West Pointers

Today in the lobby of the MBA building there was a huge sign advertising a seminar hosted by consulting company called the "West Pointers." That quickly caught my as a certain sister military academy has that name. As I read the advertisement (in Chinese, good job Tim!), I found out that the two founders are indeed for West Point grads who retired after 25 years of service and started this consulting firm. I thought it would be interesting to check out what they had to say.

I arrived late since I was playing basketball with friends from class (see post below), and it was a packed house. They basically spoke about all the stuff we hear in the military all the time: lead by example, take care of your troops/people, integrity, do your boss's work and your boss's boss, etc. All the stuff that we get bombarded with constantly in military leadership training, they now get paid for telling other people. Good for them!!

I was surprised at how much the audience knew about the American military academies, that Eisenhower was a West Pointer, Jimmy Carter and John McCain are Naval Academy grads, and that the winner of one of the seasons from the Apprentice was a West Point grad. These all came out during the question and answer session. How many Americans know that John McCain is a Naval Academy grad? I was really surprised. But what about the Air Force Academy? Why didn't they mention anybody from the best service academy there is? Rock singer Tom Petty an AFA dropout, doesn't that count for something?

After the their presentation was over, and everybody had their chance to talk to them, I chatted with them for a while. I definitely shocked them when I introduced myself as an active duty major in the Air Force! But once I told them I was an Olmsted Scholar, they immediately knew what I was doing in Shanghai as the knew several previous Olmsted Scholars, and that George Olmsted was... a West Point grad!

At any rate, it was good seminar, and it was fun to chat with these two gentlemen about life and career topics. You never know who you'll meet...