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ESTES PARK, CO – The
United Service Organizations, in partnership with
Team Red, White and Blue, held a
leadership seminar on August 2, 2014 to encourage veterans to use their
unique skills to improve their communities.
Held during a
rock-climbing camp 7,522 feet above sea level, J.J. Pinter, director
of operations for Team Red, White and Blue, led the seminar
emphasizing leadership and effective communication.
Team Red,
White and Blue's mission is to enrich the lives of America's
veterans by connecting them to their community through physical and
social activity.
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J.J. Pinter,
director of operations for Team Red, White and Blue, an organization
partnered with the United Service Organizations to enrich the lives
of veterans, holds a leadership seminar during a rock-climbing camp
in Estes Park, Colorado, Aug. 2., 2014 (DoD photo by Army Sgt. 1st
Class Tyrone C. Marshall Jr.)
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The organization has more than 100 chapters, Pinter said,
noting they are located in every state and in 10 countries
with only nine employees. Volunteer leaders make up the bulk
of the organization's personnel.
To open the training
Pinter asked a simple question -- does the country have
enough leaders?
“Reading the news and what's going on
in the world, does anyone think that we have a surplus of
leadership?” he asked. “Does anyone think that's the case?
That's one of the reasons we're talking about this.”
Pinter noted a recent leadership survey among veterans where
they “unanimously” said they “still wanted to be leaders and
they still wanted to lead after they got out of the
service.”
“So it just makes sense,” he said. “We've
got all of these veterans that still want to continue
leading, and some of them have the leadership skills to do
it and some of them don't.”
That's another reason to
do seminar like this one, Pinter said, “because we want to
help equip veterans to be better leaders.”
“We want
to make our organization better, but we want to make our
country better at the same time,” he said.
“And we
want to make veterans better,” Pinter continued. “During the
course of this thing, [if] you take one thing that you can
go back to your job with and make you a little bit more
efficient after we've talked about it ... that's a win.”
During the leadership seminar, Pinter combined
definitions of leadership from the 18 veterans in attendance
with examples they've experienced throughout their lives and
careers.
“Team Red, White and Blue goes out of its
way to try to find people,” he said, “and try to develop
people who can be good local leaders for us.”
“We
want to build stronger leaders because we want to have a
strong organization and stronger communities,” Pinter said.
“You know who's going to do this? Veterans are going to do
this.”
Pinter pointed to the generation of Americans
known as the Greatest Generation as inspiration for leading
the nation.
“Those guys fought and won World War II
and Korea,” he said. “They came back and became titans of
industry and leaders of our country for the next 50 years,
right?”
They grew up in the Great Depression, Pinter
said, and then they went and accomplished many great things
“There's not a single reason our generation of veterans
can't do the same thing,” he said. “We're at the tail end of
the two longest wars our country has ever fought right now,
and smaller pools of people have fought those wars than
before.”
“Think about all that leadership
experience,” he said. “There's no reason that you can't go
back in your communities and be the leaders that our country
is drastically needing.”
Pinter went on to remind the
veterans of their response to his initial questions.
“The first question I asked you guys was do we have enough
leaders in this country and everyone said ‘no,'” he said.
“So go fix that.”
Mike Oldham, a Navy vet who
attended the seminar and participated in the rock-climbing
camp, shared his thoughts on the training.
“I thought
the information was very relevant for the group,” he said.
“I thought it was useful information that we can take back
and apply in Red, White and Blue, and apply in our jobs and
social lives.”
“I thought it was very practical and
well presented,” Oldham continued. “The information wasn't
some sort of a new theory that you hadn't heard before. It
was a good compilation of information in a format that was
easy to understand and will be easy to remember and apply
in, sort of, day-to-day life.”
Oldham, a Golden,
Colorado, native, said his personal definition of leadership
is “a person that can motivate and inspire other people to
get outside of their comfort zone and accomplish real,
meaningful goals.”
“I think the emphasis, to me, is
being able to get people out of their comfort zone,” he
said. “Get them to push themselves and help push other
people in places that they wouldn't normally go.”
Mike Greenwood, an Army veteran from Colorado Springs,
Colorado, also agreed the seminar was a valuable resource.
“Like J.J. said, we're not selling anything except for
relationships or people,” he said. “So you can get companies
who have this distorted view, but it was simple.”
“It
was ‘Build that relationship and be that person in the
community that veterans can look up to and be there,'”
Greenwood said.
Being there, he noted, can mean just
“shutting your mouth and listening,” because that's pretty
important to just kind of hear that person out and go from
there.
Greenwood said he made his definition of
leadership “simple” -- belief and motivation.
By Army Sgt. 1st Class Tyrone C. Marshall Jr.
American Forces Press Service
Copyright 2014
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