Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Vice Admiral Walter “Ted” Carter, USN (Ret.) On The Keys to Personal Growth EP 28

Episode Date: May 18, 2021

In this powerful episode, John R. Miles interviews Vice Admiral Walter "Ted" Carter Jr., USN (Ret.), the President of the University of Nebraska System. They discuss learning the key to personal growth, how the University of Nebraska responded to the COVID pandemic, and his leadership lessons for aspiring leaders. New Interviews with the World's GREATEST high achievers will be posted every Tuesday with a Momentum Friday inspirational message! Carter discusses his journey to choosing the Naval Academy over attending Brown University and how it shaped the person he is today. The importance of varsity sports. Becoming the Men's Hockey team captain and the leadership lessons it taught him. What it was like to receive the puck from the US Curling team at the NHL Winter Classic held at the Naval Academy in 2018 and why it was such a special event. His experience from serving 5 years as the Superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy and why it is such an exhausting and rewarding position. He discusses a fundamental change that he made to the Honor Concept. He discusses his new role as the President of the University of Nebraska and how much the school means to the people of Nebraska and the state's economy. Coach Scott Frost's role in turning around the Nebraska Football program and what makes him such a great leader. Going to Top Gun when he was in his mid-20s as one of 8 aircraft that went through the program. The evolution of the modern Top Gun program. One of his scariest moments in a fighter aircraft and the importance of relationships. And so much more!!!   What You Will Learn on the Show From Walter "Ted" Carter What Was the Reason He Attended the Naval Academy How He Learned Leadership From Varsity Sports Dropping the Puck at the 2018 NHL Winter Classic The NHL's Reaction to Game and Academy His Long Tenure as the Superintendent Why He Changed the Naval Academy Honor Concept How the Honor Code is Implemented at the University of Nebraska The Selection Process For Him Becoming Nebraska President The Importance of the University of Nebraska on Serving its People The Future of Husker Football Program His Experience at Top Gun and His Decision to Make the Navy his Career The Future of Flight and the Human in the Loop His Craziest Experience in a Fighter Biggest Lesson for Future Leaders Why Relationships Matter His Forrestal Lecture and "Price is Right" experience - Quotes From VADM William "Ted" Carter, President of the University of Nebraska System "Plebe summer was transformative for me, mainly because it was that time when you realize you can't really do anything on your own. It's all being part of a team. But also, you had to deliver yourself." "It (Winter Classic) was a spectacle. It was no kidding a Super Bowl-level event. The capitals ended up winning the game. The gold medal curlers pushed the puck out to center ice on a stone; it landed right in the middle of center ice, and then I got to take the puck off the stone and drop the puck." "I looked at the honor concept as it was written when I took over as superintendent, and I realized that it was a need of something, maybe to be more modernized so it would resonate with the Midshipman of today." "We are such a centerpiece of the entire state of Nebraska. I mean, I talked about, you know, being in the public eye when I was a superintendent, the Naval Academy, this is to that level, and maybe even a little bit more. I mean, Nebraska is an agricultural state. 90% of the entire landmass is farmland or ranches. So that is the number one economic driver of the entire state, but a close second is the University." "We very well could get to a point where we're launching airplanes off of an aircraft carrier, somewhere in the Indian Ocean, or the South Pacific and tankers, and many of the missions that had historically had pilots and naval flight officers in it may not be there." "You got to be ready for your moment. And don't shy from it; take it." "One of the things I've learned is that no matter who you come in contact with, you got to treat everybody fairly with dignity and respect and never underestimate anybody." --Follow Walter "Ted" Carter here: Twitter: https://twitter.com/UofNE_President LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/waltertedcarter/ University of Nebraska: https://nebraska.edu/president NHL Winter Classic: https://www.nhl.com/news/stadium-series-at-navy-marine-corps-memorial-stadium-will-bring-pageantry/c-296376666 --Follow Passion Struck on Instagram -https://www.instagram.com/passion_struck_podcast/ -- Navy veteran, multi-industry CEO, and Author John R. Miles is on a mission to make passion go viral by helping growth seekers to overcome their fear, self-doubt, and adversity. He loves taking his own life experiences, lessons from his time as a CEO and Fortune 50 C-Level Executive, and the truths he has learned to help make other's lives better. His new podcast Passion Struck provides inspirational interviews and powerful guidance for people to take their lives to the next level. Watch as these high achievers weigh in on life's biggest questions and challenges as we journey on the path to becoming passion-struck. -- Follow John R. Miles Here: Website - https://passionstruck.com/ ​​Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/john_r_miles ​​Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Johnrmiles.c0m ​Twitter: https://twitter.com/Milesjohnr ​​Medium: https://medium.com/@JohnRMiles ​​John's Website: https://johnrmiles.com/​  

Relationships matter and if you're going to be successful in life, relationships matter everywhere. And relationships matter in a way that it isn't about the relationships that you create for those that you worked for. And not even just those that maybe have worked directly for you, it's all relationships. So one of the things I've learned is, you know, no matter who you come in contact with, you got to treat everybody, you know, no matter who you come in contact with, you gotta treat everybody fairly with dignity and respect and never underestimate anybody. Hello, Visionaries, creators, innovators,

entrepreneurs and leaders of all types. Hi, my name is John Miles, and I wanted to welcome you to this episode of the Passion Spark Podcast, where it is my job to interview high achievers from all walks of life and unlock their secrets and lessons to become a fashion star. The purpose of our show is to serve you the listener by giving you lessons, tools, and activities

that you can use to achieve a fashion-driven life. Now, let the journey begin. Today, we have the distinct honor of interviewing Vice Admiral Ted Carter, the current president of the University of Nebraska. Before I get into the interview and more background about our guest, I'm going to start off with a quote from General of the Army's John J. Persian, who is an esteemed graduate of both West Point and the University of Nebraska, who said a competent leader can get efficient service from poor troops

while on the contrary an incapable leader demoralized the best of troops. And I think that is a great leading to today's guest and on our show we are going to talk about President Ted Carter's rise from the Naval Academy and the lessons he learned there to become a fighter pilot and going to Top Gun who is time on the Price is Right and now leading the University of Nebraska and its student body of over 50,000 students across their different campuses. He's gonna give his words and inspiration on so many topics and you don't want to miss any of this interview. Head Carter became the eighth president of the University of Nebraska on January 1st, 2020, following a national search by the Board of Regents. President Carter leads the University of Nebraska and its

four campuses. If the University's chief executive officer and reports to the Board of Regents were elected to govern the University. As president, Carter leads a four-campus university system that enrolls nearly 52,000 students, and employs 16,000 faculty and staff on campuses in Lincoln, Omaha, and Ernie, plus academic divisions and research and extension centers across the state.

He serves as Chief Spokesman and Chief Executive Officer for the system, which operates on a 2.8 billion annual budget and includes a flagship Big Ten institution, a world-renowned academic health sciences center, Division I athletics program, and preeminent institutes focused on water and agriculture, national security and defense, infectious disease, and early childhood education. Head Carter brought with him a distinguished record in education partnerships and military service, having come to Nebraska from the U.S. Naval Academy,

his alma mater, where he served as superintendent for an unprecedented five years. Under his leadership, the Naval Academy achieved a number one national ranking, and new records and student success in diversity. Carter was previously president of the U.S. Naval War College and New Corporate Island. He is a retired vice admiral with 38 years of service and has a lot more than 6,300 flying hours and holds the American record for carrier arrestedarrested landings. He is a graduate of the Navy Fighter Weapons School,

otherwise known as Top Gun, and holds educational credentials from the Navy Nuclear Power School, the US Army War College, and the Navy War College, and the Armed Forces Staff College. Carter works as a team with his wife Linda, and they have been married for 37 years. So much to learn from this really amazing guest

and I can't wait to introduce him to you. Now let's get on with the show. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ Welcome to today's episode of the Pass and Struck Podcast and I am so excited to have with us Nebraska president Ted Carter on the show. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thanks, John. It's great to be with you. Well, it's great to have you here.

And I thought since we're both Naval Academy graduates in applicable place to start this interview would be to go back in time and ask you what was that step that caused you to go to the Naval Academy instead of going to another university? Well, yeah, it's it's ancient history actually. I mean, dating back to 1976 when I first met a midshipman from my neighboring hometown, come to my one high school that was in the town I grew up

in in rural Rhode Island. And I was so impressed with him, Matt Elias is his name. And so I had it in this idea that the Naval Academy was this amazing place that somebody could, anybody could go to from all over the country. I had applied to a whole bunch of other schools like Brown and Harvard and St. Louis and Georgetown. And at the end of the day, I ended up getting into Brown and to the Naval Academy, my senior year in high school. And it was a really big decision.

I didn't have a lot of military in my family at all. My dad's oldest brother served in World War II, but didn't have anything in my media family. So I took a chance, and I took a chance into the unknown to go to a place like the Naval Academy, not really knowing what I was getting into. And as a superintendent, I got to see a lot of, you know, faces and big eyeballs that would show up on induction day that we're in that exact same position, which I think that's part of the story of my whole life is I've tried and gone into things

that I really wasn't sure what it was going to be and you just give it your best and that's how I entered into the Naval Academy. Well, that's great. I had a tiny bit of a different story, only that I grew up about 45 minutes from the Academy. And so anytime we had a relative in town, I would go with my parents and we would take them there

and growing up. And especially when we were going the summer and you'd hear the poor midshipman getting yelled at. I would always tell my parents there's no way I'm going to go. Similar to you, I also got into Brown and a number of other schools, but decided to take lunch as you did. Looking at it and that experience, what do you think was the most important thing that you came away from with your Naval Academy experience? I'd say a couple things. First of all, Pleab Summer was transformative for me, mainly because it was that time we realized you can't really do anything on your own. It's all being part of a team,

but also you had to deliver yourself. I mean, you know, just the whole discipline of being a plebe and doing things and knowing all your responsibilities and learning how to be a follower. That was an important piece for me. And then an opportunity. You know, I got an opportunity to play on the, you know, the club ice hockey team. I got an opportunity to be on the log magazine staff, you know, to pick your academic major.

You know, all those things were opportunities that I just quite honestly didn't see as something that I would be doing, but those are the things that I did when I was at the Naval Academy. And those turned into leadership opportunities. I was a captain and the hockey team in my senior year in 1981, and then I ended up being the editor of the log magazine my last two years at the Naval Academy. So I got tremendous amount of opportunity at turn from fellowship to leadership while I was at the Naval Academy.

Yeah, so that's another thing we have in common. We're both hockey players and I think my parents put up my first pair of skates on me when I was three or four years old growing up in New York and then the Midwest. But what do you think? Because we were both varsity athletes. What do you think are some of the most important lessons you learned from being a varsity athlete that carried forward and how you became the leader you are today? I give everything that I got in terms of leadership and learning how to perform and high intensity, I call it sport, that turns into real life from playing on the ice hockey team at Navy. And it's one of the reasons I'm such a big supporter of all athletics at every level, whether it be at anapolis or even at a place here like Nebraska, because of how much it shaped me, how much it matured me. Again, this idea that you're playing for something bigger than yourself individually, that the sum of all the parts turns into something much, much greater than even what the whole

could be. And I was inspired by the captains that played before me. I got a lot out of watching them, how they ran the team. That helped shape my own way and that I wanted to leave. And I believed in this idea of empowering. You know, I didn't have to be the best player on the ice. I didn't have to be, you know, the expert in the room of any time a big decision was being made, how to work collaboratively so that you get to the best outcome.

That's great. And I'm not sure if while you were there, they were doing this, but when I was there in the late 80s, early 90s, when the capitals would play a posing team, sometimes they would allow that team to practice at Dolgren Hall. And I remember marveling at those players because to see college hockey and then see NHL players is truly night and day, but we would always hate it because they would come and totally tear up the ice and it would take them a week to fix it.

But I saw that speaking of professional hockey, you had a unique experience to drop the puck in a special event. And I was wondering if you could go into that experience a little bit and what it meant to you. Yeah, we played host to the winner classic that was between the Washington capitals. The same year they won the Stanley Cup by the way against the Toronto Maple Leafs. The game was in March. It was actually cold that we did it at the football

stadium at the Navy Marine Corps Memorial Stadium. The NHL fell in love with an apolis. The whole NHL administration from the commissioner to those that ran the TV show itself fell in love with our stadium. We sold it out. We had the Olympic curling gold medal team there. The capitals end up winning the game. The gold medal curlers pushed the puck out to center ice on a stone, landed right in the middle of center ice, and then I got to take the puck off the stone and drop the puck. It was just a surreal event across the board. And the Washington capitals brought the Stanley Cup

to the Naval Academy that I brought out in T-Court in front of the plebes just to tie it all together. And it was just one of those life moments that you're never gonna forget. What an amazing experience. And it's one of my favorite sporting events of the year because growing up playing Ponpaki. It's the first thing I can see to how I grew up as a kid

experiencing Ponpaki. And I know, I think I remember watching that game and you didn't have to deal with snow and some of the other elements that I've seen in other winter class, Class X-5. I've got to imagine if you got to talk to some of the players, it's probably one of their favorite events as well. We did. I went over to our ice rink where the Toronto Maple Leafs practiced. We didn't have snow, you're right, but we had incredibly high wins, 50 mile an hour

wins all the way up to the day of the event. So the professional ice hockey players did not get on the ice until game time, which was really a challenge. But to get to hang out with the TGOC and Alex Ovechkin prior to the game and then get to talk to all of the NHL stars that were there. The thing was broadcast on Hockey Night in Canada, NBC Sports, so a lot of air time. The whole thing was just incredible.

It was an amazing event. Did any of the professional athletes say anything to you about their experience from seeing the Naval Academy that you took away from that? Absolutely. The general manager from Toronto, member of one of the greatest American players, Matthews was on Toronto at the time. He came out after being on the ice and came over and talked to me and just said how much

they were blown away by the experience. They got a lot of engagement with the brigade. We had a huge section of the brigade at the game. They built a mock aircraft carrier in the center of the football field, and they put the ice frink on top of it. We had the mid-sham and actually come out through the tunnel and kind of do a mock man the rails

as the players came out. I mean, it's worth anybody that ever wants to go on YouTube and look at it, there's a shortened version of all the highlights of the game. It's really eye candy. Well, I will have to go back and do that and I'd encourage all the listeners or watchers of this podcast to go and do it as well because from when I remember it was just an incredible event and one of the best winter classics that there is. Well, for the listeners who are out there who don't know a lot about your background,

typically a superintendent does a two to three year poorer as the superintendent, which would be the equivalent of the president of a major university. And in your case, the secretary of the Navy, as I understand it, asked you to do a few more years. So I think outside of one other superintendent, you have spent more time in that position before your current one than than any previous leaders, that correct? Yeah, you have that pretty, pretty correct, John.

Chuck Larson did two tours, a four year tour, as a three star, and then came back as a four-year tour, a three-star, and then came back as a four-star after the cheating scandal in 1993 and served another three-year tour. So he did seven years total, but I served five years continuously, which is the longest continuous time in the seat, if you will. A lot of people may not be aware that when you become a superintendent in the modern era, and I'm saying now, over the last 20, 25 years, you're expected to retire from that position so that you're not trying to compete or wait out the clock to go to some other position as a flag officer. So I was relatively young as a superintendent

and the chief and naval operations, John Richardson and the secretary of the Navy asked me to stay on a little bit longer, which I was happy to do, is exhausting position just because of all the interactions you do with Congress, with the alumni, but I loved it and my wife loved it. We stayed there five years. I'm not sure that's a natural act and I'm not sure it's for everybody, but it worked out well for us.

And can you tell the listeners who aren't familiar with the academy, why that position is so challenging? Well, I mean, there are three major search academies, West Point for the Army Air Force Academy out at Colorado Springs, but because of our proximity to Washington DC, 33 miles, we are the service academy that gets visited the most by far by anybody in Washington, DC. And many of the members of Congress, whether they're being the House of the Senate,

they would not likely go to the more remote areas up in West Point, an hour north in New York City, or out the Colorado Springs. They kind of the Naval Academy. So I spent multiple visits a week hosting members of Congress so they could you know help shake who they were going to nominate to send to their various service academies and they looked to us to be kind of their goal standard for what a service academy would be. And not that the other service academies don't have passion and alumni but I would tell you ours at the naval academy is a step. 60,000 plus living alumni is typically around the number that we have and keeping them up to speed talking to them whether it be

their visits for home football games or just around the year is totally, totally involved. We hosted things at Buchanan House, the home of the superintendent at a very high rate. It's the second most visited house and the entire department of defense. I know I have. I have the data to prove that. We hosted over 70,000 people in our home over the course of my time there. And you know, graduation week, commissioning week is its own thing. I called it the 10,000 handshake week because that's how many handshakes I would do typically during commissioning week is its own thing. I called it the 10,000 handshake week

because that's how many handshakes I would do typically during commissioning week between seeing five guests for every graduating senior that would actually come to the house, hosting the Blue Angels events, the parades, and then of course graduation itself. So you just have to be comfortable being out front, being in the public eye at a whole

another level. And then of course engaging with the brigade. I mean, that's an opportunity and a chance to really help shape their future leadership vision by getting a chance to be with them. And, you know, not every superintendent embraced that. I chose to do that. So I spent a lot of time, not just at sporting events, but a chance to engage at the company level to go to different leadership talks. I actually enjoyed that probably as much as anything I did. Well, I know not to the extreme that you experience, but I my last score when I was on active duty, I was at at that time was called Chad F. East. Now it's called joint inter in our agency task force south.

And we had basically a similar phenomenon because it was in Key West. We had so many visiting dignitaries that every single weekend, we would give flag briefings. And for me, it was a great experience because as a Lieutenant-Genier grade, I got to brief Secretary of the Army of the Navy, of ICE President, tons of flag officers, CIA, brass, FBI, operatives, etc. but time and time again, and it's a never stopping process because they were there every weekend. So I do appreciate what you're saying.

So you mentioned Admiral Arson and that cheating scandal. And fortunately or unfortunately, I had a very first hand experience in that because not only was I a midshipman at the time, I was on the brigade on our staff and had to proceed over those on our boards. And I know since that time there have been a number of changes that have taken place that if some alumni of either the Naval Academy or other surface

academies, I know some of the other surface academies have made similar changes. But when we were there, it was pretty black and white. If you broke the honor code, you were expelled. And I understand today it's changed in that. If you commit an honor offense, there are procedures in place that give people a second chance. And I was hoping you might be able to describe that change and why it came about. Sure. So when I got there, I had a sense, and this is sometimes maybe a more of a lesson

in how to avert a crisis. I mean, it's in the news now. I mean, West Point just had a, you know, largest cheating scandal they've had probably in 50 years. I wasn't sure that we weren't right for that to happen again when I showed up in 2014 as a superintendent. I looked at the honor concept as it was written when I took over a superintendent. And I realized that it was in need of something maybe to be more modernized that would resonate with the midshipment of then that today.

We embarked on a full scale look at it. I was very fortunate by Saddam on retired Jim Satterholm, who is, I wanna say class of 53 Bill Lawrence, who was my superintendent who had passed away. And Ross Perot, who was still alive when I came in as superintendent, they were really considered to be kind of the founders of the honor Code or Concept.

I spent time with both Ross Perot and Jim Satterholm to talk to them about how they visualized what the Honor Concept would be when it was put in. I mean, the Honor Code really goes all the way back to really about the 1900s, early 1900s at the Naval Academy. So we went and looked at, make sure we understood the difference between a code

versus concept as you point out, code is more black and white. Concept is more about what it is that you're intending to do. In other words, motivating midship into 101 brace this ideal of not lying, cheating or stealing. So when I took over, the concept was in place, but we rewrote the concept so that it was more of a motivational

way of life that would set me, Chipmint, on a course to take this on for the rest of their Navy and Marine Corps career. Now, this idea of being able to have some sort of a small mistake, this idea that you could be corrected, should you have a mistake early on, was actually in the very first concept in the 1950s. A lot of people don't know that. So it was, yeah, it was never really intended to be pure black and white, but we tried to categorize it a little bit better. In other words, you could make a mistake up to a certain point that might not have been viewed as intentional as a plebe, less so as a youngster, but by the time you're a junior or senior,

there's no more wiggle room there. There's no more place for you to be rehabilitated, if you will. And that was kind of the guidance that we took. Now, did I kick out plebs for on a concept violations? Absolutely. If you were shoplifting, I had a couple of cases like that. We didn't have a lot of tolerance for that. So I guess what I'm telling you is every case stood on its own merit.

Did we have large swaths, the Mitchittman cheating on a professional exam? No, that did not happen during my time. And I would tell you because of the way the brigade and the honor chair and the rest of the midshipmen embraced and took ownership of this, they wanted to make it their own. And that's how I saw this thing really start to take root and be better. Again, it was an empowering way to say, hey, Brigadier, Mitch, this is your honor concept. We in administration will be the adjudicators of it

at some point. And every time I had to deal with an honor case in my office at that final stage after somebody went through that, I put tremendous amount of weight in what the midshipman strippers would say to me in terms of how to adjudicate. And oftentimes their input to me was not what the rest of the chain of command set,

not what the company officer said or the battalion officer, or even what the commandant recommended. I wanted the midshipman to own the concept. And maybe that's my own personal mark that I put on while I was there. That's some great background. And in many ways, I wish at the time I was there, we had something similar to that because one of the hardships that I thought of going through when I did was there were two midshipmen who were actually at the top of their class

who came forward. And I thought did a very honorable thing by bringing to the authorities that this large, double-e-cheating electrical engineering cheating exam had taken place. And unfortunately, instead of kind of being applauded for doing the right thing and coming forward, they were both dismissed and then it unfortunately spiraled out of control after that. But I don't want to go down that rabbit hole today. What I'd prefer to do is kind of do a segue between,

now that you're the president of the University of Nebraska system, how is the honor code there or the way you would apply it different from would it be a service academy or are you taking a similar approach? Yeah, this is a monster institution. So I lead four campuses. The flagship is a University of Nebraska,

the corn huskers, that's the campus. Most people would resonate with the five time national champions in football. One of the most iconic football stadiums in all football and memorial stadiums holds 90,000 been sold out since 1962. So people in Nebraska love their football. But we have three other fantastic campuses, a rural campus out in Carning,

which is in the middle of the state, founded as a teachers college, Metropolitan campus in Omaha, which is also a fantastic STEM-based school and welcomes many, many more minorities and most any other school here in the Midwest. And then a medical center that is a medical school in Omaha as well.

So it's 52,000 students as a system, about 16,000 faculty and staff. And I would tell you that they embrace the honor concept here. That is well written into a lot of their strategy and how they run on the campuses. And the student body government leaders are very engaged here. It's kind of like the six striper brigade commander

at the Naval Academy. And they are on our board, the board of regions. So the board of regions is 12 members, eight publicly elected, and four student body leaders. And we are involved in driving and making policy and fiduciary oversight. So it's really a fascinating leadership challenge to run a system like this.

But again, it's not top down, it's bottom up, which to me is similar to way the Naval Academy, one of the reasons it's always been so successful. So for you leaving the service, were you looking for this opportunity at Nebraska or how did it come about? Well, the truth is, and just like I wanted to aviation, just like I wanted to nuclear power program, and a lot of things that happened to me in my life to include going to the Naval Academy as a superintendent, they found me.

I had already signed on for another job with a software company after I retired in 2019. My wife, Linda and I were on kind of retirement vacation. And I got a call from a search company that was charged with finding a talent to apply for this job. And they convinced me after they wrote this, they called it the nine pillars of leadership. Somebody that they were looking for to run the university.

And when they showed those to me, I was inspired by what they were looking for. I would say I'm a bit of a non traditional university president. I don't have a PhD. I don't come from academia, even though I ran the Naval War College and I ran the Naval Academy for my last active duty years, they were looking for a change agent and somebody that could run the institution, not necessarily go be a tenured professor, you know, on one of the campuses. So from the moment I interviewed, to the day I was selected as the priority candidate was less than 30 days. I mean, it happened really fast. Well, it's kind of like becoming a head coach in a major sport in the league. It seemed to happen just like that, but it's not how it happens normally in the business or academic world. Right. And, you know, I became the president on one January in 2020. So obviously, when I came into this job,

there was nothing about a global pandemic. The first word of things coming out of Wuhan, China, occurred about three to four weeks later. And so the majority of my tenure here is the University of Nebraska system president. It has been working through a global pandemic. Well, I was doing some research on that to get prepared for this interview. And I saw you took some pretty amazing steps.

One of them was, I think, for tailing enrollment fees for a couple of years, if I have it right, which ended up having kind of an unexpected result of allowing more and more underprivileged students to come to the university. I'm wondering if I have that correct, and if you could explain that in some more detail. So once I got a sense of how big this pandemic was going to be and that was somewhere around early March,

like every other major university in the country, we had to go remote right away to just try to protect our students or faculty and staff. But I realized this wasn't going to go away and for us to be successful in completing our mission, which is to educate not just Nebraska's, but people all over the world, we had to take some bold steps. And I equated some of the steps that we took to being in high-end intensity combat. You know, we even in a globalized world where you've got a ton of information, a whole bunch of intelligence, once you actually go into a combat mission, there's still the fog of war, and we were dealing with the FOG of COVID. We didn't have perfect information. We weren't getting information from it, and I had the medical center. I mean, some of the best experts in the world who were part of our campus and advising us.

So we did. We made some very bold initiatives in May of last year, one of which as you alluded to was to give free tuition to all those who make $60,000 or less here in the state in Nebraska, which is the majority of the population. We froze tuition for everybody for two years. We changed the academic calendar, so we would minimize travel. I reduced the cost of online education significantly by 9% because I knew more people would want online education. So we were doing the exact opposites of what we had always historically done in the midst of an economic crisis as well as a medical and global pandemic. We actually reduced cost instead of transferring the cost to students and others. And the result was we grew an enrollment. We were the only major university in the Midwest that grew our enrollment last year. How much of a difference did that make? Do you think in the way the population in Nebraska saw the university and how people,

how that's changed the whole dynamics of the student body. Yeah, we are such a centerpiece of the entire state in Nebraska. I mean, I talked about, you know, being in the public eye when I was the superintendent of the Naval Academy. This is to that level and maybe even a little bit more. I mean, Nebraska is an agricultural state. 90% of the entire landmast is farmland or ranches. So that is the number one economic driver of the entire landmast is farmland or ranches. So that is the number one economic driver of the entire state. But a close second is the university. So to give you a sense,

we return about seven and a half dollars for every dollar the state gives us that helps drive the state economy. It's a rather remarkable institution that serves the people. And just like the Naval Academy, our centerpiece of athletics, Husker Athletics, does not run one bit on a single dollar from the state. It's self-sustaining. It's one of the top 10 financial programs in the country.

So people all over the state resonate with the university. We only have one university system in the entire state. There's only one flagship academic institution in the state and people are inspired to wanna come here. So we have to get it right. And we are also the feeder for most of the people that go to work here in the state. So Omaha, a city that is a little over 500,000 people

and Lincoln about 250,000 people. Those are the two most popular states. And to give you a sense of how sparse the population here is at a home football game in Lincoln, Nebraska, the stadium itself is the third largest city in the state with 90,000 people. So you've got to get a sense of yourself and understand that

how the university goes, so goes the entire state of Nebraska. Well, that's, that really puts it in perspective. And I am going to have to go to football just for a second because those who live, I'm in Tampa Bay and those who live around this area, we're not so happy when Nebraska took a coach away from the University of Central Florida who had done such an amazing job there. And I grew up as a huge Michigan fan. And now Nebraska is an inner Big 10 rival. What should fans of Nebraska see in the future from this team? Because I think you've actually got one of the best coaches in the country leading it now. Well, John, I would agree with you. While I was superintendent at the Naval Academy,

I got to watch Coach Scott Frost take UCF University essential Florida from a winless season, and two years later, make a run as an undefeated team in the American Athletic Conference. Let's face it, the American Athletic Conference has really good football. We're talking, you know, temple, Memphis, Houston, Central Florida, South Florida, and Navy, of which any year, there's two or three of those teams there in the top 25. When Navy was getting ready to play Central Florida during that undefeated season, Scott Frost was 40 years old. He played scout quarterback and preparing central Florida to take on Navy because they weren't going to be ready to play against an option team like Navy was, but Scott had run the option when he was quarterback at Nebraska when he graduated 97. So he prepared his team himself as a coach, a player coach. And that was probably the toughest game central Florida had. In fact, we had a chance to win the game on the last possession and they took the ball away from us.

So I got the meat Scott Frost that day and I was impressed with him. And then he boom, here we go. I show up in Nebraska. He's already been hired here. He's now in his fourth year. We've been in a bit of a rebuilding era here. We haven't had a winning season during his era just yet. I would

tell you I'm very optimistic that this will be the year that Scott will turn the program around. He's got a great quarterback this year in Martinez. We've got a fantastic returning defense. But as you point out, we play in the Big Ten and Nebraska has arguably the number one most difficult college football schedule in the country this year because we're playing Oklahoma this year. Who's going to be in number two for the 50th anniversary of what what is called the game of the century. And we're going to play that down in the still water Oklahoma at Oklahoma's home stadium. So it'll be a really challenging year just because of the schedule. We always play Ohio State. You know, we're playing Wisconsin.

We're playing Iowa. So there are no layup games at all for Nebraska. But it's a passionate fan base. They only care about winning here and Scott Frost is all about winning. So we're going to get there. Did you know that Forbes magazine recently cited that 70% of individuals who do personal development masterminds and one-on-one coaching benefited from better work performance, increased communication skills, and overall better relationships. And we at PassionStruck are obsessed with self-development, coaching, and

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and get predictable results time and time again. Go to passionstruck.com slash coaching right now and let's get igniting. Well, I'm gonna switch gears on you a little bit and go to the stories from your military career and I'm gonna start with one of my own. When I got out of the service, I had the opportunity to work for a great company called Booz Allen. And I happened to be

attending a conference in San Diego where I was based at the time. And upon taking a break, I saw a gentleman who had a Corvette jacket on. And at the time, I had always been a huge fan of muscle cars. And so I went up and we started talking about Corvettes. And as we got to talking, he turned out to be the civilian top instructor at the Navy Weapons Fighter School Top Gun, Wayne Hamiloff. And it ended up turning about a year later into a $15 million contract for Booz Allen,

which I got to lead, which was building something called Strike Fighter Online. And you were still pretty much in the infancy of top gun when you went through. Can you talk about what the program was like and how it's changed over the years since you went through that? Sure, in program. So a lot of people will ask me, was like and how it's changed over the years since you went through that. Sure, in program.

So a lot of people will ask me, at what point in your life did you realize that the Navy was truly a career? And I was very fortunate. In my first quarter and I was flying the F4 Phantom as a radar intercept officer, backseater in the F4, at the end of its operational life, onboard the USS Midway, that museum that's out

in San Diego Harbor right now. It was a 35 year old aircraft carrier, in the early 80s, remember this is a ship that was built in World War II. So I got to go to Top Gun while I was a 25 year old lieutenant in that squadron. And again, the competition to go to Top Gun was very intense. It only sent one crew, a pilot, and a radar intercept officer per year, in that squadron. And again, the competition to go to Top Gun was very intense. You only

sent one crew, a pilot, and a radar intercept officer per year. Every class at Top Gun then was made up of eight fighter jets, so eight crews, and it was a five-week program. It was, again, very intense. I had maybe six or seven hundred hours in the F4 Phantom. I was a little bit lower than what the standard was to go to that school because it is graduate level fighter aviation. But as much as people resonate with the movie or have this perception about what Top Gun is, Top Gun at the end of the day was really about

how to do teaching and learning and how to analyze what it is that you do so that you can present that in a learning method for others. And that's what I took away from Topgain. Now, funny, while I was there, and again, this was the spring of 85, I was selecting 84. So I was there as Tom Cruise and Tony Edwards and the whole movie cast was showing up to get ready to film. Now, I left before the majority of the movie was done, but then I got to go back to Miramar as an F-14 flight

instructor when I finished my tour out in Japan on the midway. So I got to see Top Gun kind of at the height of its glory days in the mid late 80s. And then I came back to Miramar in 1995 as the chief of staff of the fighter wing when we were just about ready to close Miramar for the Navy and turn it over to the Marine Corps.

Well, Top Gun was in the middle of that change. So Top Gun moved from Miramar in 1996 to Naval Air Station Fallon. And I would tell you, that was the time when Top Gun kind of really changed their whole approach. It became much more of a full-length graduate school for strike fighter operations in terms of who we picked to go through there. What it means once you graduate from there, there's a that has remained is this idea of becoming, you know, a master, teacher, educator, and learner once you graduate from there. It's not necessarily to teach you to be the best at dog fighting skills or to be the best, you know, precision

bomber. There is some of that in there. You have to learn and become good at your craft, but ultimately it's about becoming the best at understanding teaching and learning. Yes, and we have so much change that's around us now that we're in the fourth industrial revolution, and we're seeing a rise of more and more autonomous drivers. You have air bus making decrees that they're going to limit the pilots in the future to one, and then you have thrones and everything else. Do you think there will always be human pilots in the fighter planes, or then you have drones and everything else. Do you think there will always be

human pilots in the fighter planes or do you think over time they will become autonomous similar to drones? So that's a great question, John. When I was the president of the Naval War College, the chief naval operations, Jonathan Greener actually asked me to write a article for the Navy to be published in proceedings on that very question. What is the future of war fighting to look like in the year 2035, 2050? Now, most experts would tell you that you can never really predict anything past two to three years in the future. It's just so many unknowns.

But these are the premises that I went on, and I agree with you that, you know, internet technologies, cyber warfare, remote piloted autonomous weaponry is becoming the thing of the future. We're almost living it now. Precision guided weapons are no longer something that the United States has, you know, distinct advantage in almost every adversary that we would go against has something that could go a great length when I say great length more than well over 500 miles and go to stand off from a great distance is no longer a specific advantage. So we're going to find our advantages in other ways, but at the end of the day to get kind of get to your point, I would tell you that the human in the loop part of this is always going to be there. And what I mean by that is we very well could get to a point where we're launching airplanes off of an aircraft carrier somewhere in the Indian Ocean or the South Pacific and tankers and many of the missions that had historically had pilots and naval flight officers in it may not be there. Now, does that mean that we won't have anybody and that's in a man cockpit? I think we're going to still have the human and the

loop part of that for the next century. Whether that be a pilot that serves as a quarterback, maybe in an airplane like a E2D Delta Hawkeye, or maybe in an F18 version of another variant of the Super Hornet, that's within a division or large formation of airplanes that's directing from an airborne platform or even to where now we're so interconnected that a lot of those functions might be happening in the belly of a of a mothership like an aircraft carrier. But at the end of the day, the human and the loop part is important. And I think it's important for us to understand that this element of warfare will never go away. For us to really invest and have an understanding what it means to put our sons and daughters, our Americans, and harm's way, we've got to understand the value of human life.

So to become so automated and to lose that perspective could very much change going down that slippery slope. So there's an ethical part of this type of war fighting. And then there's a technological part to it as well. And not that we don't want to take advantage of the technology that we could serve to make to our advantage. But we've just got to make sure that we always keep an eye towards the human and the loop aspect. OK, and on thank you for that. And on those lines, as a human who's been in the loop on over

6,000 hours of fighter time and the most care landings of any pilot, what is the craziest thing you've ever seen during your days as a fighter pilot? Oh gosh, I've got a couple of those and probably the one that I think is has some interesting leadership lessons in it and one that maybe people could resonate actually it does not have anything to with landing on the aircraft carrier. It has to do with taking off from the aircraft carrier. So this was a couple weeks into my first command. I was in charge of VF14 top hatters. This is an early 1999 when our final work up to go on what is about to be a combat deployment to Kosovo and then into Iraq. My youngest pilot in the squadron was having trouble landing on aircraft carrier during

this final work up phase. He ended up getting through that. And as a reward, I said, he and I would be the first ones to fly off from the USS Theater Roosevelt to go home and get some some rest before we were deployed. We were the first airplane off the catapult, off cat number three off the Roosevelt. We are in our 80th anniversary celebrations of the squadron VF14 was founded in 1919, so it's 1999, so we've got this white tailed F14 tomcat painted up with a big red symbol on the tail and Craig Larson my young pilot and I took off and as we hit the end of the stroke, I knew something was immediately wrong. We had a fuel pressure light and as I looked over my shoulder, the whole airplane was engulfed and fuel fuel was coming out of every possible orifice in the airplane and it was, it was so thick,

I could not see the tails of the Tomcat from the back seat. And by the time we figured out what was going on, we were basically leaking fuel out of one half of all of the fuel systems and burning both engines fuel from the right side, but it was all trapped. We couldn't transfer anything and we were now at a point where we were going to run out of fuel in about eight minutes. We couldn't get back to Oshian, we were over a hundred miles away, couldn't even get to Kitty Hawk, which was another airfield or Elizabeth City that we might have been landed. So we made a decision from about 50 miles out that we were going to have to ditch and hopefully get as close to the shore. It was February, so the water temperature was really cold. We were just hoping we could get a helicopter

to us. Well, as we were in the descent, thinking about how we were going to ditch this F-14 Tomcat and all the procedures. And of course, you'd say, well, why didn't you just do a control dejection? Well, there was fuel everywhere, and the rocket off of my ejection seat would have likely exploded the airplane and killed. Yeah, correct. So that was an option. As we were in the descent, I spotted an airfield that was not on my charts. That was in Deer County, North Carolina. And we made a last second decision to put that Tomcat down on a runway that was only 3,000 feet long. We needed 8,000 feet to land with the weight that we were at and the tire pressures that we were carrying. So in about a minute and a half,

I gave Craig Larson a tutorial on how to do a short field landing. And this is a guy that had only a couple hours in the airplane. And I trusted him to do it. And this was an uncontrolled air field, no tower. We just drove in there and put that airplane down. We stopped the airplane in 2000 feet saved the airplane saved where they wouldn't run the airplane off the runway or crash it or break a tire and spin into a whole bunch of, you know, assessments that were there. It was truly a one in a million landing

and Craig Larson and I will be friends for life over that. And for those who are listening and I surprisingly have a number of listeners who are 18 to 24. What's one of the biggest lessons they can learn from that story? You never know where your moment's going to come up. As we were descending and I explained to Craig, and Craig at the time, I think he was 24 years old.

I mean, he'd just graduate out of the Naval Academy. He's probably close to the time that you graduated. John, you guys might be classmates. As we were in the descent, I had not asked Craig this important question. I said after I explained him how to do this crazy landing. We're going to land at 1200 feet rate, 1200 feet per minute rated descent. We're basically going to crash the airplane down. I want to have his feet on the brakes. He said, if you're going to blow one tire, you're going to blow both. You know, we're going to make the Annie's Kid work blah, blah, blah. I said, can you do this?

And he said, I think so. I said, that's not a good enough answer. I said, can you do this? And he said, I can do it. And it was that moment. I said, I know you can do it. And I put all of my faith. I put my life into his hands.

I have no stick and throttle in the back of the Tomcat. He had all that. He had complete control. All I could do was talk to him, give him the knowledge that I had, with at the time I had, you know, over 4,000 hours in the Tomcat. And he did everything right. Now, maybe he was at a little extra shot of belief

from me as his commanding officer to him to say you can do this and he stepped up. So for those that are listening, I would just say, you got to be ready for your moment. and don't shy from it. Take it. Okay. And along those lines, what is the relationship that you've had that you've learned from the most? Well, relationships matter. And if you're going to be successful in life, relationships matter everywhere. And relationships matter in a way that it isn't about the relationships that you create for those that you worked for, and not even just those that maybe have

worked directly for you. It's all relationships. So one of the things I've learned is, you know, no matter who you come in contact with, you've got to treat everybody fairly with dignity and respect and never underestimate anybody. This is, you know, you talked about young people listening in. My last couple of years while I was at the Naval Academy, you know, I always had a kind of a personal assistant or an aid. And these are very sharp young lieutenants that they usually come from all different designators. Lieutenant Kayla Baron was my aid in 2017.

She was a submarine officer, first generation of women to go serve on submarines, a 2010 Naval Academy grad systems engineer, cross country runner. We were at an event at Aaron Space Museum in Washington, D.C., a bunch of astronauts, they're telling stories. We get back in a car to go back to anapolis, and she said, I just can't imagine how cool it would be to go into space.

I mean, what do you have to do to become an astronaut? And, you know, this was my way of mentoring her. I said, Kaley, you know how you become an astronaut? And I know she was going to say, well, you got to go to test pilot school. You got to do this. You got to go fly. I said, no, you apply. You apply.

She applied 18,300 people applied that year for 12 astronaut spots. Lieutenant Caleb Aaron is now an astronaut. And she is on the Artemis team. She's gonna go to the moon. And she could someday go to Mars. And if you had talked to Lieutenant Caleb Aaron, seven years ago, she was gonna get out of the Navy and go do something completely different.

And now she's part of NASA. I mean, again, you just can never, ever underestimate the strength and power of your dreams. Don't let anybody tell you what you can't do. It's all about what you can do. And that is all formed by relationships. You're absolutely correct. And fortunately, I've had the opportunity

to know a few different astronauts. One of them is my classmate, Chris Cassidy, who actually is gonna be on the show, the episode right before you. And then I also have Wendy Lawrence coming on, probably when the Naval Academy comes back in session in the fall. But both of them kind of tell the story in the same way,

if they wouldn't have raised their hand. I think Wendy took a more directed path to get there, but Chris kind of just came into his life and he took the opportunity when he had it. So at the Academy, we have a speaking series called The Forest All Lecture, and one of the things I wanted to ask you is if you had the opportunity to go back and give him a shipment on forest all lecture, what would your topic be? Well, I'm going to be very honest here. The last thing that I did is

superintendent was I gave a forest all lecture. My side didn't know that. It was not videotaped. And I purposely would not allow that because I wanted to be my last moment with a brigade of Mitch Shipman.

And it was one of the most fun things I've ever done. So again, for your listeners, they probably have no idea. I was actually a contestant on the prices right as a lieutenant when I was out at Miramar. And it's just crazy. We still have a videotape of it. And again, I think I was 26 years old. I showed clips of lieutenant Carter with Bob Barker on the prices right on the huge screen inside alumni hall for the brigade to see what their superintendent looked like and what an absolutely idiot I was on the stage trying to play for a car. The

brigade lost their minds. They were having so much fun with it and then instead of having the brigade stand to attention when I walked up onto the big stage, while they were enjoying this 30-second clip of the prices right, everybody got silent and they said, Admiral Carter, come on down. So I ran in from behind the brigade like I was going on to the stage of the price is right.

And then I gave a 40-minute talk about how your life will never exactly turn out the way you plan it to be, because that's been my path. Every time a door closed, another door opened. I never really got any of my first choices. I know that sounds odd to look at where I've been. But they weren't, when I say that,

they weren't the things that I envisioned myself doing. But I always said yes, even when the yes was hard and the yes included a lot of unknowns and went through that other door and just gave it my best. So that was the talk that I gave to the brigade. And I still hear from mid shipment that resonate with that. If I were given the opportunity to go back, I would do something similar on that theme,

but now translate that to not only my military career, but what I've now learned in running this major complex organization called the University of Nebraska. And if you're an upcoming graduate either from the Naval Academy, University of Nebraska, whatever university it may be, what is the biggest lesson or biggest advice you would give any of those students today? Well, the first thing I would tell them is congratulations. You've lived through a period that we haven't seen in over a century in our country. So they've already survived and become a very resilient student to get to a graduation or diploma or a commission. So they've already had to live through a period of unknowns,

which there are still some. And then the next thing I would tell them is they're the future leaders of our nation, of our state, wherever their profession's gonna take them. It's not gonna be folks like yourself, for me, my time and being the best I ever was in my profession has long passed, it's now their turn. And they have to be excited about that. Well, great.

Well, I'm gonna end end there and thank you so much for providing all this amazing wisdom and for especially your 38 years of service to our country and for the countless lives that you've touched throughout your career at the War College at the Naval Academy. Now, you're 10 year at the University and Nebraska system. Thank you very much. Okay, John. Thanks, thanks for the time. I am so thankful for Vice Admiral Carter coming on the show and he unpacked so much that's going to be valuable to all my listeners or watchers of the YouTube

channel. Thank you so much again, Admiral Carter. It was a true joy to have you on the show. And if you loved that content, then let me tell you about some of the past content that we've had that you can go back and check out. My interview week before this was with Navy SEAL and NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy, where we talked about his life lessons around the importance of being present, not only in the times that matter most,

but in all your daily activities. In prior to that, we had on Welch Knowledge Management and Complexity Science expert Dave Snowden who talked about how you can apply this can even framework and complexity science into your individual life. In prior to that, we had on singer-songwriter, Juliana Swini, who talked about how she overcame tragedy in her mom's death. Like her passion being a musician and sharing her profits, the charities that benefit

causes that her mom loved. And before that, we had Naval Academy graduate in Marine Katie Higgins Cook who went on to become the first female pilot in the famed Blue Angel Swagrin. And we talk about both her journey of getting there and now her journey as she is transitioning out of the military and in civilian life. And prior to that, we had on guests such as Chef Sharon Gehrin, culinary queen, who went from working five jobs to within 18 months, making multiple hundreds of thousands, pursuing her passion as a chef, her mentor, Maria Madarelli, who was an expert

in using personal agility to ignite your life. West Point graduate, Hugh Campbell, who after the military became a serial entrepreneur in the Tampa Bay Area. Mac Brasina, who's the team and builder, and so passionate about how you should use the other 23 hours of your life. Master Chief Tuck Williams, who talked about all his lessons learned in over 25 years of military service. Jaws Stewart, who discusses how he found his passion in retirement

and how that passion has now changed his life and so many more. Thank you as always for taking the time to watch the show and helping us become one of the top 1.5% of all high-casts listened to in the world. And if you would like our help in helping you individually improve your performance or helping you on your own passion journey, please hit us up on passionstruck.com and if you need someone to work with you in your business and you're trying to create a passion start culture, whether that's in your function in a larger organization or in a small business or start-up, we're here to help you as well.

And until then, keep on igniting your passion journey. Thank you so much for joining us. The purpose of our show is to make passion go viral. And we do that by sharing with you the knowledge and skills that you need to unlock your hidden potential. If you want to hear more, please subscribe to the Passion Start podcast on Spotify, iTunes, Stitcher or wherever you listen to your podcast ad. And if you absolutely love this episode, we'd appreciate a five star rating on iTunes, and you're sharing it with three of your most

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