Loree:

So Vince, you were the 8th Chief Master Chief Petty Officer of the Coast Guard, and spent 30 years serving in the Coast Guard. When you first joined, did you think ‘I’m going to be the Master Chief Petty Officer of the Coast Guard one day’? Or like, at what point did you start thinking that’s a leadership role that I want to go for?

 

Vince:

Well, it happened two weeks into boot camp, honest to goodness truth. Well, first of all, when I joined the Coast Guard, it was almost a mistake kind of; I was on my way to join the Navy. Back then this was 1971, I was still in high school at the time, I was on my way to join the Navy and I walked into the wrong recruiting office; back then the Coast Guard uniform was the same as a Navy uniform. So I just saw this guy in a Navy uniform, and I went in and then I realized I walked into the wrong office. I was too embarrassed to walk out so I decided I was going to listen to this guy, and then I’ll go find the Navy recruiter.

Well, as it turns out, long story short. I found out the Coast Guard was the place to go. And I went. So to your question, two weeks into boot camp, we were in this building, and there was this huge, giant portrait of the Master Chief. Now, the regular rank of a Master Chief has two stars, as you know, from the Navy. And so this guy had three stars, which confused me because my blue jackets manual showed that a master chief has two stars. Somebody who has three stars… hmm… so my first thought was, somebody painted the other star on you know, or this guy is somebody big, and he had to be big because it was this big giant portrait. They had these floodlights on them and everything. So I go to my company commander, which is our drill instructor and chief post mate, and I curiously asked, ‘I see this picture of what I think is a master chief. But he’s got three stars.’ And my company commander says, Well, that’s the Master Chief Petty Officer of the Coast Guard. So, seaman recruit Patton, asked another inquisitive question. ‘Well, what does he do?’ And so the chief looked at me, and he said, he tells the Commandant what to do. So I thought that was cool. So back then you know, you didn’t know what school you were going to go to. Boot camp was 10 weeks, and so it’s like week seven before you could find out what you could do in the Coast Guard. I guess they wanted to make sure you’re going to make it, I don’t know.

So seventh week, which is our classification week, I go see my career counselor. And so I go through all my schools I was interested in and so Seaman recruit Patton asked another very inquisitive, honest question. What school do I go to become the Master Chief Petty Officer of the Coast Guard? Well, he thought I was being a smartass. And so he tells my company commander, my company commander comes in, Yanks me out in my chair; this is back in the days they could touch you. Next, he marches me out to the parade field, and makes me do 50 pushups. And then he gets into my face. And he tells me the day you become the Master Chief Petty Officer of the Coast Guard. That’s the day I walk on clouds. Well, he was so right because he died two years before I became Master Chief Petty Officer of the Coast Guard.

So there you have it. That’s the answer to your question.

 

Loree:

Holy cow. Well, that was the Navy’s loss for sure.

 

Vince:

You know, it’s funny when I became Master Chief for the Coast Guard. My next door neighbor is the Master Chief of the Navy. So we were chatting one day, and then I told him the story. And so he says, what would happen if you walked into the right office and joined the Navy? I said, ‘I’d be living next door.’

 

Loree:

Wow. So, you retired in 2002?

 

Vince:

Yes.

 

Loree:

Okay. And after you got out of the Coast Guard, what was your thought process? What did you want to do next?

 

Vince:

Well, you know the nice thing about having that job, you know, at the top of the heap, there were job offers everywhere. So the one thing that I didn’t have a problem with was transition… to more other than the fact I was overwhelmed with what can I do next? I had earned my doctorate degree while I was on active duty, which I think kind of raised the stakes a little bit more. So I really wanted to gravitate toward academia. I wanted to teach. And I was offered a teaching position at University of California, Berkeley, to teach philosophy of ethics, which was a great, great opportunity. And I moved out to California from Washington, DC. And then while I was out there teaching as most professors you know, you got to have another job. Because it’s, you know, it’s not your, your sustaining job, it’s kind of more of a job of passion and so forth. And just so happens, a young man by the name of Chris Michel, from the famous military.com that you and I both know very well. He actually had a beat on me while I was on active duty and invited me over to the office. We went over to chat and next thing I knew I was working for Military.com while I was teaching it at Berkeley, so that’s kind of how it all started for me.

 

Loree:

Fantastic. And that’s how we know each other. I just remember those days out at military.com that anywhere we went, like if we ever went to visit a military base, we’re just like, anytime if I asked someone, you know, ‘Oh, do you know Master Chief Petty Officer Patton?’ ‘Of course!’ It’s amazing how many people know you; you are a celebrity.

 

Vince:

You know, that was the coolest thing about that job is, you know, it was one thing to make this proclamation, two weeks in at a Coast Guard and say, I’m going to become a Chief as the Coast Guard. But then as time went on, as and I know, we’re going to talk a little bit more on leadership and so forth. You know, I really got serious about it. I got serious because I started really paying attention to what was going on in the Coast Guard and where my passion and interest were, you know, so, that said that when I got to be Master Chief of the Coast Guard, the key important part of that job was having the pulse of the service knowing what’s going on. That job is you’re the principal advisor to the Commandant of the Coast Guard. And there’s no filters in between you and the four star Admiral. I was in. And so the way I saw it with roughly 45-46,000 people, both officers enlisted in the Coast Guard, I felt that I was responsible to them. Rather than saying that I was the big guy on the heap, I mean, they were all above me as far as I was concerned, I was working for them. So that meant that I had to get out there; I had to see what was going on.

We had a lot going on from 1998 to 2002. And my 10 years of Master Chief for the Coast Guard, which included 9/11… and you know, not to mention all kinds of various Coast Guard activities that we had going on. We had jetliners crashing, we had alien migration, interdiction operations down in the Caribbean going on. Just a lot of things and so, as a result, people were spread pretty thin. While the commandant had to make decisions on operations and, and so forth, I had to make sure that when he made those decisions that he knew what was going on out in the field. So that meant I was out there; I spent a lot of time out there. And so I think part of that notoriety of people getting to know me was I had to get to know them.

 

Loree:

And I think that’s what makes you such a great leader Vince. It’s that you are out there checking in with people seeing how they’re doing, you know, making sure that people knew that you cared and that you were there to listen to them. So one of the questions I love asking guests is when you were a child or sometime during your youth, when did you first realize that you could influence somebody else to take action? Which I think is kind of the foundation of leadership is being able to influence people…

 

Vince:

Well, you know, I was almost nine years old, eight going on nine at a time. The date was August 27, 1963. And if you look into your history in Washington DC on August 27, 1963, was the the great march on Washington, in which Martin Luther King gave his famous I Have a Dream speech. Well, I happened to be in that crowd and I love looking at the the big picture of the way they show the reflecting pool in the crowd and so forth. I always tell people, I was over there in that corner somewhere, you know? Well, you know, I went with my grandmother, and a bunch of church people. And, and I had no idea what I was going for. You know, I was, I was almost nine years old. I mean, to me, it was a drive from Detroit, Michigan to Washington DC, which was a 10 plus hour drive. I thought that was cool in itself. It was during the summer; I counted it as sort of a vacation.

When we got to Washington, and I saw all these people, and we did this march, that was the first time I really got to know who Martin Luther King was, and it wasn’t until I heard the speech. Now granted, I didn’t understand everything that he said. But I was captivated and mesmerized just as the hundreds of thousands of people that were there. The one thing I remember the most about that event was as many people that were there and again, look at that picture on the mall on the reflecting pool and people all over the places. You can imagine how much you know how loud people can be and so forth. And, also, this was 1963. So technology wasn’t the absolute greatest as far as sound goes. But when that man spoke, you could truly hear a pin drop, and I have to believe that… I don’t know I was probably about a quarter of a mile from the actual Lincoln Memorial itself. I mean, it speakers all over the place, but I could hear it and I knew at that point when I heard him, and heard him speak and how captivating his voice was, and so forth… that was the first time I thought I would like to have something to do in my life to have some influence on people. And on the drive back to Detroit, that was always on my mind. And it took me a few years later to go back and read what he said, that even added on to that and while I was in high school, I told the story to people and say, ‘Hey, I was in Washington, I was there.’ And I was able to really talk a little bit more about it because I got to learn about, but it was about that time, almost nine years old, when I had my first inkling that I wanted to work in something to do with leadership.

 

Loree:

Nice. Well, besides Dr. King, who were some of your role models growing up as leaders?

 

Vince:

Well, really the number one role model that I have to say is my oldest brother, Greg. He was the reason why I wanted to go into the Navy. He was a Navy veteran; he joined The Navy as enlisted and later became an officer, and retired as a captain. He’s eight years older than I am. And he was just a wonderful influence on me because everything my brother Greg did, I wanted to do. The reason why I wanted to do it is I saw the instant successes that happened to him when he became an Eagle Scout. I wanted to be an Eagle Scout. And you know, when he worked very hard to get into Cass Technical High School, which in Detroit, and it still is even today on one of the premier academic high schools in Detroit, as well as in Michigan, even in the country, for that matter. I wanted to go to Cass Tech because he went there, and that meant I had to have good grades. And so I’ve pretty much emulated him all the way until I walked into the wrong recruiting office. But there were just so many things about him that I just followed him through. He went from the ground up to the things that he did, and even to this day, as my oldest brother, I still look up to him.