DynCorp International
After two years in the California business school of hard knocks, Olson returned to Florida and worked for an American Express public accounting subsidiary. But he didn’t sit still behind a desk, he says. “I flew all over the country and world each week and only saw home in Melbourne (Florida) on weekends when I rested.” During one of those brief respites in 2007, Olson and his neighbor struck up what became a life-changing conversation for the young road warrior. His neighbor worked for DynCorp International, which provides a range of aviation services to governments worldwide, including Uncle Sam. The neighbor mentioned that DynCorp had recently gone public. Olson’s role at American Express was to guide public companies through the process of addressing their deficiencies in financial reporting, so Olson quipped, “Instead of paying the outside big boy accounting firms $400/hour, you all can hire me to work you through the process.” Olson’s phone rang a week later. The aviation business unit hired him as its in-house man to help adhere to Sarbanes-Oxley regulations and to resolve internal audit findings. Moreover, the big business agreed to what Olson really wanted: after the process control issues were addressed, they’d give him a shot at business management.
Business Manager
DynCorp made good on its agreement. The new business manager found working in the field was a whole different world than processing reports in the back office. Actually, it was a whole different country: Columbia, which is where Olson was sent to find out why DynCorp’s home office wasn’t getting timely reports from its
subsidiary in Bogotá. “My management said, ‘You fixed us here; go fix the international stuff,’” Olson summarizes. He hit the ground in South America and learned the laws, policies, procedures, and structures. But Olson learned something far beyond local laws and policies. He really learned that sitting in a home office doesn’t necessarily allow one to see what’s happening in a field office, especially an office in a developing economy. “It was eye-opening to be in a hangar and see the power just shut off for the rest of the day,” he says. “We were thinking back home that they just weren’t being responsive. Getting to know people personally, and see their austere work conditions, gave me empathy. They were actually working as hard as they could possibly work in a challenging environment. That was a big deal to me. It allowed me to come back to the U.S. and give our office understanding of the actual situation. We were able to change our home processes to accommodate some of the issues happening in the field office.” After fixing the miscommunication from Colombia, DynCorp also sent Olson, as their strategic manager for global business, to Peru, Bolivia, Guatemala, Indonesia, and the Middle East, places where you see real poverty and the stark dichotomy between the really rich and really poor. “It changes you,” he says.
Seeing global poverty up close isn’t the only thing that changed Olson when he grew as a DynCorp manager. During this period, Program Director Mike Bozeman pulled Olson aside at a meeting and said words most any employee yearns to hear: “We don’t want to lose you. We want you to question us and challenge the status quo. I’m concerned that you will get too frustrated by the (corporate) culture here. I want to invest in you. Pick a degree you want to
earn and pitch us on how it will help you to move this organization forward.” Now that’s an offer you really can’t refuse! Olson then added three letters after his name: MBA. Olson has moved on from DynCorp, but he still appreciates the mentoring he received from Bozeman. “My seven years under him was transformational,” he says.
Helped and Humble
Olson is thankful for Bozeman, but that’s no real exception, as he also appreciates many others. “As I came up through my career, I had people that dug in beside me and taught me for whatever reason,” he says. “My success is a byproduct of everybody else supporting me and teaching me. It’s been awesome. When you have that environment and approach, everything becomes a learning and growing opportunity.” However, it’s too self- deprecating to credit his success solely to others. When Olson came to intersections of opportunity along his career path, he turned right onto them. “I jumped into opportunities that stretched me and embraced those opportunities with open arms, perhaps because I didn’t realize what I was getting myself into,” he says looking back. Still, he’s quick to take the spotlight off himself, saying, “I had people, right beside me positionally, that supported me through challenges and people above me that reached down and extended me a hand to pull me up by willingly teaching me.” Didn’t he have some failures along the way? Most people do, but Olson doesn’t acknowledge failure. “Failure is when something bad happens and you don’t learn from it and quit. I don’t believe that’s happened yet.” Yep, the guy’s a coach.
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