With the right training, retired Navy SEALs can be killers in a tech-based business world that stretches way beyond no-brainer security and law enforcement options.

SEALs can strike it rich on the digital frontier.

That’s one of the working premises of The Honor Foundation, a four-year-old nonprofit based in UC San Diego’s Rady School of Management.

The foundation’s marching orders: Groom SEALs to realize post-service dreams, whatever they are.


Of course, San Diego, a port city that dreams in dress whites, doesn’t need any convincing that military leaders can be civilian stars in any constellation

As retirement nears, SEALs themselves may need the most convincing that life after the teams holds fulfilling promise.

On the night before Pearl Harbor Day, I attended the final class of a rigorous 15-week Honor Foundation course in self-evaluation and employment readiness.

I was invited to sit in by one of the foundation’s coaches and mentors, Walter Bregman of Del Mar, a Harvard-educated business executive and Army vet who for 30 minutes entertained the graduating SEALs with pithy, occasionally ribald, lessons from his experiences with a range of companies, including Gallo and Playtex, the bra maker. (Cue the snickers.)


The bulk of the program was a forum of retired veterans, most of them from special ops, who had succeeded in business.

One ex-SEAL touted his MBA at Stanford as a springboard to a heavyweight consulting firm and then his own venture. In contrast, a UK special ops vet winged it in Africa, ultimately landing in the mining industry.

The message: Know who you are and where you want to go before you leap in any direction. (And don’t settle for the first job offered.)

This was the last class before the next night’s formal graduation, suit and tie required at Qualcomm where a couple of dozen CEOs would be scouting.


The Honor Foundation trains more than a third of all retiring SEALs, according to upbeat founder and CEO Joe Musselman. The foundation’s success rate is near perfect, he reports, not because the foundation places them in jobs but because schooled SEALs are ready to sell themselves.

You love to hear positive reports like this.

On Tuesday night, however, one former SEAL’s darker perspective struck me as particularly important for every service member, not just the Navy’s elite 1 percent.

Andrew Paul, a New Hampshire native and 2001 ROTC graduate of Vanderbilt University, served a couple of deployments in Iraq, becoming a father during each one.


Slightly condensed, here’s the mortgage branch manager’s verbatim account of near-catastrophic failure:

“I wanted to be a SEAL my entire life,” Paul began, “and it was kind of a tough decision to retire. There began the difficulty of my transition. I’m here because I did not have a very good transition. I want to help you avoid the pitfalls I fell into.

“I got out thinking I was going to save a marriage and ended up going from SEAL teams right into the mortgage business. I went from having a steady two-week paycheck to 100 percent commission, no medical benefits. I bought multiple houses while I was on active duty with loan products that thankfully don’t exist anymore because I couldn’t afford the houses.

“Ultimately I ended up losing one house to foreclosure and short-sold two, got divorced, got to a point where I had no furniture in my house and a notice on my door that the sheriff was coming in a week to physically remove me.


“I was trying to sling it out doing mortgages but I was up late, I have 50-50 custody of my two boys, and I look over one night and — this memory is burned in my brain — and my boys are sleeping on the floor and it’s 11:30 at night and I have this pain-in-the ass client.

“It was pretty tough, foreclosure, divorce. I all but filed for bankruptcy but …”

After a short pause, he started over.

“But I came out the other side. I want to help you guys avoid those kinds of struggles. I’m in the trenches, my sleeves are rolled up, I’m slinging it out. I don’t have stock options. I don’t have a paycheck. I eat what I kill.”


The SEALs laughed in unison. Ultimately, that’s what it boils down to in combat. Eat what you kill.

Later, the moderator asked Paul about the meaning of team in his lexicon.

“Everything is about relationships,” Paul said. “People have not changed in 5,000 years. Technology and tactics change, but people are the same. You learn how to connect with people. It’s an invaluable skill.

“I hit bottom so hard I bounced. On the one level, we’re talking tonight about high-level executive positions at Amazon or Google or whatever, but come back to some basic fundamentals.


“I do a lot of loans and 90 percent are VA loans for veterans. I see a lot of people’s finances. I can look at someone’s tax returns and in 2 seconds I can tell you right where they are. Most people don’t have enough savings. Number one piece of advice I can give to you: Right now, while you have your steady two-week paycheck, pay off debt and build at least a six-month reserve. Get on the same page with your spouse. You can’t get on the same page, get on the same chapter. Build up a budget, pay off debt and build a six-month reserve. That’s going to give you the ‘financial runway’ to use an MBA term.”

He paused and glanced at the polished Stanford MBA. The room cracked up at the dis-junction between the high-flying private equity world and the simple bottom line Paul was drawing in the sand.

“Speaking as a former SEAL, you’re not going to find the same thing. It’s just not going to be. Jumping out of planes and shooting cool guns, being with your bros and being on a mission, it’s never going to be like that. As corny as it sounds, you’re fighting for freedom, and I’m at a desk doing 30-year fixed mortgages? How do you get excited about that? Wonk wonk.”

Uproarious laughter.


“You have to translate (your job) into a purpose and a passion. For me, I found that purpose and passion in mortgages and doing VA loans for my fellow veterans. If a person comes in to get a loan, they’re going to get the best possible service from me, a fellow veteran who cares passionately about his brothers and sisters in the military.

“If you go to GE or Amazon, it’s not like being on a SEAL team. How do you get excited about going to work? You have to trick your mind into finding a reason to be excited about what you’re doing. It’s bigger than you. Maybe it’s your kids, your family. Maybe it’s cancer research. Don’t stop growing. When guys get off active duty, men especially, that’s when they die. Everything in life is either growing or dying.”

The final question of the evening probed for “scar tissue,” decisions that these leaders regretted.

“I think I’ve pretty much covered that,” Paul said to guffaws.


Getting serious, he offered his last two pieces of advice.

“Every meeting you go to, bring a notebook and pen. People who work for me, if they don’t bring a notebook and a pen, I kick them out. It shows people you care. And with everyone you meet, write a handwritten personal note. It’s so out of style. It blows them away.”

It took him awhile to get his bearings, but this guy’s still what he always wanted to be.

A killer with a heart.


logan.jenkins@sduniontribune.com