Charles E.
Geospatial Intelligence Analyst
How he came to Royce Geo and what he likes about it
Resources used during military transition
How he selected where he wanted to work
Research into organizations’ veterans programs
Advice for people transitioning out of the military
Differences between working in the military and the private sector
Overview
Charles is a St. Louis area-based geospatial intelligence analyst at Royce Geo who served 22 years in the Air Force. He is fresh out of the Air Force and new to Royce Geo, joining in February 2024. While in the military, he developed coding skills that he now employs at Royce Geo.
Charles joined the Air Force at 25, and because he was older when he joined and he had private sector experience prior to joining, it made his transition back into the private sector easier. Much of the culture shock of going from an officer with 24/7 responsibility to a “worker bee” in a company was easier for him than others. He’s noticed many people struggle with adapting to aspects of the private sector such as less PTO and benefits (such as paying for education, etc).
To help with the transition, he says future veterans should invest time into transition programs such as TAP, create a robust LinkedIn, engage with their network, and when they do land a job, not be so insular in the new company. They need to communicate issues, talk with colleagues and superiors, and be open to change.
How he came to Royce Geo and what he likes about it
“So I’ve got one of my airmen from Hawaii, he’s actually currently here. He was stationed here, and he’s just now retiring himself. And when I was getting out, I talked to him about coming back to the St. Louis area, because my first duty station was Scott Air Force base here in Illinois. We were talking about coming back to the area. We’ve got a lot of great friends in the area. We wanted to, and we’re okay with the area itself, so we wanted to come back here, and he said, Hey, if you’re looking for jobs, Royce Geo is a really good company. The people in the company are…it’s got the right culture, it’s got positivity, there’s a lot of mutual respect. He said, knowing me, I really appreciate how the culture works here. So, I actually originally interviewed for an analyst position to do the job I used to do, and that had already been filled with someone else, so they said, ‘Hey, we can’t fill you for this, but you have a coding background. Would you like to do coding again?’ I was like, I want to do coding in the first place and they stopped me. So yes, I wanted to do coding again. I hadn’t done it in a while but it’s kind of like riding a bike. So, I’m back into it and took a while to recondition my brain to do coding again. But it’s been an amazing opportunity to do what I joined the Air Force to do as well as being at a company with a positive culture where overall it’s incredibly drama free. I’ve heard horror stories from friends of mine and other contract companies and how they’re treated like second class citizens. So it’s been very refreshing to be a company that really seems to value all of its people.”
Resources used during military transition
“Someone asked me about Skill Bridge…but the Skill Bridge Program was recommended to me by a bunch of people because you get six months, the chance to sort of do an internship, and then if they like you, they’ll hire you. I kind of felt like at the rank I’d gotten to, I would like those skill bridge resources used for people who needed it, like people who may only have been in 10 years and maybe they don’t quite have the background. But after 22 years of professionally doing stuff, I felt like I could handle it on my own. So, I knew where I wanted to go. I started researching what was available at NGA here because that was sort of my target area. And I’d started looking at the civilian positions here. But then, I know a number of people, and I just leveraged my network of Air Force friends, and they recommended some companies to look at to put an application into. Beyond that, we go through a transition program in the Air Force, TAP, which I think all the other branches do. They sort of tune up your resume, tune up your LinkedIn, get you ready to go out in the world and get a “real job.” So, tuned everything up with apps, did a couple of interviews, and was blessed enough to get the chance to work here.”
Transition Challenges
“I’ll call it the biggest challenge, but at least I was prepared for it. Because I’ve talked to friends who’ve gotten out – the culture shift of going from being the rank I was, which comes with a lot of politics, and you’re always in a fishbowl so you always have to mind your P’s and Q’s. You’re a leader, you’re always having to lead, you’re always having to be the example. It’s a very intense lifestyle. Also, you’re 24/7 responsible for everyone around you, and you’re 24/7 responsible to a commander, no matter what they’re thinking, you’re responsible for it. So, I knew it’s gonna be weird. It is still weird for me to not have that level of responsibility – to be a worker bee. I like being a worker bee. It’s nice to not come home…My wife would tell you, she’s delighted that I don’t come home going, ‘And now, I’ve got all this admin stuff to do.’ But there’s like a hole in your life where you had this thing you were doing for many, many years. So the hardest thing is just slumping out of that level of intensity of administration and leadership and all those things into worker bee again.”
How he selected where he wanted to work
“I joined the Air Force at 25, a little late but college was expensive, and I’ve been kind of listlessly doing computer work up until that point. I knew one thing; I wanted to get a degree in computer science. That was my goal. I joined to do that. I got my bachelor’s in computer science in 2007. And then, since I decided to stay in for a bit, I got my master’s in intelligence. And so, I felt after the Air Force has spent a rather ridiculous amount of money on getting me these degrees, my governing principle in getting out was how can I leverage these degrees to do a thing. So I was really looking for opportunities to either leverage technology or leverage intelligence work coming out of the Air Force to keep doing it. I also have a clearance, user clearance. So, I was looking for work that allows me to still be in a SCIF, because I feel like why waste the fact that I have access to these things and can hopefully do meaningful work still.”
Research into organizations’ veterans programs
“No, because honestly, I didn’t want to tie it to that because there’s people who really can’t take off the uniform after they get out. I’ve met them. Some of them are contractors that come in and they’re really darn entitled. You find that they’re a retired Lieutenant Colonel, so they’re still kind of like trying to boss around an officer or something. I’ve worked with them before and you have to kind of check them and go, ‘Dude, you’re getting really, really well paid to not be that person. So, I didn’t necessarily want to go somewhere that was all that because I felt maybe that culture would still be present and it would sort of poison the well. Nice to know that they had veterans, but you know, honestly, it’s a new job. It’s a new thing. So I wanted to, for lack of a better word, tabula rasa it. I’m going to be part of this company. If there’s a lot of veterans, great, because we all can talk. We have a certain sense of humor. We have a certain way we work, and that’s fantastic. But it’s not necessarily sacrosanct. Like I wouldn’t say it was necessary for me. It’s nice, but I really wanted to join a company with a good culture irrespective of the number of vets it had in it. And I felt Royce Geo had that culture based on what I heard, based on what I saw online such as the mission statement, what they’re trying to do, you know, Royce Geo is very sort of get at the problem, solve the problem. We don’t put you in a box, like figure out how to make things better and make it better. Cool. That’s totally me.”
Advice for people transitioning out of the military
“I think the big thing is, I’ve looked at a lot of people who go through TAP, they put together the bare minimum on their LinkedIn pages. And you know, in the modern time, like you can’t do that, like you’re gonna do LinkedIn, do LinkedIn. Put a little bit of time into getting everything possible there. Also on the way out, you gotta make sure you use some of our resources. So in the Air Force, we have what’s called the AF cool, which is basically, you get a certification on the way out, the Air Force will pay for. So, in my last year, I went and got a PMP cert, which I’m not necessarily leveraging right now, but I’d always wanted it, and it sort of makes you a little bit more attractive when you’re applying for jobs and you could do project management as a possibility. And I think, honestly, in the military, you end up managing a lot of projects. So, it’s a really good one to get quantified. So overall, like leverage the resources on the way out, and then sort of as I did, I talked to a lot of people who’ve just gotten out, who I knew were thinking of getting out, or who knew the St. Louis area in general. I still have friends here, and I talked to them, and you know, me being an Intel guy, it’s kind of built into my blood now, but I kind of was like, ‘Okay, what is available and what’s the best option?’ I was just very fortunate to find a good option.”
“Knowing some people who’ve done it and knowing their challenges, I think the problem was they were too insular when they got where they were going, like, reach out, whether it’s your civilian side or contract side. I mean, people want you to be successful, right? And if you’re just feeling like, I mean, when I got here, there were a couple of people on my team who really weren’t operating effectively. So I kind of let my civilian boss know like, ‘Hey, I’m not here to make waves, but, here’s what I’ve observed. Not my place to correct. Uniform wearing, absolutely my place. I would have taken them both aside. On the civilian side, I say, ‘hey, we might need to do something. He’s like, You know what, you’re right. Let’s have a meeting and we sorted that. I know what to do there. But if you don’t know what to do, then go to your chain of command is still a thing. You can absolutely use it. It really shouldn’t be too much of a problem.”
Differences between working in the military and the private sector
I joined the Air Force at 25, so I had plenty of jobs before I joined the Air Force, which honestly, I think made it a lot easier for me to transition out because my friends who joined at 18 get to 30, and they’ve never done not military and they’re like, ‘health insurance is a thing?!’ That stuff wasn’t surprising to me, whereas most veteran friends I know are like, ‘I have to pay for things now?’ Honestly, I think that the toughest transition, I mean, sort of there’s a culture of it to a degree, although I work in a DOD facility, there’s still that there. But like, I think the toughest thing is appreciating that in the military, you get two and a half days off per month, 30 days a year of leave, which is like the most amazing vacation program in the universe, and having worked outside of the military and gone in, I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is an insane amount of downtime!’ Plus, you get all the holiday days, and the down days, and the training days. I mean, it’s an insane amount of downtime. In the private sector when you’re like, I’ve been at Royce since February, I think I have like four days of leave saved up, which you know, I’m glad to have that, it’s not a bad program. I think their program was perfectly fair. But like, it’s a transition. When my wife’s like, ‘Hey, we can do a trip.’ I’m like, ‘Hey, not for like four months.’ So, it’s just balancing your time a little differently and appreciating that time is money when you’re here whereas in military, it doesn’t have to be that. That I think is a jarring shock for younger people who got in and do a full 20 and get out. They’re like, ‘Well, you know, I’ll just go,’ and like no you won’t because this company is being paid a contract to do a thing. I appreciate that just because of my background, but I know a lot of people who hate all the micromanaging the clock, and like I kind of get it.”
Benefits of working with so many veterans
“Working with so many veterans, I think it gives you that nice touch of familiarity that even though I didn’t ask for it, I think it’s great that my contract boss is not only retired Air Force, well, he’s not only retired military, retired Air Force. He’s also retired E8. I’m an E9. So it’s kind of the same stratosphere of culture. So I get along with them. I feel really well because we kind of talk the same language. So I think Royce being a very veteran prevalent organization makes it so much easier for vets to transition in because ultimately, it makes it a lot more comfortable. And we talked with some of that even if we’re not wearing a uniform, we understand how we operate, we understand how to say things and how to relate to each other. We can say like three words and it means a lot. Yeah, and he gets that I get it, but like it’s not something a non-vet could get, and that’s not to sound patronizing, but like we just have a way of things.”