Earn Your Experience: Scott Payfer, Director Cloud Operations and Site Reliability, MAVEN Lead, US Navy Veteran

Chris Spencer: You're listening to the Oracle Maven Podcast where we bring people together from the veteran affiliated community to highlight employees, partners, organizations and those who are continuing the mission to serve. Welcome to the Maven Podcast. I'm your host, Chris Spencer, and welcome to season four's first episode where I'm joined by Scott Pafer, Oracle Site Reliability Director, Maven Chair and Navy veteran. After 23 years of service as a United States Navy submariner, Scott retired and embarked on a new journey, joining the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure engineering team where he quickly found his stride leading and building successful teams. In this episode, Scott takes us through his incredible journey from growing up in a military household to enlisting in the Navy. His path was filled with invaluable lessons, but not without facing and overcoming self imposed barriers. And not one to phrase it this way, Scott humbly shares the pivotal moments that helped him evolve into a true leader and someone people actually want to follow. He opens up about how the most rewarding experiences in life cannot be rushed or faked. And he explains how he learned this lesson the hard way. Tune in for a raw and powerful conversation on, uh, leadership, relationships and perseverance. We have all we need to become the person we want to be. So let's remember how to connect with others with sincerity and genuine intent as we continue the mission to serve. Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoy this episode and please remember to check in on your buddies and family. Scott's contact details are in the podcast description and you can always find me on LinkedIn.

Chris Spencer: Scott, what's going on? Good morning.

Scott Pafer: Good morning to you, Chris. It's a, uh, beautiful Seattle Friday morning. We got drizzles up here.

Chris Spencer: So typical, uh, Seattle weather for those who are up there.

Scott Pafer: As we tell all the visitors, it's always like this, always raining. Don't bother coming.

Chris Spencer: Don't. Don't bother coming. Yeah, clearly don't work for the Chamber of Commerce and the tourist.

Scott Pafer: That is actually my job now.

Chris Spencer: Well, good. Well, I'm glad to have you here. So season four, episode one. We're kicking off the Oracle Maven podcast with Scott Pafer, who is leading the Maven employee resource group. So, the Oracle, uh, veteran affiliated community. It's our 10th year anniversary. Did you know that?

Scott Pafer: I did. Thanks entirely to you, Chris, for, uh, raising that to my attention. I, uh, I'm a little younger at Oracle, so I wasn't here when the foundation was laid or, uh, you know, when, when the apple fell from the tree. You know, all those things.

Chris Spencer: Yeah. Bonk. Yeah. And it's it's been a great 10 years. I mean it, obviously the, the community has been around before. Oracle was focusing on bringing people together in the communities. And um, you know, Veterans Day this November 11th will be 10 years. Maven was, was born and we've gone through some iterations and I think we've made good progress on what our focus is and, and how we contribute to the companies. The employee community, you know, indirectly goes to the bottom line of lines of business inside the company. But then you know, of course focusing on relevance for our customers and, and all these things that are independent of each other. So Scott leads Maven as the, the chair, along with co chair Maureen Peters, who we will have on soon. Um, and we brought Scott in to kick off this season because you know, we'd love to hear what's going on and what the future is for this year on what Maven will contribute to and, and how we'll bring people together, continue to bring people together. But before we get there, Scott, let's let everybody know a little bit about you.

Scott Pafer: Yeah, I appreciate you uh, having me on and giving me the opportunity to talk. We're real excited about fiscal year 26 and where we're going with Maven, Um, I get the opportunity to work alongside the pretty motivated board of volunteers keeping the uh, military affiliated community plugged in and connected. Uh, and it's been really rewarding. Right. So I, I have to thank you to, in front of everybody, or at least audibly in front of everybody, uh, for bringing me in. So Chris, Chris really spurred my interest in jumping into the team. Uh, we met in person. His energy and enthusiasm kind of convinced me that maybe the community was, was where I wanted to get back into. So uh, I'm pretty passionate about it. Coming off of a uh, 23 year career in the United States. A, in submarines, got to work in um, electronic warfare, electronic surveillance measures and submarine uh, communications and that turned into uh, information systems. It at the end of my career when I joined, we were still printing out and routing around pieces of paper. Then they decided that the things we printed off could be connected, made networks, computer networks. And it uh, grew over time. Right. So we got to see the whole evolution of that. Um, not going to talk about how old that does make me feel when we're working on virtual computers everywhere and nobody ever actually touches a real machine anymore. Um, so that was ah, that was my formative uh, career was 23 years in the Navy. But as anybody who spent a fair amount of time in the military knows, it's a, it's a string of, a bunch of mini careers as you grow and develop. A bunch of little tours of duty here and there where you have different kinds of jobs. Uh, couldn't, couldn't say more about my experience, uh, there and how it formed me, uh, into what I am today. I'll kind of walk through some of the key points as we go, but I think, uh, the, the idea that someone would spend 23 years in the military isn't. Is a kind of a. You get ideas about what that person might have done that for or why they would have joined in the first place. And it's probably not what most people would think. Um, when I was growing up, I was a military vet. Uh, not vet, sorry, military brat. I mean, I might as well.

Chris Spencer: You came out of that.

Scott Pafer: Came out born. Born a Navy guy. Right. I was, I've always been a sailor. All me blooming life. Right. Um, the, uh, the reality is true though, right? I was a, I was a son of a son of a sailor. My, um, my dad was in the Navy. My mom was in the Navy. Uh, I was adopted as my stepdad. Might as well been my real dad, though, because I never even knew it. Right. Uh, and then my biological father was a sailor too. Right. It's just, it's in my blood. Um, it's how I was raised. I never lived outside of a Navy or military town in my life ever. Uh, and, um, we moved around a lot when I was younger, and then we settled in Connecticut. Um, and I think there was just the foregone conclusion that that was the path, that was the way, you know, my parents raised me. Knowing I was going into the Navy. There's never my thought process. I was just enjoying life, being a kid, playing outside stickball and mountain biking and playing basketball on the, on the outside of the school, you know. Um, but, uh, I didn't really think about it. And then my dad's like, yeah, you're going to go into the Naval Academy. I was like, well, I mean, that's cool. How do you do that? Right? Well, first and foremost, you got to actually study, show up, do homework, go to school. Uh, those were all things that weren't really at the top of my list in high school. Um, not even on the list a lot of times. Right. So I was, uh, smart, but not motivated and, uh, and not really focused, uh, when I was in high school. So I ended up barely passing. I was already signed up for the Navy, uh, ready to go off to do the deployed entry Program. And my recruiter, My recruiter gets a call from me like, hey, man, I'm. I'm not going to graduate on time. And he's like, hey, uh, yeah, that's a, uh, that's an emergency, right? So it worked for my recruiter. Coming in, setting up a class with the high school, pulling in a bunch of other kids that had failed. It was, uh, was chemistry that did me in, right? I took chemistry three times. And then finally I got the, the, uh, the Idiot's Guide to Chemistry version of chemistry. And I was like, okay, I can. I can sleep my way through this, I guess. So I did that in summer school when everybody else was enjoying the summer, and then off to boot camp, um, thank God, because I would not have been able to find another job other than Dairy Queen, uh, if I were that. Not that Dairy Queen was a bad job. No shade. I enjoyed my time there.

Chris Spencer: Let's, uh, talk about the, the shakes, the Dairy Queen shakes for a second.

Scott Pafer: Yeah, man. Yeah, the blizzards where you can turn them upside down. You know, I actually really enjoyed working there. But, uh, the, the reality is I needed a change, and I wanted to get as far away from my hometown as possible. Uh, was anything personal? It's not like I had a bad relationship with my parents. I just didn't have a great plan for what I wanted to do there. And Groton, Connecticut is kind of like, there's really nothing there. Submarines except submarines. And the military industrial complex, right? There's. There's Dow. There's Pfizer, there's a Bun. Other like, plants, there's a casino, and then there's the world's largest subways, right? And that's it, right? Like, that's. That's what's there. Uh, and I, I didn't want to spend my life in that place. So I, at the time, I was getting introduced to a bunch of, you know, new kinds of music. I grew up when I was younger only interested in hip hop. And I discovered that there were other genres of music in my senior year. So found Jimi Hendrix, found grunge rock, and found Seattle, right? So then I'm in school, ironically. Graduate boot camp, go back to my hometown for a year while I'm in school getting trained, because that's where all of the submarine rates get trained is my hometown. Um, spent a year there wanting to get the heck out. And finally, the first chance I got, I was like, I want to go to Seattle because that's where all the rock and roll and mountains are, right? I was an avid mountain biker, always wanted to snowboard. And, uh, and I got out here and I fell in love with it. It was like the first time I'd ever seen a real mountain was snow. In the summertime, you could see them from base. I think it was, like superimposed. And it blew my mind. Right. Um, so I spent another year waiting to get on the boat, um, in school. So a, uh, big part of what makes me who I am is what I experience in between my classes. Right. Uh, it was, it was interesting because I was raised to have this really strong work ethic and be super committed to whatever I was doing at the time. I wasn't necessarily motivated to go hunt down opportunities, but if you gave me work to do, I was going to go do that work. I like hard work. I mean, it could be just picking heavy stuff up and moving it and then putting it down. It could be whatever, right? Chip and paint and painting. I didn't care, right? Something to do, worthy task. If I could see a good outcome, I would attack it. And instead they gave us the most menial, dumb stuff to do in between. And then it was like these, these middle grade leaders that kind of washed out and ended up just watching over the kids waiting to go to school. And so there were times they had us moving furniture from one side of a building to the other, and then the next day we'd come and move it back where it was the day before. Um, I thought that was the worst it was going to be because that was in a condemned building, right? Well, I get out to Seattle, I go, and they put us in a sub basement, right? There's this little tiny storage closet that somebody thought would be good to convert into an office. And that's where we sat in a bunch of broken furniture, waiting for random tasks and to go sweep the building that already had janitors, like, three times a day. So it was like. It was not what I signed up for, to say the least. Right? I'm like, almost two years in. I've yet to really step foot on an operational submarine. I did a little brief stint in Groton where I was down on the USS Springfield. They have these vertical launch tubes, uh, and they put it in dry dock. Sent us down while waiting school. And that was actually a lot of fun for me because it was my job to take this pneumatic, what they call a needle gun, uh, which fires off these little needles to chip away the epoxy paint and repaint it. I put my Walkman in with, uh, auto reverse Punk, um, rock and grunge music every day, all day, and just went to town, right? I'm in the superstructure of this thing, needle gunning on missile tubes and just having a blast, right? I mean, a lot of people would be like, God, that sounds terrible. But it was like zen for me. I was like, plugged in. I was like, good to go. Got my tunes, I got my hard work. Something's going to look good when I'm done. I don't really care. I don't need much. Um, so then, uh, you know, I was, I was happy with that. I go to this other place and it's once again like, whoop, nope, this sucks. So then I stepped foot on the ship with this. I mean, I spent my youth with pretty good chip on my shoulder, right? I didn't, I didn't really care, you know, I was a punk. I was a smart ass and I was really a pain, right, to anybody that could have to be in charge of me because I always knew better, right? I'd outwork you, right? And I was smart enough to get away with whatever I was being a punk about, but I wasn't smart enough to get out of my own way and just stop talking. So, um, I stepped foot on the ship thinking that I would just be that bulldozer punk that got away with everything. And immediately everything changed. I met my First Chief, um, J.P. barnes was, uh, the epitome of like the coolest dude you ever met. It's like you, you pull the dude right at a Top Gun and dropped him on a submarine. And he was in charge of me, right? He was a rock and roll drummer. He was crazy, but super fun and really smart, uh, and just cared about doing a really good job and being the best. And so we spent the next four years on my first ship doing all of that, right? I fell in love with the ship, I fell in love with the mission, I fell in love with the crew. And most importantly, I fell in love with being good at something and actually learning and working hard to get better at it, right? I'd never been academic before that. Never had a reason to. I didn't care, right? Well, he challenged me, right? He gave me the responsibility and opportunity to grow into it. And he did that with the whole division, right? Our whole crew, uh, at one time, I think when we were at our biggest point, we had 11 people, right? He was responsible for 11 people. And I'd say over half of those guys all went on to be senior enlisted leaders or limited duty officer converts, right? They all, all went off to be super successful, right? And I was like, okay, J.P. i'm gonna, I'm gonna go be you everywhere I go, right? I'm just gonna channel that. And so I took it and I ran with it in a lot of early success, right? Because if you work hard, that's like 90% of the equation. That 10% is probably the hardest part to get, right? And that was all my, my attitude, right? So then I get to this mid career point, you know, um, and that was a pretty big switch for me. But I should clarify. I skipped over a big chunk. So another piece of me, I move out to Seattle. I get this great opportunity to work with a great division. And it wasn't like, right away I started getting stuff right. I mean, I was still heading for disaster, uh, with my attitude. And, uh, I was out with my friend. He was dating this girl. She had a friend. They came over and I met my wife. Uh, my best friend to this day introduced me to my wife, Melissa. Um, she came over to his house just impromptu. Uh, and we kind of just never stopped hanging out after that. And then the rest was just kind of history. We just, we hit it off as friends, hit it off as boyfriend, uh, girlfriend, hit it off as husband and wife. And not going to say that, you know, everything was just smooth sailing. We're a military family, right? It was, there were tough times, but it's just always been good to be with someone who is my, my best friend, you know, every day. And you might not get along with your best friend every day, but they're always going to be the person that gets you the best. Uh, and so I lucked into that. And so we were both very young, neither one of us were of drinking age yet. So we, uh, we just kind of jumped into that and went all in. Neither one of us was even looking to start dating, right? It just kind of happened. I was actually kind of done. Like, you know, I don't, I don't need drama in my life. I don't need that extra stuff. And then I met her and I was like, well, maybe, maybe I kind of do, right? So then, uh, you know, signed on for, you know, what was probably the best mission of my life, which was getting together with her. And right in that time, you know, we were both going to community college at Olympic Community College. And I had never been a strong student. She was kind of not taking it super seriously. And together we just kind of found how to focus and be good at it. And we just, from There it was like, we were super students, right? I had, like. I think I graduated Olympic college with a 3.98. I graduated high school with. I don't even know if they measured GPOS. GPAs as low as my GPA was, right? I couldn't even tell you. And that was all, like, a natural confluence of events, right? I had a supportive crew at work. I had a supportive wife who was motivated and smart and dedicated, and it changed everything for me, right? It took it from. I'm just a punk kid who wants to go be a lifty up at the, uh, ski resort as my like, and dream to, like, hey, maybe I can go be, you know, a professional doing something technical and being good at it, right? It just changed everything for me. So having a supportive chief at work and a team, that was awesome. And then also having a wife who just like, holy crap, I got so lucky. Like, she just showed up. And, dude, I just. I wish everybody could find somebody like that to be in their life because she is, like, the cornerstone, maybe the keystone of my whole thing, right? Like, she keeps everything in line. And it's always been good to have somebody in my corner like that. So back to the. The ship. So we're on the ship. I'm trying to decide what to do with my life. I'm still. I still got that chip on my shoulder. I'm still convinced that I don't need this organization that is the Navy, right? I'm just like, yeah, I'm here. I'm only doing one tour, guys. Like, I'm. I'm gonna get exactly what I want out of you, and then I'm gone, right? I'm not staying. It comes down my final days of my first enlistment, we're getting underway. I'm the rescue swimmer on the ship. And I had been really belligerent, right? They weren't coughing up these orders that I wanted to agree to reenlist. And the detailer, who is the guy who assigns you your next set of orders, had had enough of me, right? He was like, I am not. You're not getting what you want. This is where we need you. And I was like, well, then I'm gone, right? I didn't have a plan, right? I would have been, uh, up the creek if I had actually gotten to go through with my plan of just tossing them in the air as I ran off the brow, off the ship. Uh, it would have been a bad day. I would have had no job. Uh, so fortunately, the day we're going out to sea the career counselor comes up with my orders. He goes, will you re enlist now, please? And so I get my orders in hand, and I'm like, yeah, I'll reenlist. And he goes, uh, did you still want to do it in the bridge? The bridge is the hole in the top of the sail of a submarine. Uh, I was like, yeah, I want the captain to reenlist me, and I want to do it in the bridge while we're going through the Hood Canal bridge, which is a floating bridge. They were like, goodness gracious. Like you. You couldn't make anything harder if you tried, right? And I was like, well, I'm gonna get what I want if I'm giving you more of my life, right? So, um, we go up there, and that kind of just that. That happenstance is like this theme I just got. I just keep getting lucky, right? People say it's not lucky, worked hard. No, there's a fair amount of luck, right? Timing and luck are important in everybody's life. And, um, what is it they say opportunity is?

Chris Spencer: Uh, when preparation meets opportunity.

Scott Pafer: When preparation meets opportunity, right? If you're not prepared for it, when the opportunity shows up, you're not going to be ready, right? So I had worked hard to get to that point and be ready to succeed in that next phase, right? And got lucky, and the door opened and I was able to leverage the next opportunities, right? So it kind of kept going through my career. I had really good success, uh, as a junior guy, I was. I was running circles around folks, you know, and, uh, and I knew it, right? In my. In my heart, I knew I was good at what I was doing, right? It was, hey, if you work hard, if you study, you get good at what you're doing, it kind of builds that ego that I never had, right? I had confidence that I never had when I was growing up, and it was new to me. I didn't know what to do with it. So then I started pumping my head up a lot, right? And I, you know, did what I always did. I had a chip on my shoulder, and now I got something to justify the chip on my shoulder, right? So I'm and around, you know, kind of being a bulldozer, right? I just kind of don't take no for an answer. Do whatever I want. I'm all about my team winning. And they did right there. Places I would go, I would go to a team that was struggling. We'd work our butts off together. We'd end up being the best on the waterfront or whatever. And you know, again, I had great raw materials, right? Uh, I show up, I get given a tough job, I volunteer to go take a tough job, and I find out that, you know, what was painted as a terrible opportunity ends up being like a golden opportunity because there's all these great people just waiting to be moved to the right place and guided to something better. So my initial approach was small teams was easy, right? I knew the task, I knew the job, and I was able to work with that team to be successful, right? But they were all wicked smart already. I didn't have to do anything hard. I just had to get them out of their own way, make them work together, which was really just show up and be alongside them and work hard with them. And then they were good. And that elevated me. I elevated them. It worked great. Uh, until I got put in charge of other leaders. When I got put in charge of other leaders and had to distribute responsibility and somehow, suddenly my way wasn't the only way. Uh, uh, it was a real challenge for me. Uh, uh, I hit this point in my career where hard work wasn't going to be the only thing that gets you there, right? You gotta learn some new skills. In this angry youth I was carrying around on my back, that was old me was just making all kinds of problems for me, right? I mean, I was still being successful, but I was alienating everyone around. It was just a. It was a hot mess in, uh. And I wasn't really popular, right? I didn't, I didn't win because I was doing good for the team. I won because that's all I cared about, right? And, uh, at the detriment of those around me too, right? So I think I probably did a fair amount of knocking people over, uh, as we pushed our way through to success, right? Well, guess what, dude? Like, there's more than just your division that makes a submarine crew successful. There's multiple divisions. Everybody needs to win for you to win, because if the ship loses, you lose. And I was like, no, no, that's fine. But I mean, we're going to win though. That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to be the best. And, uh, it took quite a few kicks in the teeth to really understand that I'm going to have to evolve. And, and that didn't come right away to me because I kept like, happenstance kept happening. I kept getting promoted and I was like, well, you were wrong. I don't have to evolve. Right? And um, it was, uh, it was interesting because it the military facilitates that where if you work hard, you're probably, and you're even competent partially. Right. You're probably going to get promoted over time because, well, you stayed and you don't entirely suck and you're willing to work hard. Okay, we can work with that. You get given a, uh, larger amount of responsibility like a department, and suddenly you got to distribute that stuff and your message just isn't landing because you're not out there doing the work of people and you don't understand the technical pieces of the other divisions. Right? So if I've got a navigation division and a sonar division and another division all over there, if I'm responsible for helping them be successful, I don't understand how they do that stuff. How am I going to go in and tell that guy how to make his division successful? Right. Maybe he knows better than I do. I couldn't accept that. And so I fought my way in to a couple of opportunities. One was there's a senior enlisted job, uh, on submarines called the Chief of the Boat. And, uh, at this point I was a senior chief. I was an E8 and was at 12 years in the military, which is pretty fast, right. Um, I don't think anybody really expected that, uh, and the least of all me, right. I was like, oh, wow. Uh, that's, that's sudden and new. So then it was just reaffirming that everything I was doing was right. So then I go and I get this job. Ah. And I start. I was on shore duty and an instructor duty job. And, um, you know, I'm taking for granted that my next gig is going to go be this senior enlisted leader of a submarine. Right. I'm like a baby in this grand scheme of things. Right. Like the.

Chris Spencer: So you, when did you go into the Navy? How old were you?

Scott Pafer: I was 18.

Chris Spencer: So you're 30. You're an E. A 30 year old E8.

Scott Pafer: Yes.

Chris Spencer: Got it. Just emphasizing you're a baby. Yeah.

Scott Pafer: But at the time, no 30 year old thinks they're a baby, right?

Chris Spencer: Like. No, I get it.

Chris Spencer: 30.

Scott Pafer: You're like, oh man, I'm old now. Like I'm the old guy in the room, right? Uh, and then you walk into a room of old guys who are all seasoned and salty. They've been doing it since, you know, the Noah's Ark, right. They cast off lines back there two by two, and then, uh, and then they get the ship underway, right. Those guys are the guys I'm with now, right. And I'm like, oh, yeah, man, I'M going to start throwing my wait around. I'm the new young guy who's going to teach you guys all how to do the right thing. They're like, sit down, kid. Right? Uh, and so I show up, and I'm like, not to be pushed into the corner, Mike. Okay, it's my turn, you guys, you've aged out. Time to get off the bus. I'm in. Put me in, coach. I'm ready to go. Uh, and they keep trying to politely tell me over and over again, like, hey, go get good at what you're supposed to be doing right now there. We. We literally just promoted you. You are super young. Um, haven't had any minutes in that role yet. So, like, don't be in a rush. Go get good at what you're doing. And I was like, I'm good at what I'm doing. Trust me, I know, right? Because this is the theme, right? I always knew. Always knew I was doing the right thing. And then you couldn't tell me different. So then, uh, I go and I have this board with a crew of people that are all mentors to me throughout the time. And, uh, and. And they interview me. I sit in there, and it's a board of all other chiefs of the boats and CMCs, like, command master chiefs. So only E9s, right? They're all interviewing me for this thing. And I had gone nuts. Like, I studied every book you could get on how to do this. And I brought, like, this binder of. I. I had written up, like, procedures for how I was going to do everything, every facet of the job, right? And, uh, an old friend of mine, um, who's now one of my longtime mentors, Eric Antoine, looks at it, he goes, wow, this guy's really smart. Look at him. He's so smart, right? He's reading the book, and I'm thinking, like, oh, God, this already throwing shade. And I haven't even started yet. Um, and he didn't know me from anybody, right? He had done three tours as a chief of the boat. That does not happen, right? Nobody puts themselves through that. And he goes and does it three different times. Ah, so I was worried already, right? And, uh, and. And they send me off. Like, I do my interview. It's. It's pretty rough. It's weird. It's uncomfortable. It's the first time I've ever, like, not felt like I had the answers to everything. Um, and I'm a little sweating it, right? They have me sitting outside. They debated or whatever. So they bring Me back in. And, uh, and they look at me and they're like, yeah, so you passed your board. And I'm like, why does that feel like a pregnant pause after that? And then why would you have to emphasize that I passed my board? Why is it not congratulations, however, we're not going to make you a cop right now. Like, so, wait, I've passed, but I'm not ready. And so I could not. Could not process the depth of this failure at that moment, right? I'm thinking, like, okay, so I worked my butt off. I studied. I've got all of the. I'm like the. The number one guy here and there, and I'm doing all these great things, and how am I not the guy? So then, uh, you know, I go home, and my wife, knowing who I am and knowing how things have gone, she has assumed already that it's a foregone conclusion, right? So she's got a steak dinner, she's got a cake, all done and ready to go, like, we're going to celebrate. And I show up and I'm like, yeah, I didn't, uh, I didn't make it. Like, I'm not. I'm not gonna be the guy. And she's like, uh, well, are you hungry? At the time, I'm just, like, numb, right? And I was like, uh, yeah, I could eat. Um, so that was, like, big pivot point in my life, right? Like, I got thrown sideways pretty hard. And, uh, and the lesson there wasn't ready to be received. I was like, well, okay, so I walk away. I'm gonna. Well, forget these guys. They don't want me. Uh, I'm gonna go be an ldo. Limited duty officer, right? If they. If the senior enlisted ranks don't see who I am, I'm gonna go be a limited duty officer, and I'm gonna get commissioned, and I'm gonna go lead that way, right? Maybe I'm just not meant for this crowd. Uh, so then I spend, like, nine months under the tutelage of a limited duty officer who's my department head. You know, we work right alongside each other. Um, I'm the department chief at the time, and he's kind of mentoring me. I put it together, all these things again. I'm, like, completely convinced that there's no outcome other than Scott. Paper wins this thing, right? I. I'm going to get this thing, and, uh, I submit my paperwork, I put it all in, and, uh, you know, the results come out, and I'm not on the list. I'm not Even a second choice, I'm not anywhere remotely close, right. Uh, until that point, I had never been on another type of submarine, right? So in the military, especially in the Navy, if you get into senior enlisted or officer ranks, they're expecting you to have different kinds of platforms. So you have a wide variety of experience. I had only ever been on deterrent submarines by that point. So SSBNs, uh, and that's a very specific kind of mission, which is only one kind of mission. Well, the fast attack class submarines, right, they do a bunch of other kinds of missions. I've not had any experience in any of those things, which is where they send all limited duty officer communications officers, right? Like that's what I was qualified to go do if I got picked. I was actually completely unqualified at the time to go do it because I had no other experience. I did not process that. I thought, well, I'm super good at this other thing. So it outweighs the lack of experience. So, uh, you'll see that lack of experience is actually a key driving thing in how I fell off the cart here. So I'm young, I'm ahead of my time, but I'm actually way behind in this experience gathering thing. So then I'm like, well, I'm going to go get experience, right? Like, like I'm going to work my way into getting experience faster, right? This is my, like my knuckle dragging worker brain is just like, I'm going to go get it faster than everybody else. Uh, I mean, that's fundamentally, you can't just, you can't get experience faster than you get it. It's just, it comes and you have it. So then opportunity, uh, to go to a fast attack pops up. Uh, there's a USS Jimmy Carter. It's a special mission submarine that goes out there and does undersea research, um, development and testing. And I was like, oh, that sounds super cool. Uh, and one of the guys that was on my board for Cobb is the chief of the boat there. And I'm like, and that guy is the guy to go learn from. And they said, you know what? Yeah, you're right. That's the guy you should go learn from. And so, uh, I was like, all right, I'm in. Send me. And they sent me. And boy, did I learn a lot about how little I knew the entire time, right? It was kind of like back to grade school because here I'm like this thoroughbred over here, like, thinking that I'm running circles around everybody. Well, that place is like a triple Screening place, right? You gotta. It's a special mission set. They don't bring in anybody that's not the number one in their graduating class from A rating. They don't bring in anybody. Everybody has a top secret clearance, even the mechanics, right? Uh, everybody on that ship is a beautiful and unique snowflake in their own way, in a good way, in all the best ways, right? Um, they're all smart, they're all capable, and they're all running circles around everybody, right? So this den of alpha competitors, and I'm like one finally, my people, right, let's go run circles around the world. Literally did that. But also, um, it was, it was weird to not be the obvious number one all of a sudden. And I'm showing up and I'm just like an extra dude. Like, they already had a full complement, they did not need me. So then I showed up and I'm this extra guy. I'm the chief of the boat's pet, right? Like going and running and doing all this stuff while I'm getting trained. And they're like, get a lot of this guy, right? He doesn't even have a reason to be here. He's just here sucking up our good air, right? Uh, and, uh, it took the entirety of my time there. I was only on that ship one year to get even a portion of the crew to like, say, okay, well, this guy doesn't entirely suck, right? Because I hadn't worked my way into those jobs. I just kind of showed up and I was like being, um, mentored. So I left there, uh, I gotta tell story. So I show up to that ship and I'm talking about experience. So this is, this is how far off my perception of what my skill set really was from reality. So I go there and the full measure of a, uh, enlisted submariner is whether or not you're qualified, your senior in rate, uh, job, right? So for nuclear, um, trained folks in the engineering teams, engineering watch supervisor, the senior guy, uh, in the engine room. For the forward folks, the non nuclear trained folks, uh, it's diving officer of the watch, right? So you're in charge of reaching, maintaining order, depth and driving the submarine. You have a team of guys down there moving the yolks and you're telling them very directly what to do. I don't have a lot of experience doing that. Right. And I'm, um, um, on the most complex submarine that's ever been built, which operates very, very strangely. Right? It has some very strange handling techniques and it's much more complicated than What I learned on my previous ship. So I sit in a chair in there immediately, like, this guy does not have a clue, right? Like, no idea what we're doing. Um, and I again go back to my academic self. So I'm studying everything, I'm working hard, I've got my book, I'm doing the equations, right? So, um, in a submarine, buoyancy is something you have to manage. So you move water around the ship to determine how it's going to sit in the ocean so that you do what's called neutral buoyancy. So you're under the ocean, but you have to stay at a depth. So then it's a complex math problem because it takes into account depth, it takes into account temperature, takes into account salinity of the water you're in. And those things are all variables that are always shifting. And, uh, I had not really had a lot of experience running all that stuff. So I was like, in this calculation mindset, I had this little book and I would do all these calculations. And Eric Antoine, my buddy, uh, comes in and he had been driving submarines since before I was born. Uh, I think he was already, uh, a master chief when Jimmy Carter was still president. I'm not really sure, probably fact check that. But he, uh, he comes in the room and he looks at me and he's. He's always, always crawling up my back, really frustrated with me because I'm struggling to grasp it right now. Finally, he reaches down and he says, what are you doing? Because I'm struggling to maintain doing the most basic thing, like maintaining depth. I'm, um, like trying to. We're at periscope depth. I'm trying to keep the ship from, like, accidentally surfacing, and I'm not doing a great job. And he looks at me and he grabs the notebook out of my hand that I live by, and he flings it across the control room. And he goes, just look what's happening. And I looked at it and I go, oh, uh, it was like, well, if you're doing this or you're doing this right, it tells you what the ship is doing, whether you've got too much weight on or not enough weight on. He goes, stop doing math and try to figure out what is actually happening around you. You have to, like, look up. And from experience, he could walk in the room and know immediately what changes you needed to do, right? He knew. He knew how much weight needed to go where because he had done it so many times, right? And, uh, and that experience was not something you could Study your way into or buy your way into, right? You couldn't just work hard. You had to see it. And that was the first time I had to, like, really step back and like, oh, oh. Conceptually, I didn't understand what was happening. I had read all the books. I didn't understand the math behind it. But it's the difference between an engineer and an operator, right? Like, the guy that makes a bullet doesn't really know what it's like to be out there firing it, right? So that was my, like, culminating event. Like, oh, hey, we just flipped it around on you. And the same thing was true with my leadership style. So it directly overlaid with all the other lessons I was learning. I was like, hey, you're alienating everybody around you. And you don't understand why. Fundamentally, because you're working for yourself, right? You're working for yourself. You care only about yourself. And what you're delivering is all about you, right? You're sitting in that seat and you're looking at this book thinking you're the guy making a difference. I'm just doing math. I'm not driving anything. The dudes in front of me are driving stuff, right? They're all qualified to sit there. I just had to sit back and look and spot check. But I'm over here thinking I'm going to cure cancer, right? That's not the case. You're part of a team. And so that all flipped everything around for me and really taught me a big lesson. He also introduced me the concept of servant leadership. Um, servant leadership, uh, is a pretty incredible and powerful thing that is thrown around a lot because it's one of those keywords and tricky phrases, but the true embodiment of it is you just show up and it's not ever about you anymore, right? In every facet of everything you do in leadership and how you live your life, you just work for those around you because you're part of a community, right? So that got me finally over the fence and into the yard I wanted to be in, right? I got my senior enlisted leadership job, uh, as that I wanted, finally. And I'm like, okay, I'm just gonna. You know, I made a mistake. I went and I photocopied that exact experience and leadership style, and I tried to overlay it on an entirely different organization. When I finally got to my job, it was the chief of the boat of the Henry M. Jackson, which is another ssbn. Um, I, uh, showed up. They were, like, two weeks from getting ready to go out to sea. They'd already done all their training cycles and everything. They built their teams and I'm just like this new guy showing up, right? And, uh, same thing, our captain was the new captain. Uh, John Moretti was my captain on that ship. Really, uh, awesome guys up, prior enlisted, uh, retired, full bird captain now. Um, but he and I had never been to sea with this crew together or apart, right? Like we were both new in the roles and then we had to get this ship out to sea. Uh, and so I showed up in the whole chief's quarters, which is what they call all the senior enlisted guys on a ship as chiefs. Um, and the chief's quarters is where we all live, right? It's the chief's room, but it's also the collective, right? Your leadership team is called your chief's quarters. So I show up and I am like in the position where I have to actually earn their trust in a very short amount of time. And instead I show up knowing that I know how to make them better. And I take this model from this alpha, uh, team that I just came from and I immediately slap it on them like a label and say, here's how we're going to be the best. Like, these dudes are all ready to go to see. Which means that they've already proven to everybody that they're ready to go do that. And the very first thing I do is go tell them, yeah, that's great, but we're going to do it my way. I forgot everything that I had just finished learning because I had checked that box, right? So, um, it was about halfway through, one of the chiefs says to me, you know, because I had shown some emotion about something, I was empathetic to something that was going on with him and he's like, man, that's like the first time I've ever seen you like, care about somebody in a non working way. And uh, all this time I'm like, I'm a servant leader. I'm leading for the team. But in actuality, I'm just a guy who is following my plan, thinking that everybody gets that it's because I'm trying to be a servant leader. Well, yeah, it's one thing to carry the book around with you, it's another thing to actually embody it. And I wasn't embodying it, uh, because he told me that flat out to my face. That's what it took to penetrate my dome, uh, and actually bring me to where I was missing the mark. And so from that point on I realized, okay, so Leadership is not going to be from a book, but you can get stuff from a book. So then I went back to books, started reading about what I was missing, which is clearly engaging with human beings. I had this leadership framework that would work and it's a communication problem now. Nobody gets what I'm trying to tell them we needed to do or why we would need to do it. Because I didn't take any time whatsoever to actually spend time to learn who these people were. And I didn't do that. I was all business, always had been, always would be. And so I took the time to learn how to talk to people, to learn how to learn about people through engagement. Uh, I read how to Win Friends and Influence People, which is a little bit of an outdated book. There's some stuff in there that probably isn't appropriate for the times, but the general concepts of taking every person you meet, right, no matter where they're at in the hierarchy and treating them like an important piece of the collective and engaging with them on a personal basis, um, those were all things that were mind blowing to me. Most people get that some point in their life and I hadn't wrapped my mind around it. And then, uh, I read a book by Simon Sinek called, uh, uh, Start with why, right? And it was all about conveying why you're doing something. So between those two things, several other key books, the, uh, the servant leadership style that I was taught, um, things started to come together for me and it like really built my framework for how I engage with the world. So then understanding that I'm a product of all those failures, right, that then led me to growing and maturing and success, right? Um, those are things that, uh, they put me in a place where I wanted to actually take time to learn and engage with people. Right. Um, I had learned it's not all about me. I had learned it's all about the team and about the people around you. I had learned that you have to take time to get to know people and invest in them for them to want to invest back in you. And then so finally things started to take off for me. And I say this because that's like towards the end of my career, right? We're, we're at like 17, 18 years. I ended up doing 23. So I'm finishing up my chief of the boat tour, you know, already have made kind of a mess of things by being a, once again back to bulldozer mode and on my way out of the military. I really got it right. I really understood like, you know what, it doesn't really matter what my title or, uh, position is. If I'm not bringing value to the people around me, right, then it doesn't, doesn't matter, right? If I'm not helping uplift the weakest person in the team instead of grinding them to a pulp and waiting for them to fail out and get out of the way, right then it's not how you build a quality organization. Finally, I retired from the military because I just felt like, hey, it's time to go. I'm starting to get a little churned up. I need to go commit with my family and spend some time with them. Uh, after a very brief time, uh, in Department of Defense acquisitions program, where I had to chance to recoup, figure out who I was as a person, not just a sailor, um, then I got a old friend of mine, Devin Satabe, who's now back with Oracle, recruited me into the team. He was the young man who pinned my master chief anchors on me when I was at sea. And then he recruited me into the job. So, um, it changed everything for me, coming to Oracle, really. Um, it proved to me that all of the things that I had learned, right, made me qualified to come into a really wildly different place and still be successful. So all those things in the military that were not tangible, none of those things I just talked about, really, the big lessons were being very smart and very technical. I didn't talk about development, I didn't talk about tearing apart radio equipment, antennas or any of that stuff, which we did. But those weren't the formative things. Formative things with the people and the engagement and the philosophical things that I got out, uh, of my military time. So when I showed up at Oracle, bringing that with me and some technical background, like, it just felt like home. And I'm able to navigate this place with, you know, I would say, relative success. So coming from the military into an individual contributor role as a reliability engineer with, um, Oracle cloud infrastructure was great. I had two years of that. And then all of this history in my brain was building up, and first opportunity I had, I jumped into a manager role. And it's just been a natural fit since, um, full circle now, right? Why am I in Maven? Why do I care about being the chair of Maven? Uh, it's a volunteer thing. And don't I have enough time eaten up by my day job? The answer is no. Why? Because you can't be a servant leader if you're not actually embodying the work. And so I got a lot out of my veteran time in the military taught me a lot. And there are a lot of veterans out there that, you know, they bring that value in with them too. Right? And what I was missing, uh, because I joined Oracle during COVID was that sense of community. It was an empty building when we showed up. Nobody was coming to work. Downtown Seattle was a ghost town. I was flying back and forth cross country in an empty plane. Uh, and so I was missing people, engagement. And so meeting you, Chris, getting to know the team and Maven, I was like, man, this is cool. These people understand that background, that nuanced history that you bring from different branches. And, and we just kind of were able to just lock in and just get it right away. We could probably say like five sentences to somebody and we're like, yep, I, uh, get it. I know where you're coming from. I understand your perspective. And it just, it filled that, that last piece to be really satisfied every day. Um, and from there, I was hooked. And so all about all of that, long, long story, right? Is all about, hey, you know, I'm a senior manager in a massive billion dollar company. Things must be awesome, and you must be the best at what you do to be able to land that job. And the answer is no. Tons of learning, tons of mistakes, tons of wrong turns and bad decisions, uh, all informed how to get there. Right? And there's no straight path. And so now I just, I make it my point to help people see that in themselves, right? In our board as employees in Oracle, helping them navigate their careers within our company. And then veterans separating and joining the company or looking for other jobs. Right? So the, the inreach and outreach that Maven brings to us, uh, is. Is very, very fulfilling and satisfying. Right? It's. It's the piece of the puzzle that makes this less just a job and more something I really care about. Um, so that is the full story about me. Uh, pretty lengthy, I know. Um, but, uh, I feel like if I don't give credit to all the, all the stumbles, then you don't get a. Get a fake picture, right? So I just wanted to make sure I was thorough.

Chris Spencer: The thoroughbred was thorough. Because you said that early in your story. Um, thanks for sharing, Scott. No, that's. It's important. And, you know, some. Some would say, you know, on, on. And I'll digress here for a second, but some would say on podcasts, you know, that what's the, the proper duration? Well, it's. It's all subjective, right? And it's, it's a matter of what the intention is to, to provide. And so what we try to provide on these. Just a reminder, if you've made it this far in any of the podcasts that we have, the conversations are including the stories of individuals that are one willing to come on and discuss these things in a moment. You know, and you can say it's vulnerable, you can say it's impressionable, you can say it's, you know, storytelling and it's all of those things. But it's also the matter of fact. The fact of the matter is it's relevant to. When you look in, when you're looking for culture and you're looking for an organization to join, you want to know more about the people and you know, in the veteran community space, the veteran affiliated community space, there's a relationship with everything that Scott's mentioned and everybody else that's been on to talk about their, their story and the development and the process and the knocks, the bumps, the successes, the failures. But I think, you know, yours specifically, what was nice to hear the story is you had a bunch of people willing to be patient and see the, the potential in an individual that, and it doesn't happen for everybody that you see people look at the outside of who this person is based off of their actions, their behaviors and their personalities, but they see something different and they try to figure out how to reciprocate the grace given to understand what to do and when to do it. And you know, there's the firm, there's the nurturing, there's the, the hand holding and then there's the, the outright throwing the notebook across the room and being direct, you know, and these factors weigh into all of the things that matter when you're trying to join an organization and see if you're a fit. And so the compatibility is one of those things where something we hope in these conversations on the Maven podcast, we can somehow in a very small way contribute to that process in any community, not just the veteran affiliated. This is anybody listening. Things are a process. And if you have the time to self reflect, like Scott has mentioned, what he didn't take the, what he didn't take the opportunity to do early, uh, but eventually understood it and the switch flipped, um, you can see the things and you can, you can recall these things and then you can hopefully, you know, in reliving these things, in the storytelling, you know, the, the parts of those things, people can relate to that and then give gratitude for it. And so, you know, Having. Having senior enlisted, in this case, um, in the community, you know, the enlisted is often look towards the wisdom to. To be able to come in and grab you by the ear and show you the way, you know, giving gratitude to those folks. Three main things from your story, Scott. And then I just wanted. We. You know, I'd love to talk. Segue into, you know, how you bring all of these things into, you know, leading an organization which, again, is volunteer. Right. Nobody has to do it, you know, wanting to reconnect. You talked about, you know, the. The things that you were missing, you know, and then coming into an organization and then deciding to parse your time out to volunteer, the drivers of that. And so I'll kind of just throw this out here in the increments. Three, you know, wanting to reconnect. Well, how does that happen? How.

Chris Spencer: Does.

Chris Spencer: How does. How, uh. Does one get to the part to where there is the realization of saying, I'm missing something and here's what I want to do the next. Is that the point to where the investment, you know, at some point, all of us realize that something occurs, an event occurs and has us go all in. And that. That giving, giving of oneself into the investment of whatever it is that you're going to commit to with relentless, fearless, uh, tenacity. And then finally, the value of rejection, you know, in the world of success and how that feels, you know, and some would say immediate gratification and kind of how that conditions your mindset to say, well, I'm going to do this and I want something in return and I want it now type of thing. The value of rejection is to kind of serve a purpose. So, you know, with those three things, let's talk about how you're taking your experiences and the people that have helped you get to where you are today. You know, what are you doing with it now that you're in the role of both your day job and the volunteer role. Yeah.

Scott Pafer: So that's, uh. Those are great questions. I like the, uh. I like the way you framed them. So the first question, um, how do you get to the point where you realize that, uh, you're. You're missing some sense of community? Community. Right. So, uh, I spent a big chunk of my time when I first got out trying to reinvent myself. Because you spend 23 years reciting I Am a United States Sailor enough times, you start to believe that that's what you are. Um, but you forget that you're also something else, right? Which is a person like I'm Scott, I'M not a United States sailor. I'm not a retired master chief. I'm not a submariner. I'm just a guy out here doing a job. Um, and I, and I need to really grasp that because all of a sudden you don't have this core identity in your life, uh, which you don't realize, uh, is such a big piece of your identity until it's not your identity, right? You walk away, you put away your uniform in a box. Uh, and I wouldn't say it was like hurting my ego. Like, I didn't miss the authority and responsibility. Uh, so that wasn't it. I was enjoying my job as an individual contributor, uh, and learning about the cloud. I had a great time doing that. Being hands on keyboard, making change in the cloud, fixing things that were broken. Right up my alley. I loved it. Um, but at some point, you know, you go to work, you go home, you go to work, you go home. It's just, that's just a task. It's, it's not being part of something greater. It's not being part of a, A team. And we were very insulated during COVID right? So, like, it was just seven of us and we had to be spaced out and you couldn't be in the same room at the same time. Uh, and it was just, we felt off. And then so I, you know, we got some people together. You know, we, we had a socially distanced social event. You know, one time, the distance may or may not have been the appropriate amount of space. And then eventually we realized we were all in the same room, uh, so we might as well just be together, right? And it was great. I was like, oh, man, this feels awesome. This just feels good. Right? And I identified quickly that it wasn't the loss of the military, it was the loss of the community. It was a loss of the people around you feeling like you're part of something. Um, and then the, the military aspect of it is, it's just, you know, you spend your adult life living a certain way, you kind of look for people who can understand that background. Right? It's just nice to have somebody understand you. Um, people who are allies are outstanding. We have a lot of great allies in the company and in the community. Um, but if you haven't lived the life, you know, there are some things you just won't. Right? You can't get it because once again, you can't just read about experience. Experience is something you earn through time, through involvement. Which brings me to my second thing. So you asked a Question about, you know, how do you get to the point where you just go all in? Um, so I read a quote somewhere. It was misinterpreted, misattributed to Thomas Jefferson. It's actually attributed to Witold Gombrowitz, who's a Polish author. Um, he says, do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act. Action will delineate and define you. So, uh, one, ironic that a quote, um, about action I would have attributed to the totally wrong person. Uh, and uh, two, really just, I try to live that in the things that I do. Right? Like, why wait? If you think something needs to be done, go do it. Right. So we met and I was like, hey, this thing's cool. What are we doing with it? Right? And then from there it's always been like, that's the first question I always ask. Okay, that sounds awesome. What are we going to do, right? Are we going to go, Are we going to go run an event in Austin? Sure, let's do it. It's not planned yet and it's like in three weeks. Well, let's go do it. Why not? Let's try it out. What's the worst that could happen, right? It doesn't work out and we learn something. So, uh, I've really enjoyed the opportunity to be part of the action oriented piece of our community. So going all in was just, it's just in my nature. I don't know any other way. Right. I'm going to lean into the windmill every chance I get. Right. Um, and then finally, value of rejection. Yeah, that's a tough one for me to process. I don't like to talk about it. Um, so I make myself talk about it a lot. Um, getting out of the military, I got told no a lot. In the military, I got told no a lot. Um, and every one of them ended up being a piece of my philosophy. So rejection, uh, is probably the world telling you you're in the wrong spot. When I got out of the military, I did a corporate fellowship with Skillbridge through Amazon. And it was, uh, for a job I was pretty well qualified for. It was for training development, uh, with the, uh, operations teams in the warehouses. So I show up there, um, I'm pretty stoked. I'm inside the doors of Amazon. Like I've succeeded, right. I'm going to go be one of the uber rich South Lake Unionites and I'm going to love everything, right? Uh, and I get in there and it's curriculum development and it's not really what I was thinking it was going to be, and they dissolved that team and laid off a bunch of people. And there was no opportunity. So I ended up interviewing for a job called a vendor manager job, which is essentially interviewing people who are, um, selling stuff on Amazon and building that deal with them, right? You're managing the vendors who manage who sell stuff on the Amazon platform. And so I go to this interview, the managers, this Harvard mba, and she, like, ate my lunch. I have an mba. But it had been a minute since I did that studying. Uh, and I have to admit this out loud, right? I got told by the recruiter, hey, here's some stuff to go study. And it was some key things, right? The night of the interview, like, I got to go in the next day, gives me this study guide. I'm wiped, right? I am getting out of the military. I just retired. My brain's not in a great spot, and I'm just like, you know what? If I don't know it yet, I'm not going to know it. So I don't even open the doc, right? He said it was like Cliff's Notes, like, here. Like Spark notes for younger people or Google for everybody else who wants to know how to do a job. Right? Um, and I didn't even open it. So I showed up and I just got annihilated, right? It was terrible. And I did not get the job. I felt like the biggest failure on earth. Right? Uh, well, I wouldn't be in the job I love today, being successful at Oracle, if I had not gotten that job at Amazon. Right? And, uh, and I know that now, right? Even. Even now, you're still learning, right? So the value of rejection is, well, you're being redirected, right, because of where you chose to put yourself. Right? And you know that, uh, you can't, again, you can't make up for experience, and rejection is just an experience. Yep.

Chris Spencer: Good. Couldn't have said it better. So as. As we segue into wrap this. What is Maven doing this year? What are we doing?

Scott Pafer: All right, so, uh, what are we doing? We're going to capitalize on some of the things we learned last year, continue to push out, uh, the outreach to other organizations, be that veteran service organizations and partnerships. Um, we're going to push to continue to increase the value we're adding to the business, uh, which we've been doing for quite a while. We've been baked into, uh, business priorities and company priorities. For as long as I, uh, think you've been involved in the program, we've been pretty well aligned, um, with a lot of the business priorities. And then, uh, we're going to keep fighting to grow the on site, um, in person events, right? Build community inside of Oracle, build community, uh, wherever we're at and expand opportunities for people to get engaged, to find that value in each other, to learn about each other, learn about the veteran community. And then most importantly I think is, uh, because while we're building value into the employees, uh, and giving them a sense of ownership and pride and where they come from and what we're doing here at Oracle, we're also giving them opportunities to volunteer and go radiate that outwards. Another thing that employee resource groups do is we're meant to help bring our culture and our vibe out to the community. People like me. I didn't know about Oracle when I was on submarines. It just wasn't in my schema box. I didn't understand what Oracle even was. I'd heard of Microsoft and then I heard of Amazon, but I had never worked on an Oracle database. I didn't know anything about it. Um, so. Well, we're a pretty awesome company, right? So how does a veteran know that Oracle's an awesome place to work? Because a veteran told them Oracle's a great place to work. And everyone we've pulled in from outside has cited that as the reason they chose to come in. It's the Oracle culture, it's the maven culture. It's the thing that they love is that they come here and they know they're going to be around people that they want to be around. They know they're going to be around people with similar values, with similar intentions, with similar goals, right? And a lot of companies are good at it, right? I think Oracle is great at it. And we, our job, our mission, right, is to help spread that word and get it out there. Um, we've really had a great year for that and we're going to exponentially grow that impact. We're going to really shout it from the mountaintops, right? Really bring the spotlight on it. So we had a, um, what we like to call the pilot, uh, event down in Austin, big on site thing. It went fantastic. Had a bunch of vendors coming from veteran service organizations. I think we had almost every human being in that campus come out, meet, barbecue, lunch with us. So a bunch of people got to socialize with veterans and allies and it was a really awesome community event. Right? So what does that matter for fiscal year 26? Well, we've got the model now. We know what that looks like. We know how to do it, and we're going to do that at multiple locations now. Right. We're going to improve and expand that engagement to the community and to our employees so they feel that support deeper. Right. So, uh, that's the big picture stuff. We've got some other things in the hopper which we'll unveil throughout the year, but, uh, volunteerism, community engagement, alignment with the business to drive the bottom line.

Chris Spencer: Love it. I'm stoked. Can't wait for it. Final thoughts?

Scott Pafer: Yeah, um, I just go right back to it. If you think it needs to be done, don't wait for permission. Dive right in, go after it. And, uh, and you'll find that it will pay you back tenfold.

Chris Spencer: Love it. We'll leave it there. Scott, thank you so much. Appreciate it. Thanks for sharing your story. It is important, you know, we have a variety of, of folks that come through with their experiences and, you know, those that do come through the veteran affiliated community, especially who are, you know, who separate as the senior individual, whether it's enlisted or officer. It's, uh, it's bringing great leadership qualities and traits and stories that can help infiltrate some of the mindset of those that don't think they can or don't know how to. And, and you know, it's just one piece to the puzzle that just you accumulate. And, uh, hopefully as you bring people together, those stories can continue to be shared and everybody learns and grows together. So with that, thanks, Chris.

Chris Spencer: All right, everyone, keep moving forward.