Alter Everything Podcast

AlteryxMatt · ‎10-22-2024

In this episode, Albert Bellamy sits down with Larss Ogren, Supply Chain Order Operations Assistant Manager at Samsung, to discuss his journey from Marine Corps veteran to thriving in supply chain management. They dive into the unique challenges veterans face when transitioning to civilian careers and how military skills—like leadership and problem-solving—translate to corporate environments. Larss highlights key strategies for career success, including leveraging veteran networks, navigating higher education, and utilizing resources like O*NET, TAPS, and ERGs. The conversation also covers how tools like Alteryx streamline operations, the role of technology in logistics, and the importance of effective cross-team communication. Hear how Larss built a rewarding career with stints at Amazon and Samsung, using innovation and teamwork to overcome obstacles along the way.

Panelists

Albert Bellamy – Sr. Training Specialist @ Alteryx - @MajorData, LinkedIn
Larss Ogren - Supply Chain Order Operations Assistant Manager @ Samsung - @Xervarian, LinkedIn

Topics

Ep 170 (YT thumb).png

Transcript

Episode Transcription

Ep 170 Analytics & Supply Chain After the Military

[00:00:00] Megan Bowers: Welcome to Alter Everything, a podcast about data science and analytics culture. I'm Megan Bowers, and today I'm passing the mic to my colleague Albert Bellamy, senior training specialist at Alteryx. In this episode, he chats with Lars Ogrin. A supply chain order operations assistant manager at Samsung.

They discussed Lars's military experience, his shift into a supply chain career path post-military, and the challenges that came with that, and how Lars uses Alteryx. Now, let's get started.

[00:00:37] Albert Bellamy: Welcome man. Um, it is an interesting spot for me. I've guest hosted a podcast a time or two, but it's been a very long time. This is gonna be a lot of fun. I'm excited.

[00:00:48] Larss Ogren: Thank you for the opportunity and the fact that we're both Marines, this is even better.

[00:00:53] Albert Bellamy: Indeed. Indeed. Let's start there because that is a unique position being a any service member that goes into tech or data or one of these kind of non, you're not a cop.

You're not, I'm not a cop. Yeah. You didn't take the well traveled path. You're not a project manager. Seems to be the kind of. Low tech option. There not no disrespect to anyone that becomes a project manager or a cop. Both difficult jobs props to you, but you chose a different path. So I, I suppose let's start back at the beginning.

Tell me about what you did in the Marine Corps.

[00:01:26] Larss Ogren: So I, uh, my parents had an early age, really were hard on it. They told me, you gotta find a way to pay for college. So that's how I, at the ripe age of 17 would think, okay, I'll go talk to a Marine. He'll gimme money for college. A week later I came home with a contract, but I'm four generation military, first Gen Marine.

And when I came home with that contract, my father flipped. The next day we were down at the recruiter's office. And that's how I got my start in logistics in the military with the Marine Corps and stuff to say, you're gonna be a supply admin. Okay. And that's how I, that's how I entered the logistics through the military.

[00:02:02] Albert Bellamy: So for the uninitiated, we got supply admin. Explain that.

[00:02:08] Larss Ogren: Supply. Manage the budget and the procurement of goods for the particular unit that that you're in. And I happened to be with the second tank battalion at the time, so we had four tanks that we were basically servicing, but we had a scout platoon.

So when one of the line companies come up and need a new tool or something like that, they would probably come to me and be like, all right, I need this. Figure out how to order it. Carbon copy papers that I had to fill out and got help if I messed up. 'cause you could tear it off and you gotta get another one.

Can't just backspace and delete. I mean it's, it's carved in stone at that point. Yeah. We couldn't even use whiteout. That's it. Done. And then as I progressed under that first duty assignment, I moved into what was called DA file, A do and status file, which were these. Paper that you'd print out big stacks.

And every Monday morning, I remember it was a pencil having to go through these things and audit. And then again, as I progressed further, a lot of counting, we were right attached to uh, a warehouse. So anytime we needed to do a spot check on inventory, we had to go out and count these things and quad con containers and stuff.

[00:03:22] Albert Bellamy: Think big shipping containers, GP tents, the big green canvas things that you see in the movies, and they come in pieces.

[00:03:30] Larss Ogren: And you get in there into the container and 1, 2, 3. Okay, now put 'em back in recount. So that was it for about three years before then I moved over to um, first MA over in Japan. MA is the marine aircraft wing.

Thank you. Yes. And I was in charge of communications repair for some of the communications array. Right. So there's an underlying theme throughout this entire thing is communication. And I think the last thing that I. Was transfer like $5 million worth of product communications, repair equipment for Cobra Gold, which is the annual joint military exercise with Thailand.

Yeah, with the rock.

[00:04:14] Albert Bellamy: Rock, Marines, Republic of Korea. Thank you. Good dudes. Good, good dudes. Good Ettes.

[00:04:19] Larss Ogren: Um, that was my entry into embarkation 'cause I didn't realize it wasn't just about putting it on a container and shipping it there. You had to really understand international law, customs coming in and out of borders and stuff.

So overall, when I look back at it, low level technology integration into supply chain. A lot of mail accounting, a lot of pen and paper. In fact, we didn't even use pen. You weren't allowed to, you had to use pencil. Mm-Hmm. I left the service and then I pursued my education.

[00:04:53] Albert Bellamy: So I'd love to highlight one thing, because you talk about communications, and I understand you were involved in supporting communications units.

So big units, lots of radios need lots of repair parts. They break all the time. And so as a supply administrator, you were responsible for supporting a communications unit. It's cool that it works on a couple of levels because the common thread and what you'll you're talking about there is you had to communicate with a lot of different people levels.

There's a whole lot of sensitivity there that someone that's never been in the military might not understand. You can't just walk into your boss's office. You have to. Ask politely and call him sir or her ma'am, or whatever their rank is. And there's a lot of art in the military to communicating. There's certain ways that you can and cannot communicate with other units without stepping on people's toes.

So I'd love to hear you talk just for a moment about what did that teach you about communication, not just working with communications units and being able to get things done isn't always necessarily just by the book, but you gotta find the sideways ways to do things. How, what did that teach you about communicating with people and getting buy-in getting people on your side?

[00:06:06] Larss Ogren: That's a really good point. I want to say one of the things that really made me effective communicator is understanding the language, if you will, of the people that I'm communicating with. So if I'm in a battalion supply, we have our own language that we speak, but then going to a scalp platoon. Learning their language.

Understanding their language, and then communicating them what I need in their language. So it's almost like you, you have to become a professional translator. Mm-Hmm. You know, between multiple groups of people. 'cause you have to learn how they communicate so they understand. A lot of the times we're talking about the same thing, call it A, you call it B.

So that's what made me real effective. And I think I had an aptitude to just listen, listen, learn, and reiterate.

[00:06:56] Albert Bellamy: Did you ever hear RVAV? It's definitely was something learned. Maybe you didn't hear it by that term, but R VAV is repeat, verify, answer, verify. So when somebody asks you a question, it's usually in a class environment, so you're teaching 50 or a hundred people, but somebody asks you a question and you repeat it, you say et cetera, et cetera.

Is that your question? Verify they say yes. You answer it and then you say, does that answer your question? It seems like that was something you were doing on a one-to-one basis. Right? Let me understand your language. Let me translate my language into yours. Right? That way I'm getting buy-in and getting you on my team.

[00:07:29] Larss Ogren: Active listening, I think is what we referred to it as. Sure. Listening. Always repeat. Okay, so. I didn't realize it at the time that this was happening. Right. But that those skill sets that I developed specifically in communication helped me in the civilian world when the journey got real tough. Yeah.

'cause it's easy in the military, you got a major or you got a sergeant telling you what to do, when to do it, how to do it. And I look back at that time now and I'm like, thank God for the Marine Corps.

[00:07:59] Albert Bellamy: Yep. Yeah. I think we can agree on that. Well, all right, let's move off of that 'cause we're, we may be at the risk of boring everybody that doesn't share our special sickness.

So eventually you betrayed the true faith by leaving the Marine Corps and joining the Army. We shall say no more of this, but, but eventually chose to transition out of the military. Talk about that, the difficulty of that. Talk to the uninitiated in the audience about what's the difficulty there and what, what were the challenges you faced?

And maybe what you see now, if you've brought anybody out of the military, like how did that help you ease somebody else's transition

[00:08:35] Larss Ogren: in today's climate? Right now, I think there are more resources for transitioning military than there was back in my day. Absolutely. So the hardest thing that I had in transitioning was having to relearn how to communicate to a civilian force.

The only thing I knew up to that point from 17 to what I think I was probably 28 by that time. That's it. Military. And then now you get a job. That's the first thing. And how do I communicate my skills at military? Speak to a civilian who's trying to give me a job. So I remember for six months I had to relearn English.

In fact, I think one of my first couple of classes that I took when I got into my education was English comp. One of the great assets that I did have at that time was a service provider called O Net. I don't know if you ever heard of that before. O Net. It's a web service. I think it's still active today.

That was the first iteration of trying to convert military MOS job descriptions into the civilian aspect. I think when I left. The service, what is it?

[00:09:44] Albert Bellamy: Taps is what they call it? mm-hmm. Or TAPS or TRS, depending on the service. Yeah, it's the transition program. There is an institutional program mandated by Congress for all service members.

You must go through a course that is essentially trying to prepare you for. Non-military civilian life. So writing your resume, getting on LinkedIn, you know how to interview, it's a crash course. You need to study those things for months, and that is a couple of weeks if you're lucky, but it's a primer in all things getting out of the military.

[00:10:17] Larss Ogren: They didn't even have LinkedIn when I got, so it was just a straight week of resume writing. But when I look back at what I know now in, in regards to negotiating the job market, I was like. Tremendously underprepared because I didn't even know what the skills I had at that time, let alone trying to put it on paper.

So a lot of trial and error, a lot of picking up just job after job. The culture, the culture is ingrained in us hard and it will never leave you. And then it gets hard when you get out into the civilian side where you know people have labels for you or you're intense. Your intent was like, I'm a hard charger.

Same thing. Thank you. It takes on a negative connotation of the military. Thank you. Takes off a negative connotation and it's off-putting and then arrogant and what does he done? I'm like, yep, what's the problem? Okay, I'm proficient. Yeah, great. Thank you. So for seven years during I, that phase I pursuing my education, I was a young father at that time.

I had a young boy. So going to college, trying to keep a job and trying to make it in, trying to find where's my path.

[00:11:26] Albert Bellamy: Talk about your education journey because that's fascinating. I mean, even me prepping for the interview, I'm looking at your LinkedIn, I pride myself on looking at people's either resume or LinkedIn and being like, okay, I understand the story here with you.

I'm fascinated. I'd love to hear more about that.

[00:11:39] Larss Ogren: Yeah, a little over the place. A lot of coffee, not a lot of sleep. But again, thank God for the Marine Corps. 'cause well versed and trained you how to burn hot and burn the candle at both ends. That's right. So at that point when I, at 17, my, my life plan was, I don't know what I want to do.

Let me gimme some time. Let me do four years in the Marine Corps. And then after that I will do four years and get my college degree.

[00:12:02] Albert Bellamy: Yeah, put the growing up on pause, the steady paycheck for four years. I'll figure it out.

[00:12:06] Larss Ogren: We're gonna have fun. And it was great. The reality of that didn't turn out at the plan.

I ended up doing eight years total in the military and then got out and then I did another seven in the education side. When I got out, I knew I was in trouble. 'cause I still didn't know what the heck I wanted to do. So I'm like, all right, well let me get my undergrad, I'll get into global business.

Because I always had this affinity for just the global mindset of everything. And that's what I did. I finished a lot of math, which hurt my soul. Oh, come on. And I mean, we're good, I think. And I tell my son this, don't worry about math. I ended up having to take math class five times when I was in college.

Yeah. And I paid for every single one of them. I finally got good at it. So after getting my education, my undergrad thinking we're sold. I got eight years in the military and I got my undergrad degree. I could walk into any joint and get hired on the spot. That was my mentality.

[00:13:04] Albert Bellamy: That is a fun myth that we tell each other in the military.

[00:13:07] Larss Ogren: Usually, I wanna say for the first year post-graduation, it was like, Hey, impressive resume. Impressive background. You don't have any experience. That was the number one thing. I'm like, what are you talking about? My experience, I mean, I move tanks around. I move communication equipment between three international countries and stuff.

My experience, and again, that was probably the first time that I learned, I'm not communicating effectively to who I'm trying to engage with.

[00:13:36] Albert Bellamy: Yep. You're going into interviews, you've got military experience, which we come out of the military with this notion that. I've worked really hard and I've done really difficult things.

Therefore, I can do anything you ask me to do. Not necessarily the case, or it may be the case, but it's just doesn't translate well to the language that the hiring authority wants to hear. Right? And then the kind of the separate and tangential issue that I have now, got my Bachelor's degree in X, fill in the blank, and therefore I'm on Easy Street and I'm gonna get hired right away.

[00:14:13] Larss Ogren: All right. We've gotta go back to the drawing board and figure out what it was. And LinkedIn had been out and I hadn't done anything with LinkedIn. Started to learn

[00:14:21] Albert Bellamy: What year are we talking about here? Just for reference? Oh, well, like which jobs? I'm sitting here looking at your LinkedIn profile, so I'm trying to put this into perspective.

[00:14:29] Larss Ogren: Yeah, it was about 10, 2010 is when I got my undergrad. And then 2012 was when I got my MBA. Right. Now between 2010 and 2011 was that timeframe where I'm like, okay, I'm sick of this errands position. Let me get out. I went back to the drawing board and said, I'm looking at the next job when I should be looking at the next career.

And of course I'm like, wow, what is a career? Uh, I've never heard of that. How do you even get in and started with that and stuff. So I spent six months. It was probably the most pivotal six months that I've ever done, and it started with asking a fellow service member for help help me. I'm doing it wrong.

Never been down this road before. That's a tough thing to say. We're supposed to, we're tough guys, right? We don't ask for help or admit we're wrong or admit we're wrong. Certainly not to each other. Not to each other. Yeah. But I tell you, that was a very humbling six months because both asking a lot of help and admitting, all right, I've done this wrong.

And it wasn't until I talked to a college professor of mine, I asked him, can you explain to me in a sentence what a career is? And he thought about it for a second and he says, you know what? What did you do in the military? And I says, well, I was a largest station. I did supply chain. He says, well, that's what your career needs to be.

And that's the pivot. That's where we went. At that point, I went heavy and I went to interview with Amazon and I was standing, I think I was in Philly at one of their major distribution centers walking through, and I was amazed. I mean, the warehouse was so huge. I couldn't see either end of the building and I remember.

The interviewer me and asked me, you have any questions? And I was like, yeah, I do have one question. How are you guys doing a wall to wall inventory? And he, that's a really interesting question. We're doing one right now, and I'm like, that's impossible.

[00:16:28] Albert Bellamy: I see no army of young Marines throwing things in and out of containers.

How can you possibly count?

[00:16:34] Larss Ogren: I count five guys in there and you don't have enough people. And he looked at me, befuddled was like, what are you talking about? It's a closed system. And I'm like, what? So that was that touch point where I realized that technology had really infused even into logistics. And I'm like, I don't know what this is about.

So I'm like, well, I know logistics. I know Warehouse. I've done it. Seeing how technology is, how advanced over seven years in the supply chain, where else can I address my skillset to a legitimate career? That's where Samsung came in. Samsung had at the time, one of the only functioning or reasonably functioning CPFR program or CPF R's collaborative planning forecasting replenishment, where you're basically a demand analyst.

I was like, that's where I need to be at tech company. I can leverage my supply chain knowledge at a granular level into demand planning. And then that's how I gave my footing into, uh, demand planning. At my core, I realized I'm at my core. I'm an analyst. That's what I should be doing. I love numbers and I love seeing time series impact, and it blew my mind.

So I rocked out. Demand planning for about three years. I'm like, this is great, but we wanna go bigger. And then I moved into my current position with order management, which is like a nerve center. I mean, this is really putting me back into those military days where now I am at the nerve center of the operation and I really gotta coordinate and collaborate with multiple teams.

Different teams, product marketing team, I got a sales team, I got a logistics team, and all of them speak their own language, so I was like, that's amazing. Full circle, right? Yeah. And again, leverage the skills from the Marine Corps. Like, all right, let me learn your language. Let me learn what you do so I can be an effective communicator.

And that was the breakdown that led me to Alteryx.

[00:18:37] Albert Bellamy: Awesome. So before we move on to that and definitely need to talk about that because this is an Alteryx podcast. Yes, sir. I'd love to just highlight that the fundamental skills that you learned in the military. Yes. We did have teams of strapping, young lads and ladies throwing things in and out of containers and shouting obscenities at each other.

And that was, that was how we counted things, or at least it was a couple years ago when I left. But the fundamental skills that you had. You eventually realized was your value proposition. A, you understood the logistical process, which is the same whether you are scanning things or pressing a button on a computer to to do your inventory or directing a team of young people to hand count.

That process is the same, and you knew it forwards and backwards because you learned it well in the military, and then you just figured out the new language to apply it. The other fundamental skill that you had, which is fairly common throughout the military, is the communication piece. You understood how to speak different people's language back from the days when as a supply admin, you had a language full of acronyms and jargon, dass and sassy and smooth, all of these things that meant wonderful things to you, but a tank driver.

Did not know what that was. No. You had to learn how to translate your supply language into tank language and vice versa.

[00:20:09] Larss Ogren: That's right.

[00:20:09] Albert Bellamy: And that carried forward into translating military language into non-military language, seeing the differences between an Amazon process and a Samsung process and a right who knows, maybe a Lean Six Sigma to a, to an Agile or some other methodology that the fundamental principles are the same and way that you.

Transcends the military civilian divide, the company versus company, divide methods and processes and whatnot. You knew that well, and that was your, that was the selling point.

[00:20:42] Larss Ogren: And the logistics is very, and I'm gonna oversimplify here. It's very simple and the fact that we have to move A and move it to B and then everything in between is just how do we get it there?

Yeah. Right. Moving stuff in an organized fashion. That's right. So that was a really excellent point. Of course, I gotta add in that the military, especially in the Marine Corps stuff, communication is essential and the trade-off is a lot more serious in the military than it is in the civilian world, where it's that if you're not an effective communicator in the military, it's not, you're not gonna lose a million dollars here or you're not gonna lose some product.

People could get hurt. So that was the really double down importance of communicating effectively and making sure the message was both conveyed and received clearly. And that's a key point that I take into my, my civilian world here. And then when got to operations, that it was horrible. And it is even worse 'cause you don't have facial expressions, you don't have voice inflection.

Everything's done through email, so you lose so much. Effective communication when you take those two elements out and stuff, and I'm like, is this guy yelling at me? What I don't understand. Yeah. Communicating multiple teams. Sales team has their lingo, product marketing team has their lingo. We've got our lingo.

So now like people are come to me with a lot of our stuff is very transactional, so like they communicate, Hey, can you do X, Y, and Z to me for me? And I'm like, I don't understand what that is. What do you want me to do? What is this? And then when I understand what the request is and what I need to do, then it was like, well, you haven't provided me the information for me to get there.

Yeah, so that's where Alteryx really plugged that hole was that I was able to use or leverage Alteryx platform to unify the communicative fiber between all these groups in a very simple fashion.

[00:22:38] Albert Bellamy: That's fascinating. Tell me more about that, because that's not, I don't know. That's something that people recognize that Alteryx can enable.

[00:22:46] Larss Ogren: Anybody that works in a corporate environment now today understands the exceptional dependence upon Excel, where basically any report that your superiors want have to be designed in Excel and then disseminated accordingly. And of course, it's the language of business. It is the language of business. But you know, I never thought that I would hear somebody taking an hour and a half do a.

Court in Excel and then disseminated, and I'm like, that's not at all effective communication. Yeah. So how we got to the point between me engaging in Alteryx came that there was an application software issue that I was working with and it was failing miserably. And while this thing was failing, I've got every customer that we have emailing me, asking me for, for status updates on their order.

And imagine that at manufacturer level, where you got hundreds of people every single day. Where's my stuff? Where's my stuff? So I'm like, alright. So I finally reached out to my colleague and says, look, this is a problem. We gotta try something different. What do you have in the hopper that we can play with?

And she says, I got Alteryx. And at that point, I've never heard of Alteryx before. And I was like, you know what? Give it to me. I'll make it work. I didn't realize that I jumped into two feet first without understanding where I'm jumping into. 'cause I had no idea about Alteryx. I'm like, what are these brightly colored things on the screen?

You mean? They're shapes and they're colors. So yeah, I was fascinated from the get go, open it up, and I was both scared and intrigued at the same time. It's a weird experience. This was really to put the timeline in effect. This was maybe months before the pandemic really shut the world down. Okay. And then I took on a challenge where like, well, I'm gonna figure this out and I'm gonna replicate an Excel report that I do on a regular basis, and I'm gonna build it in a, in Alteryx.

Simple enough wasn't simple, I think 14 weeks later. But what really helped was the world shutting down and they forced us all whole. And, uh, I wanna say March, April timeframe, I'm stuck in a small apartment with my wife. I love her, but yeah, 24 hours a day and there's no end in sight. So Alteryx really saved a lot.

[00:25:08] Albert Bellamy: Too much to say it's saved your marriage. I think we can too much.

[00:25:12] Larss Ogren: Yeah, it, well, no, it's, in fact it did because I'm really annoying. So over 13 weeks. I think is what it took me to do this. And I replicated the report in Alteryx and the defining moment for me was 'cause I was met with a lot of skepticism.

I had run this report for three weeks to some 170 people for three weeks. Nobody knew the difference between the Alteryx version of the report and the Excel version. And the only way that I could define it was that in my salutation in the email, I did a red bolded text. So when my boss came to me and she's like, all right, let's try it out.

I'm saying, what whatcha talking about? We've been live for three weeks now. Mm-Hmm. She had no idea. Wow. So that was to solve a problem with me. I was able to generate this report, so know these customers and say, here's your information. Go away. Don't ever email me again. And it worked. So then I took that step further and I coordinate with my sales team, my regional sales staff let me unify the communication, let me give 'em information that they need to be successful in their thing.

So then while I'm running this report for myself, I'm also disseminating it out to the sales team, thinking this is great. They're not asking me questions. They've already got their information. I can focus on what needs to be done, and then it started to grow. Now again, this was only to solve my problem at the time.

Don't email. Here's your information. Leave it. These people started to get dependent upon the quality of information that we were giving 'em coming out of Alteryx and they started talking about their friends. So then it got to a point where I got their sales guys that aren't even on my team asking me, Hey, can you create me this report?

And I'm thinking, lemme see if I could do it. And I'm like, okay. So that's how this thing metastasized into where we're at today and stuff is that, see how do. Sends you the report, but not include that data into what I'm looking at because I don't wanna see that data. And then it just grew. And now it's almost to the point where now that's super critical and it deals with tracking between a multinational enterprise, tracking between countries, stuff moving from, let's say Asia to Europe and back and forth.

And that's where it gets really critical because now we talked about before where. I'm only dealing with a couple of groups who speak differently. Imagine those multiple type of groups in other countries. Now we need to unify collectively how we're communicating, what we're communicating on an international level.

When it comes down to timing and Alteryx is that leverage point that allows us to execute. 'cause everybody speaks numbers at the end of the day.

[00:28:01] Albert Bellamy: So I am three-ish years post-retirement. You have much more perspective. Yeah. So you're what? 2018. Yeah. In 18 years post-military, what advice do you have for veterans?

I know we've gotta give some love to the Sparks program, but, but for veterans looking to you and saying, what do I do reentering the workforce, or maybe even specifically entering into tech in some form. What's your advice?

[00:28:27] Larss Ogren: There's so much advice. We don't have enough time to cover it. I guess the most important leverage your brothers and sisters.

It's a collective environment. We are unique bunch. Ask for help. Admit to yourself that you're wrong. Commit to relearning a new skillset. That's the only thing that saved me. In fact, I would not be at this company today if it was not for a fellow Marine who I had gone to and asked for help. Leverage LinkedIn and Network Network every single day, even if you're just listening to her story.

Talk to people, listen to what they have to say. Because a lot of the times opportunity is hidden and what is shared between friends, right? I learned about this opportunity here from a friend by a simple conversation and I'm like, wait, so and so is moving. There's an opportunity. Let me go find out who I need to talk to.

And that's here we are today. So leverage your military contacts, your friends LinkedIn. Huge thing. Connect with every single military service member that you. The role resume thing. I think they're in good hands with you, sir, because you probably have far more knowledge about that with me. One of the biggest things is companies now are doing employment resource groups too, and a lot of them have a very big tie into veterans communities.

So if you want to engage with a company of interest, find out what their ERGs are and hands down their probably gut a veteran's ERG, then find out who in that group you need to talk to because that'll give you the doorway into the company. Find out who is who and who do you need to talk to. Companies now are really engaged and, and they understand the value that military members provide to their company.

It's not perfect yet, but the engagement is there. The outreach is there.

[00:30:16] Albert Bellamy: Those are the big three, and I love that you prompted me something that maybe I hadn't thought of before. In the military, we get very certificate centric. Mm-hmm. We're very much burn hot and learn your martial arts and then get this belt, learn this safety technique, and then get this certificate.

Here's a piece of paper, here's something certifying that you can do this, and then you are permitted to do said thing. The the civilian world is kind of like that, but it's your sales, your value proposition to a job is whether or not you can do the job. They're investing in you going forward. They're not certifying you for something and they don't necessarily look at.

Your certifications. They do sometimes, but you can get very caught up in I need all of the certifications, which is false. You can get very caught up in, I must have this certification because it is the linchpin for me moving forward. Also, almost always false. I got very focused in on one called CAP certified Analytics professional.

Not that many people know about it. I got convinced at one point that this was the linchpin that would get me into analytics. Come to find out from talking to some other people that it really wasn't that big of a deal in the tech world writ large. And that was a good lesson learned for me that hey, it's not all about certificate certifications, little bubbles on your record.

It's about whether you can do the job, the best thing you can do. Relating back to what you said is laying on your brothers and sisters out there in the workforce. Go searching on LinkedIn for who's everybody at Samsung. That was once in the Marine Corps. Simple search. Send out 50 messages. You'll get 10 of them to respond and you'll get five of them on a video call and then kind of aggregate their responses.

Don't hang your hat on the advice of one person. Or one kind of channel or avenue. You gotta sow a lot of seeds. You gotta talk to a lot of people, and not everybody is gonna have a job referral for you. You need to talk to 10 people to get one job referral. You need to go to 10 interviews to get one job.

It's a. Awesome. Well, Lars, I think you and I could talk for days. We could and we could probably do a half dozen podcast episodes and they would all fun be value added. I think that's right. But I think we've reached the end of our time, so I gotta say thank you my brother Emra Fidelis sacrifice. Sir, thank you for the opportunity.

Absolutely. And if you're out there, definitely look into Alteryx, look into the Spark program. If you are a veteran trying to transition into civilian workforce, especially into tech. We have a lot of great programs for you and Lars. It has been a pleasure, my friend.

[00:32:48] Larss Ogren: Thank you, sir.

[00:32:50] Megan Bowers: Thanks for listening. To learn more about our Sparks program and the resources it has for veterans, head over to our show notes on alteryx.com/podcast.

See you next time.

Ep 170 Analytics & Supply Chain After the Military [00:00:00] Megan Bowers: Welcome to Alter Everything, a podcast about data science and analytics culture. I'm Megan Bowers, and today I'm passing the mic to my colleague Albert Bellamy, senior training specialist at Alteryx. In this episode, he chats with Lars Ogrin. A supply chain order operations assistant manager at Samsung. They discussed Lars's military experience, his shift into a supply chain career path post-military, and the challenges that came with that, and how Lars uses Alteryx. Now, let's get started. [00:00:37] Albert Bellamy: Welcome man. Um, it is an interesting spot for me. I've guest hosted a podcast a time or two, but it's been a very long time. This is gonna be a lot of fun. I'm excited. [00:00:48] Larss Ogren: Thank you for the opportunity and the fact that we're both Marines, this is even better. [00:00:53] Albert Bellamy: Indeed. Indeed. Let's start there because that is a unique position being a any service member that goes into tech or data or one of these kind of non, you're not a cop. You're not, I'm not a cop. Yeah. You didn't take the well traveled path. You're not a project manager. Seems to be the kind of. Low tech option. There not no disrespect to anyone that becomes a project manager or a cop. Both difficult jobs props to you, but you chose a different path. So I, I suppose let's start back at the beginning. Tell me about what you did in the Marine Corps. [00:01:26] Larss Ogren: So I, uh, my parents had an early age, really were hard on it. They told me, you gotta find a way to pay for college. So that's how I, at the ripe age of 17 would think, okay, I'll go talk to a Marine. He'll gimme money for college. A week later I came home with a contract, but I'm four generation military, first Gen Marine. And when I came home with that contract, my father flipped. The next day we were down at the recruiter's office. And that's how I got my start in logistics in the military with the Marine Corps and stuff to say, you're gonna be a supply admin. Okay. And that's how I, that's how I entered the logistics through the military. [00:02:02] Albert Bellamy: So for the uninitiated, we got supply admin. Explain that. [00:02:08] Larss Ogren: Supply. Manage the budget and the procurement of goods for the particular unit that that you're in. And I happened to be with the second tank battalion at the time, so we had four tanks that we were basically servicing, but we had a scout platoon. So when one of the line companies come up and need a new tool or something like that, they would probably come to me and be like, all right, I need this. Figure out how to order it. Carbon copy papers that I had to fill out and got help if I messed up. 'cause you could tear it off and you gotta get another one. Can't just backspace and delete. I mean it's, it's carved in stone at that point. Yeah. We couldn't even use whiteout. That's it. Done. And then as I progressed under that first duty assignment, I moved into what was called DA file, A do and status file, which were these. Paper that you'd print out big stacks. And every Monday morning, I remember it was a pencil having to go through these things and audit. And then again, as I progressed further, a lot of counting, we were right attached to uh, a warehouse. So anytime we needed to do a spot check on inventory, we had to go out and count these things and quad con containers and stuff. [00:03:22] Albert Bellamy: Think big shipping containers, GP tents, the big green canvas things that you see in the movies, and they come in pieces. [00:03:30] Larss Ogren: And you get in there into the container and 1, 2, 3. Okay, now put 'em back in recount. So that was it for about three years before then I moved over to um, first MA over in Japan. MA is the marine aircraft wing. Thank you. Yes. And I was in charge of communications repair for some of the communications array. Right. So there's an underlying theme throughout this entire thing is communication. And I think the last thing that I. Was transfer like $5 million worth of product communications, repair equipment for Cobra Gold, which is the annual joint military exercise with Thailand. Yeah, with the rock. [00:04:14] Albert Bellamy: Rock, Marines, Republic of Korea. Thank you. Good dudes. Good, good dudes. Good Ettes. [00:04:19] Larss Ogren: Um, that was my entry into embarkation 'cause I didn't realize it wasn't just about putting it on a container and shipping it there. You had to really understand international law, customs coming in and out of borders and stuff. So overall, when I look back at it, low level technology integration into supply chain. A lot of mail accounting, a lot of pen and paper. In fact, we didn't even use pen. You weren't allowed to, you had to use pencil. Mm-Hmm. I left the service and then I pursued my education. [00:04:53] Albert Bellamy: So I'd love to highlight one thing, because you talk about communications, and I understand you were involved in supporting communications units. So big units, lots of radios need lots of repair parts. They break all the time. And so as a supply administrator, you were responsible for supporting a communications unit. It's cool that it works on a couple of levels because the common thread and what you'll you're talking about there is you had to communicate with a lot of different people levels. There's a whole lot of sensitivity there that someone that's never been in the military might not understand. You can't just walk into your boss's office. You have to. Ask politely and call him sir or her ma'am, or whatever their rank is. And there's a lot of art in the military to communicating. There's certain ways that you can and cannot communicate with other units without stepping on people's toes. So I'd love to hear you talk just for a moment about what did that teach you about communication, not just working with communications units and being able to get things done isn't always necessarily just by the book, but you gotta find the sideways ways to do things. How, what did that teach you about communicating with people and getting buy-in getting people on your side? [00:06:06] Larss Ogren: That's a really good point. I want to say one of the things that really made me effective communicator is understanding the language, if you will, of the people that I'm communicating with. So if I'm in a battalion supply, we have our own language that we speak, but then going to a scalp platoon. Learning their language. Understanding their language, and then communicating them what I need in their language. So it's almost like you, you have to become a professional translator. Mm-Hmm. You know, between multiple groups of people. 'cause you have to learn how they communicate so they understand. A lot of the times we're talking about the same thing, call it A, you call it B. So that's what made me real effective. And I think I had an aptitude to just listen, listen, learn, and reiterate. [00:06:56] Albert Bellamy: Did you ever hear RVAV? It's definitely was something learned. Maybe you didn't hear it by that term, but R VAV is repeat, verify, answer, verify. So when somebody asks you a question, it's usually in a class environment, so you're teaching 50 or a hundred people, but somebody asks you a question and you repeat it, you say et cetera, et cetera. Is that your question? Verify they say yes. You answer it and then you say, does that answer your question? It seems like that was something you were doing on a one-to-one basis. Right? Let me understand your language. Let me translate my language into yours. Right? That way I'm getting buy-in and getting you on my team. [00:07:29] Larss Ogren: Active listening, I think is what we referred to it as. Sure. Listening. Always repeat. Okay, so. I didn't realize it at the time that this was happening. Right. But that those skill sets that I developed specifically in communication helped me in the civilian world when the journey got real tough. Yeah. 'cause it's easy in the military, you got a major or you got a sergeant telling you what to do, when to do it, how to do it. And I look back at that time now and I'm like, thank God for the Marine Corps. [00:07:59] Albert Bellamy: Yep. Yeah. I think we can agree on that. Well, all right, let's move off of that 'cause we're, we may be at the risk of boring everybody that doesn't share our special sickness. So eventually you betrayed the true faith by leaving the Marine Corps and joining the Army. We shall say no more of this, but, but eventually chose to transition out of the military. Talk about that, the difficulty of that. Talk to the uninitiated in the audience about what's the difficulty there and what, what were the challenges you faced? And maybe what you see now, if you've brought anybody out of the military, like how did that help you ease somebody else's transition [00:08:35] Larss Ogren: in today's climate? Right now, I think there are more resources for transitioning military than there was back in my day. Absolutely. So the hardest thing that I had in transitioning was having to relearn how to communicate to a civilian force. The only thing I knew up to that point from 17 to what I think I was probably 28 by that time. That's it. Military. And then now you get a job. That's the first thing. And how do I communicate my skills at military? Speak to a civilian who's trying to give me a job. So I remember for six months I had to relearn English. In fact, I think one of my first couple of classes that I took when I got into my education was English comp. One of the great assets that I did have at that time was a service provider called O Net. I don't know if you ever heard of that before. O Net. It's a web service. I think it's still active today. That was the first iteration of trying to convert military MOS job descriptions into the civilian aspect. I think when I left. The service, what is it? [00:09:44] Albert Bellamy: Taps is what they call it? mm-hmm. Or TAPS or TRS, depending on the service. Yeah, it's the transition program. There is an institutional program mandated by Congress for all service members. You must go through a course that is essentially trying to prepare you for. Non-military civilian life. So writing your resume, getting on LinkedIn, you know how to interview, it's a crash course. You need to study those things for months, and that is a couple of weeks if you're lucky, but it's a primer in all things getting out of the military. [00:10:17] Larss Ogren: They didn't even have LinkedIn when I got, so it was just a straight week of resume writing. But when I look back at what I know now in, in regards to negotiating the job market, I was like. Tremendously underprepared because I didn't even know what the skills I had at that time, let alone trying to put it on paper. So a lot of trial and error, a lot of picking up just job after job. The culture, the culture is ingrained in us hard and it will never leave you. And then it gets hard when you get out into the civilian side where you know people have labels for you or you're intense. Your intent was like, I'm a hard charger. Same thing. Thank you. It takes on a negative connotation of the military. Thank you. Takes off a negative connotation and it's off-putting and then arrogant and what does he done? I'm like, yep, what's the problem? Okay, I'm proficient. Yeah, great. Thank you. So for seven years during I, that phase I pursuing my education, I was a young father at that time. I had a young boy. So going to college, trying to keep a job and trying to make it in, trying to find where's my path. [00:11:26] Albert Bellamy: Talk about your education journey because that's fascinating. I mean, even me prepping for the interview, I'm looking at your LinkedIn, I pride myself on looking at people's either resume or LinkedIn and being like, okay, I understand the story here with you. I'm fascinated. I'd love to hear more about that. [00:11:39] Larss Ogren: Yeah, a little over the place. A lot of coffee, not a lot of sleep. But again, thank God for the Marine Corps. 'cause well versed and trained you how to burn hot and burn the candle at both ends. That's right. So at that point when I, at 17, my, my life plan was, I don't know what I want to do. Let me gimme some time. Let me do four years in the Marine Corps. And then after that I will do four years and get my college degree. [00:12:02] Albert Bellamy: Yeah, put the growing up on pause, the steady paycheck for four years. I'll figure it out. [00:12:06] Larss Ogren: We're gonna have fun. And it was great. The reality of that didn't turn out at the plan. I ended up doing eight years total in the military and then got out and then I did another seven in the education side. When I got out, I knew I was in trouble. 'cause I still didn't know what the heck I wanted to do. So I'm like, all right, well let me get my undergrad, I'll get into global business. Because I always had this affinity for just the global mindset of everything. And that's what I did. I finished a lot of math, which hurt my soul. Oh, come on. And I mean, we're good, I think. And I tell my son this, don't worry about math. I ended up having to take math class five times when I was in college. Yeah. And I paid for every single one of them. I finally got good at it. So after getting my education, my undergrad thinking we're sold. I got eight years in the military and I got my undergrad degree. I could walk into any joint and get hired on the spot. That was my mentality. [00:13:04] Albert Bellamy: That is a fun myth that we tell each other in the military. [00:13:07] Larss Ogren: Usually, I wanna say for the first year post-graduation, it was like, Hey, impressive resume. Impressive background. You don't have any experience. That was the number one thing. I'm like, what are you talking about? My experience, I mean, I move tanks around. I move communication equipment between three international countries and stuff. My experience, and again, that was probably the first time that I learned, I'm not communicating effectively to who I'm trying to engage with. [00:13:36] Albert Bellamy: Yep. You're going into interviews, you've got military experience, which we come out of the military with this notion that. I've worked really hard and I've done really difficult things. Therefore, I can do anything you ask me to do. Not necessarily the case, or it may be the case, but it's just doesn't translate well to the language that the hiring authority wants to hear. Right? And then the kind of the separate and tangential issue that I have now, got my Bachelor's degree in X, fill in the blank, and therefore I'm on Easy Street and I'm gonna get hired right away. [00:14:13] Larss Ogren: All right. We've gotta go back to the drawing board and figure out what it was. And LinkedIn had been out and I hadn't done anything with LinkedIn. Started to learn [00:14:21] Albert Bellamy: What year are we talking about here? Just for reference? Oh, well, like which jobs? I'm sitting here looking at your LinkedIn profile, so I'm trying to put this into perspective. [00:14:29] Larss Ogren: Yeah, it was about 10, 2010 is when I got my undergrad. And then 2012 was when I got my MBA. Right. Now between 2010 and 2011 was that timeframe where I'm like, okay, I'm sick of this errands position. Let me get out. I went back to the drawing board and said, I'm looking at the next job when I should be looking at the next career. And of course I'm like, wow, what is a career? Uh, I've never heard of that. How do you even get in and started with that and stuff. So I spent six months. It was probably the most pivotal six months that I've ever done, and it started with asking a fellow service member for help help me. I'm doing it wrong. Never been down this road before. That's a tough thing to say. We're supposed to, we're tough guys, right? We don't ask for help or admit we're wrong or admit we're wrong. Certainly not to each other. Not to each other. Yeah. But I tell you, that was a very humbling six months because both asking a lot of help and admitting, all right, I've done this wrong. And it wasn't until I talked to a college professor of mine, I asked him, can you explain to me in a sentence what a career is? And he thought about it for a second and he says, you know what? What did you do in the military? And I says, well, I was a largest station. I did supply chain. He says, well, that's what your career needs to be. And that's the pivot. That's where we went. At that point, I went heavy and I went to interview with Amazon and I was standing, I think I was in Philly at one of their major distribution centers walking through, and I was amazed. I mean, the warehouse was so huge. I couldn't see either end of the building and I remember. The interviewer me and asked me, you have any questions? And I was like, yeah, I do have one question. How are you guys doing a wall to wall inventory? And he, that's a really interesting question. We're doing one right now, and I'm like, that's impossible. [00:16:28] Albert Bellamy: I see no army of young Marines throwing things in and out of containers. How can you possibly count? [00:16:34] Larss Ogren: I count five guys in there and you don't have enough people. And he looked at me, befuddled was like, what are you talking about? It's a closed system. And I'm like, what? So that was that touch point where I realized that technology had really infused even into logistics. And I'm like, I don't know what this is about. So I'm like, well, I know logistics. I know Warehouse. I've done it. Seeing how technology is, how advanced over seven years in the supply chain, where else can I address my skillset to a legitimate career? That's where Samsung came in. Samsung had at the time, one of the only functioning or reasonably functioning CPFR program or CPF R's collaborative planning forecasting replenishment, where you're basically a demand analyst. I was like, that's where I need to be at tech company. I can leverage my supply chain knowledge at a granular level into demand planning. And then that's how I gave my footing into, uh, demand planning. At my core, I realized I'm at my core. I'm an analyst. That's what I should be doing. I love numbers and I love seeing time series impact, and it blew my mind. So I rocked out. Demand planning for about three years. I'm like, this is great, but we wanna go bigger. And then I moved into my current position with order management, which is like a nerve center. I mean, this is really putting me back into those military days where now I am at the nerve center of the operation and I really gotta coordinate and collaborate with multiple teams. Different teams, product marketing team, I got a sales team, I got a logistics team, and all of them speak their own language, so I was like, that's amazing. Full circle, right? Yeah. And again, leverage the skills from the Marine Corps. Like, all right, let me learn your language. Let me learn what you do so I can be an effective communicator. And that was the breakdown that led me to Alteryx. [00:18:37] Albert Bellamy: Awesome. So before we move on to that and definitely need to talk about that because this is an Alteryx podcast. Yes, sir. I'd love to just highlight that the fundamental skills that you learned in the military. Yes. We did have teams of strapping, young lads and ladies throwing things in and out of containers and shouting obscenities at each other. And that was, that was how we counted things, or at least it was a couple years ago when I left. But the fundamental skills that you had. You eventually realized was your value proposition. A, you understood the logistical process, which is the same whether you are scanning things or pressing a button on a computer to to do your inventory or directing a team of young people to hand count. That process is the same, and you knew it forwards and backwards because you learned it well in the military, and then you just figured out the new language to apply it. The other fundamental skill that you had, which is fairly common throughout the military, is the communication piece. You understood how to speak different people's language back from the days when as a supply admin, you had a language full of acronyms and jargon, dass and sassy and smooth, all of these things that meant wonderful things to you, but a tank driver. Did not know what that was. No. You had to learn how to translate your supply language into tank language and vice versa. [00:20:09] Larss Ogren: That's right. [00:20:09] Albert Bellamy: And that carried forward into translating military language into non-military language, seeing the differences between an Amazon process and a Samsung process and a right who knows, maybe a Lean Six Sigma to a, to an Agile or some other methodology that the fundamental principles are the same and way that you. Transcends the military civilian divide, the company versus company, divide methods and processes and whatnot. You knew that well, and that was your, that was the selling point. [00:20:42] Larss Ogren: And the logistics is very, and I'm gonna oversimplify here. It's very simple and the fact that we have to move A and move it to B and then everything in between is just how do we get it there? Yeah. Right. Moving stuff in an organized fashion. That's right. So that was a really excellent point. Of course, I gotta add in that the military, especially in the Marine Corps stuff, communication is essential and the trade-off is a lot more serious in the military than it is in the civilian world, where it's that if you're not an effective communicator in the military, it's not, you're not gonna lose a million dollars here or you're not gonna lose some product. People could get hurt. So that was the really double down importance of communicating effectively and making sure the message was both conveyed and received clearly. And that's a key point that I take into my, my civilian world here. And then when got to operations, that it was horrible. And it is even worse 'cause you don't have facial expressions, you don't have voice inflection. Everything's done through email, so you lose so much. Effective communication when you take those two elements out and stuff, and I'm like, is this guy yelling at me? What I don't understand. Yeah. Communicating multiple teams. Sales team has their lingo, product marketing team has their lingo. We've got our lingo. So now like people are come to me with a lot of our stuff is very transactional, so like they communicate, Hey, can you do X, Y, and Z to me for me? And I'm like, I don't understand what that is. What do you want me to do? What is this? And then when I understand what the request is and what I need to do, then it was like, well, you haven't provided me the information for me to get there. Yeah, so that's where Alteryx really plugged that hole was that I was able to use or leverage Alteryx platform to unify the communicative fiber between all these groups in a very simple fashion. [00:22:38] Albert Bellamy: That's fascinating. Tell me more about that, because that's not, I don't know. That's something that people recognize that Alteryx can enable. [00:22:46] Larss Ogren: Anybody that works in a corporate environment now today understands the exceptional dependence upon Excel, where basically any report that your superiors want have to be designed in Excel and then disseminated accordingly. And of course, it's the language of business. It is the language of business. But you know, I never thought that I would hear somebody taking an hour and a half do a. Court in Excel and then disseminated, and I'm like, that's not at all effective communication. Yeah. So how we got to the point between me engaging in Alteryx came that there was an application software issue that I was working with and it was failing miserably. And while this thing was failing, I've got every customer that we have emailing me, asking me for, for status updates on their order. And imagine that at manufacturer level, where you got hundreds of people every single day. Where's my stuff? Where's my stuff? So I'm like, alright. So I finally reached out to my colleague and says, look, this is a problem. We gotta try something different. What do you have in the hopper that we can play with? And she says, I got Alteryx. And at that point, I've never heard of Alteryx before. And I was like, you know what? Give it to me. I'll make it work. I didn't realize that I jumped into two feet first without understanding where I'm jumping into. 'cause I had no idea about Alteryx. I'm like, what are these brightly colored things on the screen? You mean? They're shapes and they're colors. So yeah, I was fascinated from the get go, open it up, and I was both scared and intrigued at the same time. It's a weird experience. This was really to put the timeline in effect. This was maybe months before the pandemic really shut the world down. Okay. And then I took on a challenge where like, well, I'm gonna figure this out and I'm gonna replicate an Excel report that I do on a regular basis, and I'm gonna build it in a, in Alteryx. Simple enough wasn't simple, I think 14 weeks later. But what really helped was the world shutting down and they forced us all whole. And, uh, I wanna say March, April timeframe, I'm stuck in a small apartment with my wife. I love her, but yeah, 24 hours a day and there's no end in sight. So Alteryx really saved a lot. [00:25:08] Albert Bellamy: Too much to say it's saved your marriage. I think we can too much. [00:25:12] Larss Ogren: Yeah, it, well, no, it's, in fact it did because I'm really annoying. So over 13 weeks. I think is what it took me to do this. And I replicated the report in Alteryx and the defining moment for me was 'cause I was met with a lot of skepticism. I had run this report for three weeks to some 170 people for three weeks. Nobody knew the difference between the Alteryx version of the report and the Excel version. And the only way that I could define it was that in my salutation in the email, I did a red bolded text. So when my boss came to me and she's like, all right, let's try it out. I'm saying, what whatcha talking about? We've been live for three weeks now. Mm-Hmm. She had no idea. Wow. So that was to solve a problem with me. I was able to generate this report, so know these customers and say, here's your information. Go away. Don't ever email me again. And it worked. So then I took that step further and I coordinate with my sales team, my regional sales staff let me unify the communication, let me give 'em information that they need to be successful in their thing. So then while I'm running this report for myself, I'm also disseminating it out to the sales team, thinking this is great. They're not asking me questions. They've already got their information. I can focus on what needs to be done, and then it started to grow. Now again, this was only to solve my problem at the time. Don't email. Here's your information. Leave it. These people started to get dependent upon the quality of information that we were giving 'em coming out of Alteryx and they started talking about their friends. So then it got to a point where I got their sales guys that aren't even on my team asking me, Hey, can you create me this report? And I'm thinking, lemme see if I could do it. And I'm like, okay. So that's how this thing metastasized into where we're at today and stuff is that, see how do. Sends you the report, but not include that data into what I'm looking at because I don't wanna see that data. And then it just grew. And now it's almost to the point where now that's super critical and it deals with tracking between a multinational enterprise, tracking between countries, stuff moving from, let's say Asia to Europe and back and forth. And that's where it gets really critical because now we talked about before where. I'm only dealing with a couple of groups who speak differently. Imagine those multiple type of groups in other countries. Now we need to unify collectively how we're communicating, what we're communicating on an international level. When it comes down to timing and Alteryx is that leverage point that allows us to execute. 'cause everybody speaks numbers at the end of the day. [00:28:01] Albert Bellamy: So I am three-ish years post-retirement. You have much more perspective. Yeah. So you're what? 2018. Yeah. In 18 years post-military, what advice do you have for veterans? I know we've gotta give some love to the Sparks program, but, but for veterans looking to you and saying, what do I do reentering the workforce, or maybe even specifically entering into tech in some form. What's your advice? [00:28:27] Larss Ogren: There's so much advice. We don't have enough time to cover it. I guess the most important leverage your brothers and sisters. It's a collective environment. We are unique bunch. Ask for help. Admit to yourself that you're wrong. Commit to relearning a new skillset. That's the only thing that saved me. In fact, I would not be at this company today if it was not for a fellow Marine who I had gone to and asked for help. Leverage LinkedIn and Network Network every single day, even if you're just listening to her story. Talk to people, listen to what they have to say. Because a lot of the times opportunity is hidden and what is shared between friends, right? I learned about this opportunity here from a friend by a simple conversation and I'm like, wait, so and so is moving. There's an opportunity. Let me go find out who I need to talk to. And that's here we are today. So leverage your military contacts, your friends LinkedIn. Huge thing. Connect with every single military service member that you. The role resume thing. I think they're in good hands with you, sir, because you probably have far more knowledge about that with me. One of the biggest things is companies now are doing employment resource groups too, and a lot of them have a very big tie into veterans communities. So if you want to engage with a company of interest, find out what their ERGs are and hands down their probably gut a veteran's ERG, then find out who in that group you need to talk to because that'll give you the doorway into the company. Find out who is who and who do you need to talk to. Companies now are really engaged and, and they understand the value that military members provide to their company. It's not perfect yet, but the engagement is there. The outreach is there. [00:30:16] Albert Bellamy: Those are the big three, and I love that you prompted me something that maybe I hadn't thought of before. In the military, we get very certificate centric. Mm-hmm. We're very much burn hot and learn your martial arts and then get this belt, learn this safety technique, and then get this certificate. Here's a piece of paper, here's something certifying that you can do this, and then you are permitted to do said thing. The the civilian world is kind of like that, but it's your sales, your value proposition to a job is whether or not you can do the job. They're investing in you going forward. They're not certifying you for something and they don't necessarily look at. Your certifications. They do sometimes, but you can get very caught up in I need all of the certifications, which is false. You can get very caught up in, I must have this certification because it is the linchpin for me moving forward. Also, almost always false. I got very focused in on one called CAP certified Analytics professional. Not that many people know about it. I got convinced at one point that this was the linchpin that would get me into analytics. Come to find out from talking to some other people that it really wasn't that big of a deal in the tech world writ large. And that was a good lesson learned for me that hey, it's not all about certificate certifications, little bubbles on your record. It's about whether you can do the job, the best thing you can do. Relating back to what you said is laying on your brothers and sisters out there in the workforce. Go searching on LinkedIn for who's everybody at Samsung. That was once in the Marine Corps. Simple search. Send out 50 messages. You'll get 10 of them to respond and you'll get five of them on a video call and then kind of aggregate their responses. Don't hang your hat on the advice of one person. Or one kind of channel or avenue. You gotta sow a lot of seeds. You gotta talk to a lot of people, and not everybody is gonna have a job referral for you. You need to talk to 10 people to get one job referral. You need to go to 10 interviews to get one job. It's a. Awesome. Well, Lars, I think you and I could talk for days. We could and we could probably do a half dozen podcast episodes and they would all fun be value added. I think that's right. But I think we've reached the end of our time, so I gotta say thank you my brother Emra Fidelis sacrifice. Sir, thank you for the opportunity. Absolutely. And if you're out there, definitely look into Alteryx, look into the Spark program. If you are a veteran trying to transition into civilian workforce, especially into tech. We have a lot of great programs for you and Lars. It has been a pleasure, my friend. [00:32:48] Larss Ogren: Thank you, sir. [00:32:50] Megan Bowers: Thanks for listening. To learn more about our Sparks program and the resources it has for veterans, head over to our show notes on alteryx.com/podcast. See you next time.

This episode was produced by Megan Bowers (@MeganBowers), Mike Cusic (@mikecusic), and Matt Rotundo (@AlteryxMatt). Special thanks to @andyuttley for the theme music track, and @mikecusic for our album artwork.

Alter Everything Podcast

Podcast Guide

170: Analytics & Supply Chain After the Military

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This episode was produced by Megan Bowers (@MeganBowers), Mike Cusic (@mikecusic), and Matt Rotundo (@AlteryxMatt). Special thanks to @andyuttley for the theme music track, and @mikecusic for our album artwork.