Not Your Father’s Data Center - Veteran Stories and the Mission Critical Mindset with Garett Jaco and Wayne Watson

Episode Date: May 27, 2024

In this Memorial Day special episode, host Raymond Hawkins holds a profound conversation with seasoned data center experts Garett Jaco, a Marine Corps veteran with a strong background in nuclear weapons security and marine security, and Wayne Watson, vice president of North American operations at Compass Datacenters, with a past in the Navy as a nuclear electrician.The dialogue dives into the intersection of military experience and data center proficiency. Tapping into their naval and military backgrounds, Watson and Jaco discuss the transferable skills that veterans bring to the industry, focusing on meticulous attention to detail and the importance of procedure adherence in handling critical equipment.The episode also explores the personal army stories, illuminating the lighter side of their service, and the conversation turns toward the serious topic of mental wellness within the industry.Thoughts on Memorial Day close the conversation, honoring war fighters' sacrifices and advocating for support and de-stigmatization of mental illness post-combat. Overall, this exchange offers a unique perspective on the untapped talent of veterans in the data center sphere and the essential correlation between military service and industry excellence.

Attention to detail. It's something you're taught very early on in the military and something that's stressed throughout your career. But it is super important here at the data center, especially out in operating sites, like who are you letting in? What are you seeing when you walk by? Have breakers been switched? All right.

Welcome to another edition of Not Your Father's Data Center. I'm Raymond Hawkins. Today coming from our Alabama Annex at Compass Data Centers and joined by Wayne Watson out of our Dallas office. And Garrett, where are you today? I'm actually at our ID site. Okay. So Northern Virginia, so you're near home.

Today, we thought we'd spend a little bit of time talking about being vets and being vets in the data center business. All three of us are vets and thankfully vets in the data center business. All three of us are vets, and thankfully all three in the data center business. Today, we have two Marines and one sailor. We have no airmen and no soldiers. The soldier one was on purpose, and I just don't think we have any airmen in the business, right? I don't think so, at least not in ours. Yeah, I don't think so. All right. So it probably takes at least two, maybe three Marines to balance out the sailor. So we'll let Wayne go first.

Wayne, if you don't mind, tell us a little bit about, you know, who and what you do at Compass and then back up in a little bit and tell us about what got you in the Navy. So I'm Wayne Watson, Vice President of North America Operations here at Compass Data Centers. All of the site teams that operate our equipment, switchgear, generators, cooling equipment, and interact with the customer on a daily basis help to build up to me. A little bit about me, I grew up in a small town in South Mississippi where farming and alligators and crawfish are kind of the thing we do down there. Going through high school, 9-11 happened when I was in my junior year, you know, so that kind of catapulted the thought process.

You're making me feel old, Wayne, but go ahead. Well, I dated myself there. I'm sorry. Between 9-11 and having uncles and, you know, grandparents in the military and had served kind of gave me a sense of pride and then a sense that, you know, I need to go out, get these terrorists back. You know, after that happened, you know, taking the ASVAB and moving into offers from all the different branches, you know, the Navy had the nuclear field.

It sounded like the right thing to do, you know, held an opportunity for a farm boy from Mississippi and just, you know, catapulted me into, into something, something a lot bigger. Where'd you, where'd you do basic Wayne? It was a no. Oh my God. Come on, Wayne. Yeah. That's all you and I need to know about how, how, what an impression, the Navy basic puts on people.

Yeah, exactly. It was great. Like Chicago condo. Just for comparison's sake let's do this garrett tell me what platoon uh what company and where you did basic i did basic in san diego and i want to say we were 3124 see knows his platoon company delta knows his company yeah it made an impression no that's not true. Charlie Company. I'm sorry. Charlie Company. All right. Yeah.

I do know how to patch pipes and, you know, the knife goes in the left hand. All right. Good. My company's more. All right. Good, good. What was your, do y'all call them MOSs in the Navy? What did you do for the Navy?

Yeah, I was a nuclear electrician. So EMN is what we're called. Yeah. It was on board an aircraft carrier, the USS Carl Vinson. All right. For 93 days at sea and then pulled her back in for a fueling complex overhaul in Newport, New Virginia. And spent four years there, the carrier apart, putting it back together, toasting all the systems, took it out for sea trials for two weeks. And that was the end of my career.

So 93 days at sea on the front end. Yes. Gotcha. Very cool. That's a big boat. It was. It was quite large. We had the air wing and everything.

It was 5,000 people tops when we had the air wing, and just being that many people and going around that many people was a heck of an experience. It's like a floating city. I mean, those elevators with the planes on them are just unbelievable. Yeah, it was a pretty amazing experience. Yeah, good stuff. All right, farm boy from Mississippi makes good and becomes a nuclear engineer.

We love that. All right, Garrett, what got you in the Marine Corps? Much like Wayne, I was in high school when 9-11 happened. God, y'all both are going to do it to me. Okay, fair. I just wanted to double up. Yes, I'll say it. Okay, I was 38 when 9-11 happened i was a senior both are gonna do it to me okay fair okay i just wanted to double yeah yeah yes i'll say it okay i was 38 when 9-11 happened yeah i mean at the time my dad was a marine recruiter i had grown up uh being a military brat living in california then at fort knox where my dad was a tank instructor raymond i know you've

been there yes did that and at the time we were living in what I consider home, Jackson, Missouri, and 9-11 happened. And it made the decision pretty easy. So I joined the Marine Corps. I went to San Diego, as we talked about, for basic training. Yeah, exactly. I see the tan lines.

I see them still. I wish. I'm headed back to LA tonight. Maybe I'll work on that. But no, so I did that. I started out as a nuclear weapons security guard at Bangor, Washington. Did that for a few years. Moved back down to 29 Palms, California, where I grew up as a kid. Spent a few years there. I deployed to Iraq with 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines. Came back, had the fortunate opportunity to go out and be a Marine security guard, which are the people who guard embassies overseas. I was lucky enough to get to go to London

and to Kiev, Ukraine. And then I spent some time in Ottawa, Canada, and then a short stint down in Mexico City, Mexico. When I finished that, I thought I was going to get out and actually ran into a guy that was an active duty criminal investigator for the Marine Corps and figured, hey, let me go give that a shot. And I did the last four and a half years I was in the Marine Corps as an active duty criminal investigator at Quantico. Very cool. That's a neat, neat way. You got deployment time and combat time. You got to go see multiple embassies and be on the investigator side. That's a pretty cool stint. But both of y'all's careers far on the investigator side. It's a pretty cool stint. But both of y'all's careers far more impressive than mine.

I got a post-it note here that holds everything about my career on it. It's very short. It's still a career, Raymond. Yeah, it's right. It's right. I joke all the time. The only person with a less illustrious career than me is George Bush. 43.

Both of us had a very easy role of it. So you hear when you got out, what were you? I was a sergeant when I got out of the Marine Corps. Yeah. Gotcha. Awesome. E-5, right? If I remember right.

E-5, yep. Wayne, how about you? I was also an E-5. I'm second class, but it helps you. All right. Well, we're between the three of us. We ought to figure out how to do something. That's three of them.

So, well, cool. Well, guys, I appreciate you tell a little bit about yourselves personally. So I'm significantly older than both of you. I enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1984. So I don't know if the other of you were born in 84. Yes? No? I was born November of 83.

So I just caught you. So you just made it. So you're less than a year old. So I enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1984. I graduated from high school and two days later, I was on the Yellow Footprints in Parris Island. I was super fortunate that the Marine Corps allowed me to pick my job. And you go, well, they let you pick your job. Why did you pick tanks? But I thought that would be fun to drive a tank. So I chose to be a tanker.

So after boot camp, I went to Fort Knox, Kentucky and went through Marine Corps tank school. And the Marine Corps was pretty passionate about me not being an enlisted man, but asking me to go to college. And my whole family had been career officers. And I was pretty passionate about being a Mustang. I was like, no, I'm going to do an enlisted hitch first and then I'll go. And the Marine Corps was not okay with that. They pushed very, very hard.

And after 13 months, I took what was called an FMF, the Marine Force Scholarship. And that's how I went to school. So the Marine Corps sent me to school. And so my last three years on active duty, I got paid to go to college, which is embarrassingly easy when I say that George Bush and I had similar career trajectories. So the Marine barracks were bombed in Beirut in 83, enlisted in 84. And then we didn't put the first boots in the desert until the very end of 89. And I got out in the beginning of 89. So we were at peace the whole time. I drove tanks on and off of train cars because that's all we

needed them to do at that time. We weren't fighting anybody. And the Marine Corps was gracious enough to send me to college. And that was my four years. Great choice on the Marine Corps, terrible choice on Auburn. Yes. You know, I ended up at Auburn, Garrett. This is so funny. So the Marine Corps had, you know, the scholarship I had, they gave me choices.

You could pick your schools, right? And you got four slots. And the scholarship I had, they gave me choices. You could pick your schools, right? And you got four slots. And I picked Ohio State, number one, because it's where my girlfriend lived. I picked Georgia Tech, number two, because it's where my father had gone to school and I wanted to be an engineer. And I picked Vanderbilt, number three, because I thought long term I probably would like to study law. And it would be nice to already have some time at Vanderbilt thinking long term about going to Vanderbilt Law School. And I didn't have a fourth choice. Those were the only three schools I put on the form. And my father had just moved from Seattle, Washington to the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama for Boeing. He had retired from the Air

Force and gone to work for Boeing. And I was like, well, my dad lives in Alabama. Does my program, the FMS scholarship, do they have a slot in the state of Alabama? Well, they had one slot and it was in Auburn. So I just filled it in just to fill my form out. I couldn't find Auburn on a map. And I had no idea where it was. And of course, the Marine Corps came back four weeks later and said, congratulations, you've gotten your fourth choice.

Yeah, it was still a choice. It was still a choice. That's right. So that's how I ended up at Auburn, and amazingly enough, it is the place I love and where I'm calling you from today, 35 years later, because I have such a special place in my heart for here, and both my kids are in the great state of Alabama, and all my family's here now still. So that's how I ended up there by absolute accident. Awesome. For us

at Compass, this is, you know, we're recording a little ahead of time, but certainly thinking about Memorial Day is why we're doing this, you know, veteran episode. Want to talk about why we feel Vents play such a key role in the data center business or why the data center business is such a great fit. So if you guys are willing, Wayne, if you'll hit lead off, if you'll talk with us a little bit about when you first heard of the data center business, how you got in it and maybe some of the lessons that you learned in the Navy that carry over to what we do in the critical equipment side of our business. Yeah, sure. Getting out of the Navy, I really didn't even know data centers existed. You know, they were kind of a niche market 15 years ago. Being in the Navy nuke fields on a boom, you just don't really get to reach out, you know, in the networking perspective to be able to find out if these opportunities exist. So, you know, I went to a

couple of military veteran hiring conferences, ended up being interviewed by a data center company at that time that was there at that conference. It was Switch Adata at that time, based out of Tampa. The person that was interviewing me was also a Navy prior from Louisiana. So, you know, we had a lot of similarities. There's a funny story that comes behind that. My wife's a veteran as well. And she was at that same hiring conference getting interviewed by the same company. And come to find out, they actually liked her just a little better than they liked me. Now, were you all already married, Wayne? Or you're just finding that you found the guys this out afterwards?

No, we were married at the time. Okay, you were married at the time, all right. You know, we were vying for the same job. And she ended up taking a different position at a different company. So, you know, the joke's always been, you know, your wife would have for the same job and she ended up taking a different position at a different company so you know the joke's always been you know your wife would have done a better job had she taken this you know i'll make sure to talk to lindsay about that next time i see yeah yeah yeah yeah i can see this getting brought up again no oh well it's a joke yeah you know it was the look of the draw it was going you know the military hiring conferences not knowing

what's out there and i think that's a of the importance behind that is that companies may not know the value of the veterans or understand their background. We can go to those conferences as a sponsor, looking to hire people, hire veterans, and find, you know, there's a plethora of different talent, background, technical fields, non-technical fields, you know, whatever needs to be settled. I mean, it doesn't have to be a Navy nuke to fill their position. You know, there's a lot of other good people out there that can do really good work. Gary, I wrote down plethora. After I look it up, I'll forward you the definition.

Yeah, thank you. To two Marines. I have no idea what he's saying. I also want to revisit this, we don't need a Navy nuke for every position thing. Cause when I talked to him about hiring, it seems like we always need Navy nukes. Exactly. All right.

Fair enough. Fair enough. Yeah. Was there not a Navy nuke in the, in the, in the interview process? What's going on here? There's not one.

Are they going to get on? There's one. They got a good chance. They got it. They're looking solid? That's pretty solid. You know, as you think about some of the things you learned as a Navy nuke, how has that translated?

Switching data gave you a job that was great, got you in the data center business. But how do you see the disciplines and things that you learned being on the carrier carrying over to the critical equipment side of our world? Absolutely. There's two big things in my mind that carrying over. First is just the critical facility mentality, you know, that everything down there is hot and spinny or sharp or electrified. So, you know, it gives you a kind of a disrespect of where you are and, you know, you know what sucks, what not to touch, you know, if you need to operate something, you know, what personal protective equipment to go get. And then, you know, that anything you do

could have a kind of skating effect through the other systems and through the entire plant. So, you know, that mentality coupled with the importance of procedures, you know, MOPS is what they were called, Air SOPS. Here at Compass, we call them EEPs, Air Eliminating Procedures. They cover all the disciplines, but just the importance of knowing that, you know, each piece of equipment should have that. So it covers the unknown. It tells you you need to go do this here and that there, and then you can do what you need to do in order to operate safely and correctly. So, you know, just that critical facility mindset and use of procedures really

translated really, really well. Wayne, something you said reminded me of the very first day of tank school, a tip of the hat to your father's work at Fort Knox. So my first day at tank school, they walk us around the tank and they say, hey, you see this tank doesn't have any eyeballs. It does not know what uniform you wear. It is 120 pounds of steel and it will kill you just as easy as it will kill the enemy. And, you know, just trying to get us to develop respect for the lethal nature and the seriousness of the pieces of equipment we'd be working around. And even though the stuff in our critical equipment space isn't designed to kill people, it has the same lethalness that that tank did and being able to show that equipment respect and, and be careful around it and how important procedures were, you know, not, not trying to stir up a current events notion, but the procedures around movie

making where the young lady got shot, right. It's just, someone didn't follow procedures or happened to be alive around in that weapon. And, and you know, you, you know, the notion that you never point a weapon at anyone unless you – I mean, to me, that's a great example of, hey, someone missed a procedure. Someone didn't follow attention to detail. And in our business, bad things happen when that goes around. Absolutely. Yeah, we had a saying on the carrier.

They run on 4,160 volts was the main distribution. And the old saying was 4160 don't care. They don't care who you are. They don't care where you're from. They don't care anything about you. 4160 don't care. So just know what you're doing. The don't care what your rating is, it'll kill you if it touches you.

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. All right, Garrett, talk a little bit, being on the security side and the investigator side, but your time in the Marine Corps, how'd you find the data center industry and what are some of the things that translated over? Same as Wayne, I kind of just lucked into the data center industry. I was working at a financial institution and they had an in-house data center, which all I knew were a bunch of servers in a room in an office building we had. And we were looking to outsource that. So I went around and

I started doing security questionnaires and interviewing different providers about their security procedures and policies. And I left one one day and they called and said, hey, actually, we're looking to hire a regional manager. Is there any interest in coming to work for us? And so I ended up taking a job there. And that's how I got into the data center industry, which fortunate enough led me to here at Compass. The things that really stick out to me, and I think you mentioned it a little, Raymond, earlier, is attention to detail. It's something you're taught very early on in the military and something that's stressed throughout your career. But it is super important here at the data center, especially out in operating sites, like who are you letting in? What are you seeing when you walk by? Have breakers been switched from the on position to the off position? And that's something that we also expect our security guards when they're doing patrols to help notice. If there's changes in the environment, that's something they need to report up to either security leadership or ops leadership on site so we can get ahead of some of those issues as soon as we recognize them.

And then the other thing I would say really translated over is that 24-7 mentality, you know, being able to be on call, being able to respond, whether it's the middle of the night or 2 o'clock on a Saturday. Infrastructure doesn't sleep. People are using the Internet just as much Saturday at 6 a.m. as they are Monday at 2.30 in the afternoon. So the ability that we have to keep businesses up and running and our teams needing to be prepared literally 24-7 is something that I think a lot of vets that transfer over into the data center field are used to. And it probably finds a little solace that this is a routine I'm used to doing. Yeah, I think you hit one point really, really well there, Garrett. The notion that we work Monday through Sunday, you know, in any hour is completely normal in the military. And I think that there's a good chunk of civilian life that says, oh, no, my job's from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. or 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

And for us, that was, you know, I would tell people, I said, hey, we had muster at 6 a.m., right? We were at the office by 6.30, and that was completely normal. That's just the way the day went. And, you know, that was six days a week, and it was totally normal. And I think that that's a mindset that translates from vets nicely to the 24-7, 365 nature of the data center business. Wayne, you probably live that even more than me and Garrett, that I know security is 24-7. I mean, your whole staff is 11 a.m. on Sundays, just as important as 8 a.m. on Monday. Absolutely. And they understand that. There's a 2 a.m. time for people on shift to understand that I am here for a reason. A lot of that ownership translates as

well. There's something to go above in the night, and that's what we're here to help, you know, prevent and prevent the extent of how bad that is and be able to respond and call the appropriate vendors to come fix it. So, yeah, I would absolutely agree. All right, I'm going to put you both on the spot a little. I'll do it to the Marine first because that way you get some time to prepare, Wayne. So tell me one story from your time in the Marine first, because that way you get some time to prepare, Wayne. So tell me one story from your time in the Marine Corps, Garrett, intentionally, some story that when you hang out with family or

buddies that you think is the funniest or sort of the quirkiest or the weirdest, the thing that you go, you would not believe this happened. There's such a camaraderie, I think, from being in the military, connected to the people in your unit. And when I talk about leaving the military and going to civilian life, that's one of the things I missed is the esprit de corps that you had. And that's where those great stories come from. So I'd love to hear some story from some unit or some commander or something you experienced while you were at Garrett. Yeah.

So I'll tell on myself. I've been out long enough that even if anyone sees it, it is what it is. So I was in the MSG program. It's a small unit. You know, you have five to maybe 15 Marines at some embassy overseas. And at the time I was in London and it was New Year's Eve. We went out to a masquerade ball, New Year's Eve, several Marines, several of the people who worked at the embassy.

It's a local party. Fireworks go off at midnight. We live very close to Hyde Park. Hyde Park closes at a local party. Fireworks go off at midnight. We live very close to Hyde Park. Hyde Park closes at a certain time. Police have blocked off the roads and everything. And me and two other Marines decide we need to make it back for curfew. So the way to make it back for curfew is to cut through Hyde Park, even though it's closed. Unbedunked to me, I have butt dialed my mom at the time.

And all she hears is a screaming. Oh, we're going. She hears cop sirens in the background. She hears someone yell stop. And then the phone cuts out. At that time, I'm pretty sure is when we were jumping the fence to Hyde Park to cut through Hyde Park. I ripped the pants of my suit. But we do get back right at curfew.

As you say, Jamaica master. That's what we've said since then. We've got back right at curfew. As you say, Jamaica muster. That's what we've said since then. We've got back right at curfew. Yeah, good, good, good. But I talked to her the next day and it was just, hey, you know, you called me and I was so nervous all night. So that's the story that's brought up quite often. Yeah, I love it.

It's something even with the Marine that was out with me that night, we bring up regularly. There you go. All right, Wayne, you you you gotta i butt dialed my mom on new year's eve story i don't know if i have one that good no that's that's pretty epic to uh but let me i'll translate that into the into the nuke world you know when you're on watch and you're on shift you're supposed to be awake all the time and we had a particularly bad three days where we didn't get to leave. You know, you got to eat two meals maybe because there's just so much wrong and we're trying to fix things.

Everyone's pitching in, you know, you went to go smoke more than you got to eat. We have one guy who was relatively senior. He had just been busting his butt for like two and a half days and he was on watch. It was 1 a.m. And I go into the switch gear room as the roving electrician. I see him just slumped down in his chair asleep. Not legs kicked up, not nothing, but just dang near pure exhaustion. And I said, well, the last thing I want to do is get this guy out of trouble, but I'm going to mess with him. So I quietly knocked the door back down.

I turned the lights off in the room, him so i quietly knocked the door back down i turned the lights off in the room and then i swung the door open and i was like what are we gonna do he wakes up and he sees the lights are off and he's just like oh my gosh what happened and he's checking the panel it's like we just lost everything and i turned the light switch back on. I was like, no, it's fine. If he's like, get out of here, I'm going to kill you. That's a good one. That's a good one. All right. I'm going to tell one on me. So I'd gotten the good fortune of being sent to the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. We were at a bar. A gentleman comes in and I'm going to date myself. It was Colonel North. And of course, everyone in the bar is excited to see him drinking in celebration of seeing Colonel North in the facility. And to say that, you know, I partook would be an understatement. And, you know, being a young Marine and now this legendary figure who's been on TV is there. The next morning, I was supposed to go out on a ship for a training session.

And so we're up early. I don't remember, something like 4.30 or 5. And me and my roommate wake up and the room just reeks. It reeks like someone had thrown up. And we're like, what? You know, there's nothing on me. There's nothing on you. There's nothing on our clothes. There's nothing on our racks. What has happened? Did somebody, you know, spray a vomit bomb into our room? Is there a prank?

How could this happen? I mean, the room is, so we're getting ready and we're both, you know, trying not to throw up. The room stinks so bad. And we're trying to get ready. We're trying to get out to get on the ship and cannot figure out what's going on. And I sit down to tie my shoes and I look under the rack and I had fallen asleep with my face on the wall and it vomited straight.

And it was spread off. So you couldn't see it unless you looked under the bed. Oh, I'm real. And then I had to go get on a 46-foot training ship in what was probably six-foot seas for the next four hours. You want to talk about a rough tour? That's not going to feel good. That was not good.

The real question, Raymond, did you clean it up before or after you left? That's a great question. We did not have time, so it sat there all day. Yeah. That's a great smell. That's a good one. It was like, well, you couldn't figure it out. You're like, what happened?

Is someone dying here? Oh, no, that was me. All right. Well, all of us, I don't know about you guys, super grateful for my time in the Marine Corps, super grateful for the opportunity to serve our nation. I think the comments you guys have both made, right, respect for the equipment, respect for attention to detail, respect for procedures, respect for following a process. All of those things, you know, I'd agree, just ingrained in us, in our time serving the country. I do, just for a minute, want to talk, if you guys are willing, about Memorial Day. Super grateful that we have Veterans Day, and that's something where our country pays respect to the three of us and people that have served.

But Memorial Day, really about those that have made the ultimate sacrifice. And, you know, I don't know where each one of you guys stand, but I've got not only friends that I've served with, but lots of family members who passed in service. And just want to say that to me, you know, I'm a big fan of Easter, a big fan of Christmas. But Memorial Day holds a different place in my heart because I think, you know, these people, the vast majority of them volunteered. They raised their right hand and took the same oath the three of us did and said, hey, I'll stand in that gap. And some of them, it cost them everything. And thinking about how special paying tribute to the people who are willing to sacrifice everything for us and our freedom that we get to enjoy. And just remembering the reason we spend Memorial Day and we celebrate it. And I'll just say for me that, you know, lots of people in my life, but my grandfather,

Barney Hawkins, Army officer, served in World War II, you know, passed later in life after he had retired, but certainly want to tip my hat and pay respects personally to him on Memorial Day. Guys, for you, Garrett, Memorial Day, thoughts for you on what it means and anybody in your life that that day reminds you of? Yeah, I mean, it's the ultimate sacrifice. I think you said it. And one thing I think where it's easy to forget is like the ultimate sacrifice is oftentimes given in a war zone. But there are times that people come back with injuries and with mental health issues from that time. And, you know, that ends up costing them their lives. And so I do think it's just remembering all of those

that ultimately have given it all for all of us to be free and be able to sit here and have this conversation and go to work every day and do what we do. And so, yeah, that's Memorial Day to me. And I do think making the difference between Veterans Day and Memorial Day is important because I do think oftentimes people kind of intertwine both of them like, oh, you serve, thank you for your service. And it's, yeah, you're welcome. The service is worth the sacrifice or the sacrifice is worth it. But really what this day is about is those that don't get to celebrate it. Yeah. Yeah. I

remind, I'm alive. So Memorial Day is not about me. I'm here. Let's pay respect to the ones that are not. And Garrett, you alluded to it. I think you're right. I mean, the mental anguish that our war fighters go through and that they come home from often scarred in ways that none of us can imagine because we can't see it right in their heads and in their hearts. And how many of our warfighters were losing to the struggle of mental illness, I think, is something we ought to be mindful of on Memorial Day as well and do all we can to help them make that transition. None of us were designed to go to war. That's not how we were designed or built. And man, it takes a toll that often is hard to see. Yeah, for sure. We've talked about this before. You send a 19, 20-year-old kid off to war, and then by 22, expect them to be a functioning

member of society with little to no transition. And it's hard unless there is some help and some removal of that stigma behind it. Yeah, Yeah. Wayne, Memorial Day for you? Yeah. It's like you said, you're looking back at, you know, the ultimate sacrifice. No, and I could have been me. You know, thank goodness it wasn't. But I remember the RDC at boot camp, you know, asking everybody to raise their hands. They're ready to die for their country.

They're here to die for their country. And I didn't raise my hand. And he comes up to me, he gets in my face and he's like, do you realize that could happen to you? I was like, yes, but I'm here to make the other guy die for his country. And he's like, that's a great answer, but you need to realize that can happen to you. And it made me realize that could happen to me. And I didn't feel any different in that moment other than the realization and the appreciation going forward, but it didn't make me want to leave.

I was there for it. But looking back you know a moral day it's not i'm by no means a combat veteran was deployed but mine mine happened in the belly of an aircraft carrier they wouldn't even let nukes you know qualify on guns on the ship they wouldn't even let us touch them so we're not proficient but you know you get down there and you do that service you're on the, you're deployed for months on end. And then, you know, you have the people in the shipyard like I was, where you're doing 12-hour rotating shifts. I think we did it for like two years.

You know, and you're not coming in and just putting your feet up. You're doing complex evolutions. You're starting up cooling systems. You're testing all these new systems. You know, after we ripped them apart, you're putting them back together, starting to book and testing them. So, you know, it's a real mental toll. Not only the work-life balance is awful, but you're in it every time you walk into work

and then, you know, if something breaks, you may have to stay. And the duty days, we're there a lot often as well. So it's that mental health that we lost some people to in the shipyard that you look back on the world Memorial Day at those people and you think about sacrifices. And it comes in different ways and it comes at different times for people in different ways. And I think that's important to know just because you're struggling with it, because you were talking to a gun. You know, that's that's understandable.

You know, obviously, just straight up. I get it. You know, combat stuff. There's other situations that are okay to feel about as well. Yeah. Wayne, I appreciate the authenticity there. And, man, I think about, A, as men, and still today, some stigma around mental health and being willing to talk about it. We lost one of our own here at Compass, you know, to, to mental health a couple of years ago. And just want, you know, if there, if there's one

thing to highlight it as we wrap up here, that, that if you're hurt inside, if something's up against you, you know, find somebody to talk to doing that in silence is how really bad things happen. And whether it's, you know, you're pulling terrible shifts and you're really struggling or whether it's because you're struggling with something that happened in combat, struggling is struggling. Mental health struggles are mental health struggles. And it's real. And because we can't see a cast on you or see in a wheelchair doesn't mean you're any less injured. And I would just encourage anyone that's listening to us, you know, male or female, if you're hurt, find somebody to talk to. And especially in our Compass family, do not suffer in silence. We are set up to

try to encourage each other and support each other. And there is no shame in saying I'm hurt. We do not want to lose anyone and any of our own to feeling like there's too much pressure, feeling like I can't say something's wrong with me, feeling like I can't handle what's going on. You know, we work in an intense, very competitive business with very worthy competitors and demanding customers. And if it gets to you, it gets to you and let's talk about it and let's get you healthy and let's get you the rest you need. I mean, R and R is a thing for a reason. And that doesn't stop just because we leave the military. Right. So, so I appreciate you bringing that up, Wayne. Well, guys, number one, I'm super grateful for both your service. You know, thank you, Wayne, for spending a few minutes talking about it, hearing about the farm days in Mississippi and time out on a big old aircraft carrier.

I'm just amazed how big those things are. Wayne, we just thank you and grateful that you're here at Compass. Garrett, what a cool story to hear about your transition from growing up with a military dad and getting to be on embassy duty. I mean, when I think about poster Marines, right? Embassy duty is about as poster Marine as it gets, right? That or recruiter, right? Those are kind of two glory gigs. And that you got to do one of those is pretty cool

and super grateful for how you help keep our facility secure here at Compass. So both of you, thank you for spending a few minutes talking about it. We're grateful for you here at Compass and grateful for the service you both gave to our nation. Thank you so much, guys. Yeah, appreciate it. Thanks for having us.