So many people that stayed and you think like, well, from what I know about them, right? If their incentive structure and sort of who they are. But I don't know if I necessarily want them being a leader of Marines. And that's tough because you're powerless in that sense, right? And so again, I think this is built into the inherent churn of like, what the Marine Corps is looking for. And this is not unique to the Marine Corps. It's just, that's where I have, you know, a little bit more insight. 

But you know, I think that it's understood that people are gonna be getting out. But I don't know if the incentives really are all that much better for people that are re enlisting, I would hope, right? At that point, they're more experienced. They know more about what they're signing up for, which again, is why I think I'm more okay with a reenlistment bonus as opposed to an enlistment bonus. But I think it's still muddy at that point, what actually causes somebody to reenlist? Yeah

Brock Briggs  32:11  

One last thing on that topic and then we can move on. I personally think I worry the most about people staying in to be safe. I think that that safety because it's as every two week paycheck and I know so many people that I feel like what's choosing to stay in and make a career as a binary, like you're either doing that or you're not. 

Ryan Pavel 

Right, right. 

Brock Briggs

And it's not a constant evaluation process. And they maybe don't feel that they have the skills or the resources or the knowledge, like they're too deep in to get out. And I don't know that that's the right way or the right reason to stay in either.

Ryan Pavel  32:55  

So with that, I completely agreed, right? And 

Brock Briggs

Okay 

Ryan Pavel

I would even take that one step further, which is those are not good reasons to stay in, right? If it's like, I don't know what else to do. I don't feel like I can go anywhere else, you know. And then to re-enlist, I think that that is deeply problematic, right? And I do think that you're right, that a lot of there's a number of people that do re-enlist. This is I mean, this is part of where not just the work that you know what the Warrior-Scholar Project does, but like other organizations should be able to help fill that gap. 

And indeed, even like the actual Transition Assistance Program, when somebody has already made the decision to get out, should be able to fill that gap about, you know, building those types of structures outside of the military. But I think it's a challenge. I think that that really is a main reason for people to stay in. You don't want somebody who's in these incredibly important positions, right? Rising through the ranks there just because they weren't sure if they, you know, what else to do?

Brock Briggs  33:53  

I agree. It is scary thought to think about people in those positions and kind of just doing it on a whim because there's no other option.

Ryan Pavel  34:04  

Yeah. And so what I guess the other thing I would say on this is I don't want this to come across as so cynical that I think everybody who re-enlist is doing it for the wrong reasons. I think some people certainly do. I just don't think that I'm in a particularly good place to judge whether a reason is right or wrong, right? I was very confident that for myself that it was time for me to get out. And I am still very confident about that. I've been somewhat surprised by the number of folks that I served with who have either gone back in or who have contemplated going back in, right? For me even though all day every day I am working with veterans, I love this work. There's literally no job I'd rather have than this one. 

I'm extremely privileged to be able to say that. Nothing about that makes me wish that I was still in the military, right? Like this is my group, right? Just thinking about the folks that are like in higher education. Okay, let's go, right? I can make an impact there. But yeah, if you'd asked me to write down a list of all the people that got out when I got out of who I thought what go back in, I would have been wrong, quite wrong, which leads into this other interesting category of people that enlist, get out and then decide to go back. And what's the incentive structure there? Is it that safety? Isn't that known factor? Or is there really some other sort of, you know, opportunity, you think about like JAG, somebody who enlisted does something like that, but then goes through law school and then ends up, you know, pursuing JAG. That's a very different type of military service at that point. 

And then also people that just re enlisted that are, you know, really good at what they do. There are absolutely people. I have this joke, which isn't really a joke, but something that I say from time to time to retired Sergeant Major works on our team, Michael Lanpolsaen, that if he was my sergeant major, it would have been problematic because I would have re enlisted, right? Because he's such a good leader, right? Like he is so authentic and so good and so motivating. If I had seen him in that role, I could have seen like, okay, like, there's people at that level, right? That really believe in troop welfare and that are really being able to do that sort of thing. So, you know, I wouldn't be here. But I do think that there are absolutely people that stay in for the long haul, that do it for whether or not whatever the reasons were, that they are accomplishing a net positive. 

Brock Briggs  36:16  

I've had a few people on this show that the way that they talk about it and talk about the service, all of them, I think are actually former Marines, but the way that they talk about it, I'm like, oh, man, maybe it's got me like questioning things like man that maybe I need to go down to the recruiters office. Like, it's interesting how a leader like that. And the way that they speak about it, it's so real to them. And it kind of is, it kind of comes over you and like, it makes you feel that feeling that you get when the anthem plays and like just all of those things, it's a good feeling. You know, I'm sure that that feeling would be quickly taken away as you're on the drill floor at boot camp again. 

Ryan Pavel  37:06  

Sure. But there's a couple of concrete examples. So one is challenge coins, right? Like I was fairly cynical about challenge coins. I think that they've sort of they've jumped the shark in the sense that now they're everywhere. But every company can print challenge coins, right? I think a challenge coin has to mean something, right? Like, I think that that's the point of them. And so I had just sort of like, you know, cynically, you said, you know what? WSP is not gonna be challenge coins. But actually summer of 2020, I got to see this guy who I mentioned retired Major Lanpolsaen, on our team present challenge coins to some of our stakeholders at different host institutions. 

And it fundamentally changed my view of challenge coins to the point that then we did end up ordering some of them for our 10th anniversary and it became something which was very meaningful for me to be able to give those out to folks on our team, right? And so it's this iconic aspect of military culture that I had just sort of put in a box of like, you know what? These are, I don't like culturally what these are signifying. I didn't have ones that I felt particularly like, there even ones that I had that had some meaning, and it wasn't enough to really drive it and just sort of wrote it off. But coming back to that as a veteran and seeing the meaning in it because of that really exemplary way in which he gave those coins and how authentic and meaningful it was, there's something about that, to me of that I think is important, right? Like the ways in which we view our service changes over time. 

And actually, I realized now that I did somewhat avoid your question about sort of, like the role of writing for me when I was an undergrad, but this ties into the things you've been saying. As you've been having conversations with veterans, right? Your reflections, your own reflections of your service have changed, right? Or like the ways in which you view it not only your knowledge of other people, but how you filter through your experience and the lens through which you're looking at those things in the rearview mirror changes. There's this phenomenal book here. It just came out a couple of days ago. But it's Ben Kesling, Bravo Company. And I'm powering through it. I got a chance to meet him yesterday. It's remarkable. So he's a Marine Corps officer. 

But this is about the 82nd Airborne Army Unit Bravo Company that, you know, went through hell and stuff before, during and after their deployment. But he writes it in a way that is it like actually really lands and it seems it is very real. And so one of the interesting things when it's talking a little bit, it's just like, what impact does that have on you, right? Like, you're not reading about your own military experience, but you're going through this exhaustive process over the course of multiple years, you know, to be able to process this. Like the ways in which we again, his lens now is different than when he started that project, right? Or your lens is different than when you started the podcast. And so being mindful of that. And you know, sort of that hindsight bias has just it's such a fast I think it's a necessary thing, right? Like to be able to actually process it to have the conversations and to write and to read. It's not always easy, but yeah, it's fluid. It's fluid. 

Brock Briggs  40:14  

You had a really good post on LinkedIn, talking about the feeling of inadequacy and how that played into your time in law school. And I'd love to kind of have you talk through that. And then kind of we can, I'd love to look at it through a military lens. 

Ryan Pavel 

Yeah

Brock Briggs 

And see kind of how that affected you then and then like, how you think about it now?

Ryan Pavel  40:40  

Sure, sure. Yeah. So one of my really good friends in law school. Really smart guy, you know, consistently downplayed his intellect and you know, sort of his role. And we spent a lot of time with each other in study groups and other things like this. And he's kicking ass now, by the way, is an attorney. So you know, joke's on him and law school, he didn't really believe that, like, you'd have what it takes. He's doing great things. But one of us at one point, you know, it's just sort of made this phrase about like, man, law school is really just 1001 ways to feel inadequate, right? That like, no matter what you do, there's always something else that you see somebody else doing that you think like, oh, well, like, I'm not I can't hold a candle to them, right? 

If you have, if you get cold called, right? You're in your property class and you give some sort of answer and maybe you make it through, right? It doesn't have to be awful. But then somebody else, you know, identifies the way in which one justice you know, wrote a line in the dissent that you know, counteracts what somebody said, the majority you think like, oh, my God, like that guy is another level, right? Like, I can't even come close to competing or, you know, the extracurriculars. My God, right? These moot courts and then tries all of these things, right? And there's 1000 activities you can do that you should be doing, these are all important for your resume. So you can get this, you know, ideal at clerkship and then the rest of your life is set, right? 

And then you just sit and you're like, man, I'm just trying to like, learn the material. Like I'm just trying to, you know, do well enough that I can get the job that I want. And it's all relative, right? And we were at a great law school, we had a really good time. And by the way, whenever I find out that a veteran wants to go to law school, after I sort of suss out my standard questions, I'm like, okay, do you know any attorneys that are doing this work? If not, like, start there, right? Like, you got to be able to know, go through the network, make sure you wanna go there. Once they know that they wanna go, my question is alright, you know, what's your top law school that you wanna go to? And why isn't UVA, right? Like I love the University of Virginia for law school. I'm an advocate for Michigan where I went for undergrad. And I think it can be a good fit for some folks. But UVA was an excellent experience. 

But even in the supportive culture, where I had all of these people around me that I really actually felt like, you know, believed in me that wasn't deeply competitive, just constantly fighting the sense of inadequacy. And the point that I was making with that LinkedIn post, you know, we talk so much about imposter syndrome or imposter phenomenon. And sometimes we describe that in a way as if it's like a thing that happens at one point in time and then you like, no longer feel like an imposter. But I still feel when I log into LinkedIn and I see what other leaders are doing. I still feel like either an imposter of like, oh, like, I didn't think of that thing. That idea, like the way to pitch that particular person or this type of programming. 

Therefore, I am an imposter in this area, right? Like, I don't actually have what it takes to succeed there. Or even if it's even if I don't get the sense of impostor syndrome, at a minimum, I could scroll, I could pull up whatever LinkedIn feeds me right now, right? And within I would guarantee like, five posts, right? I would see something where I would my reflection internally just be like, like, I should have done that. Like, I should have thought of that thing. Like I should have, you know, just 1001 ways to feel inadequate.

Brock Briggs  43:58  

It's interesting as you're saying that. I'm picturing LinkedIn as kind of like, it's the professional version of Instagram where Instagram we've got this like, oh, man, I like definitely don't look that good in a swimsuit. And it's like, well, I definitely didn't get that job. Like 

Ryan Pavel 

Yeah, yeah

Brock Briggs

It is incredibly ripe with I think a little bit of the nature kind of the platform promotes this kind of gloating mentality a little bit. I don't know if there's something in how its program that like really just throws fuel on the fire for that and everybody kind of like, wants to gas each other up, but and it makes me question too, when I look at these things, I'm like, am I the only one that's feeling like, am I envious? Like, are all these other people, like why are they congratulating them?

Ryan Pavel  

Right

Brock Briggs

This is nothing like

Ryan Pavel  

Right 

Brock Briggs

It is a very, but then it makes me question I'm like maybe I'm the one with the problem here. So I'm glad that you also feel maybe similar.

Ryan Pavel  45:02  

Exactly! I mean that's exactly right. I mean, it is that. I mean, it really filters down into like, oh, everybody else has everything figured out, right? Like, I'm the one that doesn't have something figured out, right? I'm the problem here. I'm the one that needs to and there is an aspect there. Like there's a positive angle to this, which is, you know, like, what are the opportunities for growth really? Like realistically, when I feel that sense of inadequacy, you know, at its core, that's probably triggered by something of like, okay, this person did this thing, right? This person say that there's like a new say, one of our partners in the VSO space secures, you know, a really sizable corporate contribution, right? And I had some sort of second layer connection to somebody in that. 

And now I learned, oh, I should have pitched them, right? Okay, so what can I do with that? If internally I feel inadequate, shoot, I miss my opportunity. Well, no, okay, if they're giving to this organization, that probably means that I can have a warm ask and to being able to be invited to be able to, you know, to pitch this organization and to go to be able to sell WSP and to be able to secure a donation there. So there is sort of like, okay, feel that you're gonna feel that inadequacy, right? But then do something about it. I talked about this with our students with rejection, too. And I've talked about this before on a podcast or two. But so I won't go through the whole story unless it's of interest, but rejection shapes us, right? And that I got rejected to University of Illinois. And that was a forcing function for me to enlist in the Marine Corps. I got out of the Marine Corps, even before I got out, I applied to a number of schools and I got rejected, right? 

And you know, and then I was able to, you know, work with the admissions office and take community college courses to be able to turn that into an admission, but those rejections really matter. And I think that there's a couple of reactions that people have that aren't particularly productive. One is just get so down in the doldrums and odd to hell with it, right? So to go to the inadequacy example, if you see something you say, well, I'm the problem. I'm inadequate, very close it out. I’m done, right? Okay. Well, you missed your opportunity. And then there's also the like, just, I don't know, denial of it's not me, it's everybody else, right? Like, oh, this school doesn't understand what I bring to the table, right? This reflects poorly on them, right? Or like these idiots on LinkedIn, they don't know what they have coming for them, like, I'm the real deal, right? And so fine tuning those things to be able to say like, no, okay, I was rejected. That sucks, right? I didn't do that thing. I feel inadequate, that feeling sucks. But now what do I do with it, right? Feel what you're gonna feel and then channel that to some actual, again, net positive.

Brock Briggs  47:33  

One of the things that I think is interesting about the military is and as we're talking about this and realizing that kind of all of life is that way. You're never really “making it”. You know, you don't know who you're being looked up to as somebody in that role when you talk about things that you do. And people are like, oh, that's really aspirational for me. You never really get to hear those things. The way the world works, that doesn't want you to like be too happy, you know. 

But there certainly is this process that's programmed into how the military works, where it's, oh, this unit used to be so much more tough before you got here or like this deployment that you didn't go on or I know, I certainly fell down in the trap of even just deploying one time. And it's like, well, if I would have done one more, then it would have like meant something else. 

Ryan Pavel 

Right

Brock Briggs 

It's this, it's just this vicious loop of like trying to find meaning and satisfaction and things that ultimately, if you're looking to those things, it's never gonna be there. I don't think that it ever will.

Ryan Pavel  48:43  

So yeah, I agree. I completely agree. I think that maybe your synopsis of it is better than how I typically will articulate this or think through it, but the hierarchical nature of the military. And sort of the like, just wait mill attitude is something which I think is really interesting, right? Like, okay, you're in boot camp, like just wait. Do combat training when we go to combat and just wait until you're in, you know, ACE school or whatever the thing is, okay, just wait until you're in the fleet. Okay, just wait until you deploy, right? Just wait till you deploy again, right? Just wait until you have some sort of combat experience, right? 

There's always this, you know, this nature and at some point, you have to be able to like, well, where do you derive your self worth, right? Is it because of, you know, other people that are gonna be consistently defining those things for you? Or is it because okay, this is why I enlisted, right? I've achieved that, right? I'm comfortable. You know, again, like I said, like, I am proud of my service, despite my you know, the things that cognitive dissonance that I hold in it. I'm still wondering whether or not on balance, I did good. However you wanna define good. I am proud of it. And I do think that I was able to accomplish a lot. Knowing full well that there is plenty more that I could have accomplished, right? I've always talked about this a lot that like I was an average Marine, right? 

Like, one of the tropes that I do not like it's not just when people describe all veterans, all service members and veterans as heroes, but it's also as leaders, right? Like, not everybody's a leader, right? That's like that fundamentally on its face cannot be the way that everything works. And you could define leadership and you know, in smaller things, and I guess there's a way to be able to parse that word, but not everybody is, you know, not everybody's had a squad or a fire team or what have you. And as a very average Marine, I had a few minimal opportunities to be able to lead. But most of who I am today as a leader, it still is heavily informed by my military experience. But it's not as if I just like grew up as a leader in the course of those five years. 

And then I'm able to draft on all of that for what I do today. I think other people in the course of an initial enlistment, have unreal leadership experience, right? Some people have opportunities in those years. Whether it's in a combat forum or whether it's through anything else, that nobody else other people in the rest of their lives wouldn't be able to have. So, I don't know at all, I think that trying to identify, you know, getting yourself out of that hierarchical mindset and just sort of like, well, I didn't, I wasn't able to achieve this level that somebody told me was the important thing to be able to achieve, but instead honest reflection of okay, what did I get out of that experience? And how do I move forward, right? 

And how do I actually pick up and, you know, and move on. You talked about this in your interview, right? In the sense of just like, you pick up different experiences, right? You're interested in, I liked the one you're talking about, you know, you're interested in potentially running a coffee shop. So you just like get a job at a coffee shop, right? You just you go and you get that type of experience. You seek those types of things out and you channel, okay, you have your military experience, you have these things that you're doing, and then you build something out of that, right? All these component pieces into, you know, who you are and what you're doing now.

Brock Briggs  51:50  

What kinds of things do you measure yourself against today as like, kind of your defining self worth or your own personal measuring stick, if you will?

Ryan Pavel  52:01  

Yeah, I mean, so realistically, part of the reason that I have that as a pin post on my LinkedIn profile is I still feel that, right? Like, I wanna acknowledge that I wanna be real about the fact that I have that, but very, I mean, you know, candidly, a measuring stick for me for better or for worse is still the people that are in this orbit, right? The fellow leaders from other VSOs and, you know, I mean, it's a really supportive network, which I like a lot, right? The veteran community is, you know, very supportive. And I think that most of the leaders in this space are very supportive and not really looking through things through the lens of, you know, funding competitiveness or anything like that, but I still will constantly measure myself against them and against, you know, against other people. 

So sometimes I do a better job of being able to tease out my own how I should be measuring my self worth versus how I do. But I think that those are two different questions. You know, professionally, there's also some metrics that, you know, we put together a strategic plan, and if we hit the strategic plan, right? If we hit the goals then that's some aspect that is tied to like how I view my capacity as a leader in this organization, right? So like self worth, you know, I am somebody that needs to bring his whole self or close to his whole self into my work, right? I can't really tease those things out successfully in the long run, I can do it if I need to. And I'm in corporate litigation, right? I'm not the same sort of person, I can't really bring all my attributes and you know, to bear there. 

But in this job, I do very much measure, you know, my ability to be able to grow and to be able to lead based off of our ability as an organization to accomplish what we say we're gonna accomplish, right? We are telling donors, hey, we need your donations in order to be able to hit these milestones. If we don't hit those milestones, then I feel that. I internalize that, right? As do I know, other members of our team. And I also think there's this important part of self worth, which has to be disconnected from work, right? So as I mentioned, I have a two year old and I have a four year old and, you know, I have my wife and I have been together for you know, for many years at this point. 

And so a lot of self worth, you know, there's nothing quite like you know, a kid, if I come back from a trip and you know, my son says, like, oh, I'm so happy to see you dad. He's in this phase now where he's just kind of like a few separate things like that. And it's the best, right? Because it's gonna go away in an instant, right? And he's not gonna wanna care. He's not gonna wanna spend any time with me, right? But that really does make you feel like a million bucks, right? And sort of like all these other things about work and all the other conversations we're having kind of melt away under the opinion of you know, how your kids view you or how your loved ones view you. 

And then I think there's this other third category, you know, some kind of teasing out like the professional side, the family side. On a personal level, I feel if I get caught in a wormhole of social media and, you know, wasting time watching reels and TikTok and you know, shortening my attention span and I haven't like read a book in, you know, three months that I start to feel some kind of way, right? Like, there's some aspect of just like self worth that I feel like I have to be like I wanna be learning, I wanna be pushing myself to like spend my time outside of my, you know, job job to be growing and to not be static. I take that seriously, that's harder to measure, right? I could put really quantifiable goals there, but I don't. But I think it's an important part of like how, candidly, I sort of assess myself and how things are going.

Brock Briggs  55:35  

How did you get involve with the Warrior-Scholar Project program to begin with? 

Ryan Pavel  55:41  

Yeah, so one of my friends from the secondary battalion, who I deployed with and who I went to language school with DOI. He was one of the very few student veterans that was at Yale, back in 2013 was when he called me. I think he started there in 2012. And they had a small group there had started a pilot, like a very early pilot of Warrior-Scholar Project. They launched it in 2012. They brought a group of, I think, nine veterans to campus and they ran them through this crash course and, you know, a truncated version of what the student veterans were learning as part of the Eli Whitney program, which is meant to serve students from a really diverse array of walks of life and transfer students. And it worked, right? They ran this in 2012. And it worked. And it was all very homegrown, all very Yale centric. 

So in 2013, they were looking to grow it. And so my friend, who had been helping out with that initial program, the initial pilot of Warrior-Scholar Project at Yale, and, you know, sent me a note and said, hey, I know you've been involved with student veteran advocacy. So you should come check this out. I guess we skipped over, you know, a lot of this. But when I got out when I was in Michigan, the folks that helped me find my way were fellow student veterans, right? Like I needed that, I needed a community of people. I wanted some distance in between myself and sort of military identity and veteran identity. But those are the people that we had common ground, right? And so I ended up getting involved with our Student Veterans of America chapter there and had been gotten increasingly heavily involved with it. 

And Michigan for a few reasons that aren't worth going into here. We're on the radar for the founders at Warrior-Scholar Project. So it led to this call. And I said, sure, I'll come out and see it, right? Having really no idea what it was. And I was working at the time. I was teaching high school. So I only had a day, right? Like literally one day that I could fly to New Haven to see this thing. And I stepped into a class that was already in session. And for that second year, it was a group of about a dozen veterans but half active duty and half veterans. And they were going toe to toe in this discussion on Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America with the professor the late Charles Hill, who's this legendary professor at Yale, right? 

And that was just like this, like, really fulsome discussion. And I was like, what universe did I step into here, right? Like, what classroom is this active, like, what class, where people this and none of my experiences in undergrad, right? And I had some great classes were like this, engage with people, did the readings, and they were, you know, and the professor was taking the time to be able to work for, you know, no compensation. And, you know, it's not part of his tenure or anything like that.

Brock Briggs  58:28  

Coming from teaching high school too, I'm assuming you were pretty shocked. 

Ryan Pavel  58:32  

A little different, right? You're right, you're right. And so I was in and then for the next five years, that was my involvement was we'd launched a pilot of the program at Michigan. And then when I was going through law school and working as an attorney, it would carve out a couple of weeks each summer to come back and to, you know, wrestle up instructors and to serve the students and do all of these things. And it was incredibly life giving, right? Every time it would end, I would say, oh, man, if there's only way I could do that full time, there was only way I could do that full time. And that opportunity came about in 2018. I met up with one of the founders for old times sake and said, man, if there's only way I could do this full time. And he said, well, what if there was? So I took the jump.

Brock Briggs  59:18  

How has the program changed from that initial? Were you like went out there to see what it was? Maybe could you describe what the program was? I understand that it's student veterans and it's just a Yale but like, what exactly was being offered? And then maybe how that changed over time to maybe up through today?

Ryan Pavel  59:38  

Yeah, so one of the things that I like about WSP is that some parts of it haven't changed at all right? And that's actually a really important part for as much as we've grown as much as we've refined, right? The core offering, like the intent of WSP and the way in which it's executed really hasn't changed. I struggled for a long time with the name Warrior-Scholar Project, right? I felt like warrior was overblown as was scholar. And I did think about that for years, right? And now I actually really like it because I arrived at this point just based off a lot of conversations of people that have gone through the program that, you know, warriors and ethos, right? 

Not everybody's an infantry man. I wasn't an infantryman, right? I wasn't in combat, right? I don't consider myself to be a warrior. You come out of boot camp, it doesn't really matter what your job is, right? You come out of it feeling like, okay, I'm part of a unit, right? That warrior ethos. And the same thing is true with our programs, right? You know, we have some incredible students, but what does it mean to actually be a scholar, right? Like, in the classical sense in a week, are you gonna go from not being a scholar to being a scholar? No, right? But you don't have to be, you know, pursuing this incredible, groundbreaking PhD dissertation in order to be a scholar. It's the ethos, right? Do I see myself as being able to succeed in the classroom? Yes, that's an ethos, right? 

So that was true in the initial version of the program, taking people that had a wide variety of military services and putting them into the classroom and helping them understand, okay, there's a way to be able to translate that experience and who I am. And to actually be able to see myself as kicking ass in the classroom, right? So much of it is about this mentality and the support structure. It's always got to be heavily involved and led by, I think, enlisted veterans. I think that that's really important component of it, right? At some layer, right? So much of this revolves around mentorship from our alumni that have gone through the program that didn't come back, they're not 30 steps ahead in the process, right? They're five steps ahead of the people that they're leading. They went to the program last summer. 

Now they're at all of these schools and they're applying those skills. And they're coming back and they're saying, hey, I took this course. And here's how it's working. So that level of authenticity, I think, is really important. And then the intensity, that's also something which was true in the initial cohorts, which is still there now. It's about 70 to 80 hours of work per week. So it's really rigorous. But veterans respond really well to that, right? You throw it on the gauntlet and you say, look, you're here. We guarantee it's gonna be worth it, right? We have the data from 2300 students to show you why it's gonna be worth it. So trust the process and you're gonna work and then it works. You know, so those aspects are still the same. Some of the readings have changed, right? Though some of them, of course, faculty members have changed, right? 

The structure, some of the timing for sessions, you know, have revised. We collect a ton of post course data from folks because we're always looking for ways to be able to improve the program. But at its core, it still is, you know, for the humanities program. You're reading dense humanities materials. You're turning into sophisticated college level discussion in college level writing and you're having conversations around the social and psychological aspects of transition, what is it like to be a veteran on a college campus?

Brock Briggs  1:02:44  

You mentioned a couple times there the data that you're seeing about what you collect to improve and kind of what you see over the course of all of the cohorts that you've run at. And you're involved in like a whole bunch of schools. As a data nerd here, so I'm gonna like I'd love to drill into that. 

Ryan Pavel 

Yeah

Brock Briggs  

What kinds of things do you guys see that what kind of efficacy does the Warrior-Scholar Project offer in terms of like reaching this desired outcome?

Ryan Pavel  1:03:17  

Yeah. So the core thing that is really helpful for us but it's also elusive, right? If you're a data nerd, this, you know, this one might drive you crazy. But one of the ways that we measure success is confidence level, right? And the problem with confidence level is that there's no I'm unaware of any objective way to really measure confidence, right? But what we found and there's a decent amount of research primarily having to do with first generation students, but it tracks for non first gen as well, is that if somebody has confidence, then they are much more likely to succeed. That sounds painfully obvious. It is painfully obvious. 

But at the same time, it means that if you want somebody to believe in themselves or if you want somebody to believe that they should be applying to whatever school or whatever program is the best fit for themselves, they are not going to do that unless they are confident enough to submit the application, right? And so thinking through that, that's why but 50% of our population every summer is comprised of active duty service members. If I had my druthers, everybody would take WSP who's interested in pursuing College, everybody would take it before they get out, before they've spent any GI Bill dollars, before they've made some of these decisions about you know, where they wanna go or how they wanna spend their time. Because we wanna be able to have them see, okay, don't just go for what you think you can accomplish, right? You can actually accomplish a lot more. 

And then here are some of the skills along the way. So other things that we measure, right? In terms of things like, you know, the writing instructors are giving a lot of concrete feedback on growth on writing levels, right? And being able to provide really precise, you know, comments that are tailored to the students. Those things really matter. Things like somebody's self assessment of their reading ability, right? And whether or not they feel like they have tools to be able to succeed, their own assessment of how confident they are that they will succeed in the transition. That's a lot of the short term data. The medium and long term outcomes that we measure through an alumni survey, it's like, where did you actually go into school, right? How are you doing, right? 

It would be insufficient for us to just say, well, okay, you had a good feeling when you left the course. So good luck. See ya, right? And so the one key stat that we track there's what's the persistence rate, right? Meaning, what's the rate of students that are actually going through WSP. And that then are either have graduated or that are on track to complete their degree within six years. Six years is sort of the standard defined even college degrees people think about in terms of four years, six years is how persistence rates are generally measured. And for us, that's over 90%, right? The most recent data, which there's a big asterisk because it's not all that recent now. But the best data source still suggests that 72% of student veterans, that's the overall persistence rate for student veterans. 

So we talked about that growth from degree persistence, right? And then where students actually going, right? So it's, like 1% of student veterans, the student loans make up less than 1% of the overall US News Top 20 student body. And so for us, you know, we have like 30% of our alumni last year are at those same schools, right? So that's not an apples to apples comparison, but where are they actually applying. And neither of those are to say that if somebody decides not to pursue the degree, let alone at one of those institutions, that they're a failure, right? It's just that we want people to not self-select out of those things. We want them to be able to see those as the options and then make an informed decision. Do I need to go to school? If so, where am I going? How is that tied to my career path? All of those, you know, etc, etc.

Brock Briggs  1:06:51  

This is probably a question I should have asked at the very beginning, but can you maybe outline who this program is for and it like specifically, where in that journey they can be applying for it? And then like what some of the like, initial requirements for in terms of like what schools are eligible, etc.

Ryan Pavel  1:07:13  

See, if I was doing my job, well, then I would have just answered that question without even asking it at the outset, right? I would have said alright before we go any further, let me explain what WSP is. Here I am describing you know, the outcomes and sort of 

Brock Briggs 

You’re a guest. That’s my job.

Ryan Pavel 

Yeah, so look, so the one hard and fast. There's a couple eligibility criteria, the hard and fast one is enlisted, right? Obviously, you understand enlisted versus commission. I find myself describing this all the time. So I'll say it just in case folks on this podcast, you know, listening to it aren't familiar with it, but enlisted meaning as compared to commission, right? Enlisted, not meaning active duty. That's one of the primary issues that we have with folks who think they hear “enlisted” and think, oh, you're only serving people that are in active duty? No, I'm an enlisted veteran, right? 

I wasn't, you get this distinction. But you know, originally, the genesis for WSP was really focused on enlisted pursuing undergraduate degrees. And so there was this natural separation where commissioned officers, by definition, have their undergraduate degree by the time that they commission, right? So they would be ineligible. Over time, there's an ask, there's a caveat, there's an asterisk next to the requirement of not yet having completed a bachelor's degree because we found that there's a lot of folks that either completed a degree years ago that isn't doing anything for them or that just recently completed a bachelor's degree, but they got swept up in the predatory for profit school industry or something of that nature. 

So now, when somebody applies, if they are, they served as a commissioned officer, right? You know, best of luck to you, but WSP isn't, you're not eligible for WSP. But on the bachelor's degree side, we say okay, tell us about, you know, where you achieve your bachelor's. Let's make sure that these programs are still actually a good fit for you. We have a network of a little over 20 schools, great schools throughout the country, and students don't have to be matriculating or even necessarily interested in attending that school. So the idea is that we want them to be able to experience with what that's like in an ungraded unaccredited environment, but you have to have the drive to be able to say I wanna spend a week or two weeks at you know, at Yale, at Chicago, at USC, right? At these great cornell right at these institutions throughout the country. 

So you can select which ones are your preference and then we have to depending on when you apply and our admissions team has worked with folks to be able to try and find the best fit there. That's for our core academic boot camps. So enlisted, typically not somebody that has a bachelor's degree, but if they do and somebody can articulate a reason why this makes sense for them to go through then you know, welcome in and then it becomes a matter of working with our team once you're admitted to, get admitted to a particular program. And then there's the Graduate School mentorship side right now that's a service, which is only available to our alumni that have been pursuing graduate school. 

But that's gonna open up in the coming years. I think that, you know, I personally and WSP as an organization, we wanna see more enlisted veterans and excellent graduate school programs, as well. It's great that there's pipelines for again, officers to be able to go there. That's fantastic. But in addition to that, we need more enlisted veterans seeing themselves as achieving success at those types of programs. So that's gonna be a big part of our build out in the coming years.

Brock Briggs  1:10:38  

Is Warrior-Scholar Project available to, I saw some verbiage on the website talking about SkillBridge. How does SkillBridge integrate with WSP?

Ryan Pavel  1:10:49  

Yeah, so it's interesting. We've used SkillBridge for years and years and years. And recently we've gotten some questions about this because there is a program DoD SkillBridge, right? So this is meant to be something which was talking about SkillBridge in the like, small S SkillBridge level, right? This idea of channeling the skills from the military into higher education and beyond. So we don't have a formal relationship with DoD SkillBridge. 

Brock Briggs  1:11:13  

Okay, I gotcha. That makes sense. I imagine that the level of programming that you guys are offering requires like immense buy in from the universities. Like you're having teachers from that school, like help participate in this thing. And are they paid? And I just kind of like really wanna harp a little bit on the value that people might be getting by, like being taught by university or professors from these like top school universities. 

Ryan Pavel  1:11:44  

Yeah, so we do definitely, it's a partnership, right? Like it is a formal partnership with each one of these institutions. Because it's not something where we just sort of like or an outside party that's renting facilities that you know, we happen to be on this campus, right? We want it to be something that the student can get a sense of what it's really like to actually be a student there. So it is a commitment, certainly from the institutions. And it's a long process of going back and forth with institution to make sure that we're right fit into plan and appropriately. There's three categories of instructors at each course. So one, I'll start with the ones that I mentioned before, talking about the alumni mentors. 

So the alumni are, they go in groups of three to four, depending on if it's humanities, stem or business. Those are the three subsidiaries of programming we offer. And they are embedded with the students, right? They're sleeping in the residence halls. They're eating in the dining facilities. They’re with the students from sunup to sundown. They are mentoring them and they're also instructing, right? So they have some formal instruction that they're doing about, like how to be a successful student. But a lot of it is also the mentorship and the soft skills, right again about like, what is it like, you know, when I've done these before, it's like, okay, I was I had this tight knit unit, and then I'm one of 28,000 undergrads, right? Wondering who the hell are my people? And, you know, what have I done? 

So the alumni mentors are this really vital component. We talked about it as like the secret sauce for WSP. The second component are the faculty members. So faculty members, we're asking them to volunteer about three hours of their time. So it's not an onerous commitment and it's meant to be something which is in their area of expertise. So Harvard, we have a brilliant and renowned professor, Michael Klarman. So we have a section on the constitutional framework. Unit Two is about the constitutional framework. I'm not gonna tell Michael Klarman how to teach on the constitutional framework, right? But we say look, the students will have read these materials when they show up to your course. The seminar is yours to run however you see fit. So we try and make it as low of a lift as we can. 

And for the faculty members who are actually volunteering, right? No stipend, no honorarium, three hours in an area of their choosing. What we find is that when somebody comes once, they wanna come back a year and again, year over a year because they have this responsive, like, wow, I wish all of my students were that engaged. We sincerely hear that all the time. And then the third category of instructors are the writing instructors on the humanity side, STEM project leaders in the stem side and entrepreneurship group leaders on the business side. They are paid because they're with the students for about 20 hours per week. So they come from the institution, sometimes they come from the Writing Center, sometimes their PhD candidates, sometimes they’re faculty members. But they receive a stipend because they're actually with the students doing a substantive skill in the afternoon for about 20 hours over the course of those seven or eight days.

Brock Briggs  1:14:35  

I think it's very easy to on the surface level, say and explain the value of what a degree does for somebody. I don't think that anybody would argue that it's access to better jobs. It's better knowledge better like more effective learning, all of these things. What have you learned being the CEO of WSP? What have you learned about the value of a degree in the hands of a capable veteran since working there?

Ryan Pavel  1:15:05  

Yeah. So it's a thoughtful question. I haven't been asked that directly before. So give you my answer first impression is, and probably chew on that one a little bit more afterwards, too. So I think that there's a transactional answer. And then there's the deeper answer. So the transactional answer is that there's a lot of jobs that do just require a degree, right? Sometimes that's something which is required in a specific area of study. And other times, it's just a check in the box. And so at its core, right? I think that there is an inherent value in a degree for a lot of jobs or it is a prerequisite for a lot of jobs. And sometimes that's sufficient, right? 

And sometimes even a non degree is sufficient to the point earlier about being an informed consumer. Look, if the job that I wanna go to is talking to somebody yesterday, and it's connected to WSP supports this trade union, that is just desperate for people that are willing to do asbestos removal, right? And it's a six figure job with incredible benefits, right? But they just can't find anybody, right? So if somebody went through our program is like, you know what? I have what it takes to succeed there. But like, here's the opportunity, you know, that would be great. They don't need that value of the degree. So just that's my caveat that I acknowledge that not every not every job requires a degree. 

But for those that do for some people, you know, it is that really important point. I think the deeper side of it, you know, so much of we talk a lot about in our programs about, you know, the roles of diversity and inclusion, right? These are really meaningful words. And there's a lot of like very necessary discussion about that these days. But what we try and simulate in our programs, right? Is we're not like our outreach team is trying to put together diverse cohorts. And we mean that in all different senses, right? Example I use for this and this, I swear, I'll bring this back to an answer to your question. But when the transgender ban was lifted a couple of years ago, right? I'm part of groups that were celebrating that were thinking like, this is amazing, right? Like this is, you know, like, thank goodness! This is, you know, this is incredible. 

And then I'm also part of some, you know, other groups, right? Some private online groups, so like Marine Corps groups, if you're like Marine Corps forms of those types of things, that there were a number of people that were saying incredibly vitriolic, and you know, inappropriate stuff. And like, this is the end of our military and here's the thing about, you know, Warrior-Scholar Project and I think that the extension is to college and the deeper answer here is like the richness of an experience is putting people from both sides of that conversation in a classroom with each other reading Fed 10 or reading to Tocqueville, right? And being able to have a discussion and be able to bring their perspectives. 

I think that is really the deeper value that like the reason why if there's plenty of reasons to be cynical about higher education and college and cost of college and the way and things are going. Again, we could have hours and hours and hours of discussion about that and there's tons written. But I do think that at its core, a college experience should expose you to a wide variety of opinions for things that you previously just, you know, either hadn't considered or kind of like, rejected. So we try and simulate a lot of that at WSP, right? I don't want a group of people that just all think the same that all have the same answer to a question. 

And I don't think colleges want that. In fact, I know, you know, that's not what colleges want. So I think that that's the deeper meaning to a lot of the degrees, right? Not just the transactional nature, check the box. Now I can apply and be, you know, eligible for this job. But also, college really, actually dramatically expanded my, you know, my worldview and I know why I believe what I believe or I came out with a series of questions that I don't have answers to and that's kind of uncomfortable, but also necessary.

Brock Briggs  1:18:47  

Having more questions is, I think it's a good sign in your own personal development, understanding that you know less than less about the world than you thought. And I think that that's a really great sign. 

Ryan Pavel

Yeah

Brock Briggs 

At the helm of this big ship that you're steering, WSP, what is your vision for what the next 5, 10 years looks like for the program? What would you really like to be doing? Other than you mentioned the graduate program and maybe if that's the sole focus, maybe we can kind of take that apart a little bit. But where do you see this going? 

Ryan Pavel  1:19:25  

Yeah, so yeah, graduate school is an important part of it. Another thing is as an organization, I want us to do, you know, a better job but tying together the career outcomes with educational outcomes, right? And the decision making process. So you know, we are not a workforce development organization. There are organizations that do that all day, every day. So we don't wanna replicate that. So there's a lot of like strong referral pipelines. But I do want us to do you know, I think if we're doing the best version of our job to actually execute the mission and come closer to you know, achieving the vision. Education doesn't happen in a vacuum, right? Education is a component to what comes next, right? Education for the sake of education is in the vast majority of cases a bad idea. 

So building out career services, again, not workforce development, but thinking about how do we leverage the, you know, the relationships that we have with individual alumni and understanding their needs and what they're looking for with relationships we have with companies that are looking to be able to pair those things up. Not just with like, here's a batch of resumes, hopefully, you hire some of them, but more meaningful, you know, career connections. And even if it's not us ultimately placing people in the hands of certain, you know, recruiters for different institutions, just having them think through, how does education feed into my wider goals, right? We do that informally now. But we need to build out a more formal way to be able to help people understand the connective tissue in between higher education in the career side. 

And then the other area is, I am increasingly concerned, right? The thing that sometimes quite literally keeps me up at night is thinking about all the people that we're not reaching, and why that's the case, right? So next year, we'll serve about 400 people through academic boot camps. We’ll serve 6 or 700 through a variety of other services through workshops and Alumni services and those things. So you know, call it 1000 people. That's fantastic, right? I love the thing that we do, you know, it's absolutely, you know, fantastic. But no matter which estimate you look at, you know, it's always in excess of 150,000 people that are leaving the service each year. 10s of 1000s of them are qualified for WSP. But there's a barrier to entry, right? We talked about confidence. If you're not confident to apply to the University of Illinois, we have a program there now. If you're not confident enough to apply to University of Illinois, you may not be confident to apply to WSP at University of Illinois, even though those are two distinct entities.

And so a lot of people I think, that may like visit the website and sort of like, okay, I'm interested may self select out because they should see that it's rigorous, right? Like, this is an intensive residential commitment. We now have a virtual offering of the boot camps. But that still is an intensive commitment, right? That's an excess of 60 hours in a week, right? And they really work. We're doing a couple of those in December. But we are actively planning to do a WSP on demand, which lowers the impacts are lower because we don't have people that we can actually do any sort of, you know, face to face work with or those like magical conversations that happen on the path when people are walking together from like a really tough seminar to dinner, right? And I'm like, that's like the real good stuff comes in play. Can't do that in WSP on demand. 

But in terms of accessibility and lowering the barrier to entry, it's enormous, right? So you think about something where, okay, you go through tap, but I didn't really learn anything about how to be a good student at tap. So I'm gonna log on to this thing. It’s free, right? I'm gonna start to get that information. And then that we can actually have that be something that feeds into the boot camps, right? If this is actually a useful thing that you derived a lot of value from it, let's talk about if boot camps the right fit for you. So a big part of our strategic growth has to be the quality control and continuing to refine and judiciously grow, we currently do, right? Growing boot camps but not to be on 150 campuses. That's not the goal of WSP. 

So continuing to do what we do well, growing things like graduate school and graduate school programming, and you know, the career development side. And then this new area of a different modality of our programming that I think stands to actually move the needle for the wider veteran population and reach a bunch of people that just don't have the confidence in themselves, but that really need the services needed to unlock their full potential.

Brock Briggs  1:23:37  

You've kind of already outlined some of the things that it would take to make you successful. And both of those goals, let's fast forward the clock a little bit, maybe say five years and say that you didn't meet either of those. What do you think would have been the biggest roadblock to accomplishing those?

Ryan Pavel  1:23:55  

Yeah, it's I mean, we can look at previous years and I can pull from like actual data about like, what are the things that have led us to not accomplishing our goals in the past as well, you know. There are some unforeseeable events like the pandemic, right? That fundamentally changed the nature of our world. And I think one of the lessons from that is like, okay, don't ever get too cocky in a certain service model, right? You might have to pivot on short notice, right? And individual level, on a family level, on a professional level, organizational, all of these things. 

But there is the, our team is tired of me talking about this, I'm sure at this point, but the way that I've thought about it is we need to be able to have there's this three legged stool analogy, right? Where we need to be able to have one leg of the stool is the programming and the students that we serve, we need to be able to have that leg of the stool be robust and reliable. And if we're growing, then it needs to be able to grow so that doesn't put the other two legs off. The second leg is the infrastructure and primarily there I mean, the team. Like the team, this actually has to be like a sustainable place that people really are excited to work for and that they see themselves working for in the long haul. Because it's inefficient for us to be consistently, you know, if we're revolving door for people that are here, right? That's just inefficient, right? 

So that means, you know, we have to be really thoughtful about how we hire, how we support people, how we offer professional development opportunities, but our culture is a WSP. But we have to have that leg of the stool be really strong. And then the third leg is funding. We have to be able to pay for it all, right? You know and so you could push on this analogy, and it might not make sense in every single example. But I think that it works because those three legs need to be roughly equal in order for us to be able to fully accomplish our mission. 

So two years from now, if you check in. You say, hey, Ryan, like you had these strategic goals, did you actually hit it? If my answer is no, I could probably track to one of those three things like either we went off the path with programming and it didn't really work. Or we had some sort of roadblock, where there was a quality control issue where we tried to expand too quickly, or yada, yada, yada. Something happened on the team and the cultural side and the ways in which we were supporting people or we ran into funding, right? And I think pretty much everything can fall into one of those three categories.

Brock Briggs  1:26:10  

Got two final questions for you. If people want to, well put this another way. How can people help and get involved with WSP? 

Ryan Pavel  1:26:24  

Yeah, so one, they can send me a note, right? warrior-scholar.org. They can visit our website, my info is on there as well. They can find me on LinkedIn, right? And they can, you know, figure out whatever my title is at whatever time they happen to seek me out. And I'm happy to chat with people about whether there are actual opportunities. We get a fair amount of volunteer requests. And frankly, it's hard as a nonprofit to effectively manage workload for volunteers. There's a lot of good intent out there. And it's another area that we need to build out in terms of our infrastructure. 

But there are some areas that is easy to plug in, right? If somebody's from one of our host institutions and says, hey, I heard about this thing. I have this to offer. I would love to be able to drop in that's a lot easier than somebody that just says hey, what can I do, right? The answer there is much more difficult. And then there's also the financial support side, right? We're a 501(c)(3). And so you know, that information is on our website as well, right? We're entirely entirely donor funded, which is another very concrete and appreciated way to support.

Brock Briggs  1:27:26  

The last question is, what is it that we can take away from this conversation learning from you, Ryan and implement today or maybe tomorrow? We're talking in the evening. We'll start tomorrow. 

Ryan Pavel  1:27:45  

Yeah, we were supposed to talk in the afternoon, but then I messed us up. Yeah, I don't know. It's tough. I think that the thing that I try and lean on, and again, we talked about the LinkedIn post and my attempt there is to try and really be authentic and real and how we talk about our experiences and not to sugarcoat things and also not to, in some kinds, it's easier to be self disparaging, and you know, not to be able to highlight your own accomplishments. But I really think there's something about like that authentic engagement, right? Like and that's not only for extroverts, but certainly for people that are like really excited about, you know, connecting and that wanna be able to go on all these events, right? 

I think that no matter where you're working or no matter how you're engaging with the world, through a screen, or you know, or in person, trying to find a way to be able to bring your whole self to the conversations. I think that that really matters. And I think that that nuance is lost in a lot of the ways in which we communicate with each other these days. So to the extent that that's a takeaway, it's less tangible than I would like. I like that you and your sessions in that way. But that point of reflection for people about, you know, what your experiences are, who you are and where you're going. I think if we're more reflective and authentic and open about those things. I think that that's a net positive.

Brock Briggs  1:29:10  

It's very aspirational and very difficult, especially when our own personal reflections and ideas about things are moving and then communicating those is also a moving target as well.

Ryan Pavel  1:29:25  

So good luck, everybody.

Brock Briggs  1:29:28  

Right. Here's what you should do, have fun. Ryan, this has been a super fun conversation. I appreciate you joining me. Any other place you wanna send people, LinkedIn, if you wanna plug the website one more time? Where can people go to learn more, connect?

Ryan Pavel  1:29:44  

Yeah, warrior-scholar.org. So yes, there. 

Brock Briggs  1:29:48  

Perfect. Ryan, thank you so much. 

Ryan Pavel  1:29:50  

Thanks for having me.