21 Years of Service, One New Mission in Enterprise Architecture

[00:00:00] – [00:00:02]
Nick Powers
So Becki, how long have you been with UNCOMN?

[00:00:02] – [00:00:04]
Becki Glatzmaier
Almost two years. It will be two next month.

[00:00:04] – [00:00:10]
Nick Powers
Two long years. So, you were in the military, weren’t you?

[00:00:10] – [00:00:11]
Becki Glatzmaier
Yep, over 21 years.

[00:00:11] – [00:00:18]
Nick Powers
Twenty-one years. So you’re a retiree? Thank you for your service. You’ve been to a number of different places in the world, right?

[00:00:18] – [00:00:19]
Becki Glatzmaier
Yes.

[00:00:19] – [00:00:23]
Nick Powers
Like what? Can you give us an example? Germany? What others?

[00:00:23] – [00:00:34]
Becki Glatzmaier
Germany, Italy, and Turkey, followed by several stateside assignments, including Nebraska and Virginia. I got started off here.

[00:00:34] – [00:00:36]
Nick Powers
Oh, wow. Yeah, lucky you.

[00:00:36] – [00:00:38]
Becki Glatzmaier
Yeah, back here.

[00:00:38] – [00:00:46]
Nick Powers
So what kind of specialty? What were you in the military? What was your main duty? Or maybe you had a couple?

[00:00:46] – [00:01:16]
Becki Glatzmaier
The main duty I had was command and control. A lot of people know that from command post. I dealt with a lot of aerial port maintenance, getting PAX, cargo, and passengers from A to B, and then transitioned into more nuclear emergency actions. I did a bunch of FEMA work, helped with that, and then went over to fly for a little while.

[00:01:16] – [00:01:30]
Becki Glatzmaier
That was probably the best time. Then I ended up back in Europe to end my career, back in nuclear emergency actions, and then did a lot of stuff in the D.C. area.

[00:01:30] – [00:01:38]
Nick Powers
Yeah, sure. So you’ve seen it. You’ve done it. You’ve been almost everywhere. That’s amazing. What a great career.

[00:01:38] – [00:01:39]
Becki Glatzmaier
I loved it.

[00:01:39] – [00:02:08]
Nick Powers
One of the things I think UNCOMN does is we try to find UNCOMN geniuses. Sometimes people attribute that to mad scientists, these folks who are like Dr. Frankenstein in a lab, right? That’s not necessarily where all the genius lives. A big part of the genius for UNCOMN is folks like you: people who have had all of these experiences, especially supporting our country and our military.

[00:02:08] – [00:02:29]
Nick Powers
As we do our work, it’s incredibly important to have folks like you around who have seen a lot of things. Because you have those eyes and those experiences, how has that helped you as you’ve come to work for UNCOMN and do the work you’ve done with architecture?

[00:02:29] – [00:02:48]
Becki Glatzmaier
With architecture, I understand the why. Learning architecture here was completely new for me, which is one of the reasons why I like UNCOMN, because they took a shot on me. I’m willing to learn anything, but I really can understand the why. I can see the end picture.

[00:02:48] – [00:03:09]
Becki Glatzmaier
As I’m working through an architecture, if folks have questions, I can say, “Oh, this is the why.” This is the reason people need to know when that passenger or cargo is supposed to get to, in this case, a deployed location. It’s important because people are waiting for that person to get there.

[00:03:09] – [00:03:23]
Becki Glatzmaier
They’re taking somebody else’s spot, and that person’s coming back to the States. I’m able to bring that in for folks here. It makes it more enjoyable because you feel more pride in doing that.

[00:03:23] – [00:03:54]
Nick Powers
Sure. You’re the voice of the customer, right? You’re the voice of the customer. Unfortunately, I did not serve. I went a different path. My dad and my grandpa served in the Air Force, and my grandpa was in the Army previously. One thing I’ve really appreciated with all the veterans we work with is that you find this great opportunity to look back at those 20 years and ask, “What are all those things that frustrated me?”

[00:03:54] – [00:04:15]
Nick Powers
What were all those changes, systems, and processes? I know I can make those better. Maybe you weren’t in a position to make those better then, but here you are today. You’re working with military leadership. You’re working with the systems and processes you once had to use as a soldier.

[00:04:15] – [00:04:28]
Nick Powers
It’s got to feel good to be able to say, “I know there’s something here that needs to be fixed,” and then you can relate to those folks on the ground and have a conversation with them. How is that? That is a good part of what we do.

[00:04:28] – [00:04:53]
Becki Glatzmaier
Yep. One example I remember: I was on the team, and we were talking about military folks moving. As we were going through these processes, I had just retired. I had just moved from Germany, trying to get family, furniture, cars, and all of that over here. Looking at these processes, I remembered being the person logging in.

[00:04:53] – [00:05:13]
Becki Glatzmaier
I was the person trying to make sure my stuff got where it needed to go, because that’s stress on both my family and me. How do I get my family back here? Being able to ask questions during meetings, when we’re talking to the customer, I can pinpoint heartache that I had without saying it directly.

[00:05:13] – [00:05:23]
Becki Glatzmaier
I can ask, “Well, what about this? What about this? Did we think about these decision points here?” Ultimately, it could relieve some stress for another family that’s moving.

[00:05:23] – [00:05:43]
Nick Powers
Yeah, that’s awesome. You talked a little bit about how we took a chance on you. One of the things I love about this company is that we love taking chances. We love finding great people who maybe come from different walks of life or different experiences. You came to us with little to no architecture experience, right?

[00:05:43] – [00:06:02]
Nick Powers
Talk a little bit about that journey to get to where you are today, because from what I’m hearing, you’re one of our better architects on that side of the area. Talk a little bit about the training and how you did this.

[00:06:02] – [00:06:20]
Nick Powers
I’ll tell you one thing. For me, as a software developer and data guy by background, I never had anybody hand me an architecture diagram. No one did. They just told me, “I need that button blue,” and I would go make the button blue. It turns out that problem had an impact on all these other things.

[00:06:20] – [00:06:34]
Nick Powers
If I would have had that architecture, I would have been able to understand it when I was doing those things. It would have been awesome. Here you are, coming in with all this functional background and all these experiences, and you get to start learning how architecture works. How did that go?

[00:06:37] – [00:06:43]
Becki Glatzmaier
Well, I do want to say that on day one here, I thought I was just going to come on board, and they were like, “You’re starting training today.”

[00:06:43] – [00:06:44]
Nick Powers
Oh, wow.

[00:06:44] – [00:07:04]
Becki Glatzmaier
Then they asked, “Any questions?” I thought, “I don’t even know what I’m looking at.” But again, with the background I had in training, I’ve been a training manager and done all these other things in my career. I’m able to listen, digest, ask questions as things go along, and soak it in.

[00:07:04] – [00:07:22]
Becki Glatzmaier
I went through the training, and it was very eye-opening. I could clearly understand what they were talking about. I may not have been 100% on it, but it made me excited because they were excited about it and how it would impact the work. So I thought, “Okay, then I’m the right person for you. I can do this.”

[00:07:22] – [00:07:35]
Becki Glatzmaier
After getting out of training, I started helping with the classes here and there, because that’s more training. It gets me even better. As I’m speaking to trainees, I’m getting more exposure.

[00:07:35] – [00:07:36]
Nick Powers
Sharpening the sword.

[00:07:36] – [00:07:50]
Becki Glatzmaier
Exactly. Then I started off with the [REDACTED] team, did that for a little bit, and then moved over to AFMC. That’s even more experience, so it opens up even more models that I wasn’t privy to before.

[00:07:50] – [00:08:09]
Nick Powers
Sure. One of the things I like about architecture is that we call it a team sport. It’s not an individual sport. It’s not golf. You actually have a team you’re working with. You’re around whiteboards, you’re in rooms together. You have people looking over your shoulder, and you’re looking over their shoulder. Talk a little bit about that team dynamic.

[00:08:09] – [00:08:18]
Nick Powers
How do you keep it so you guys don’t want to kill each other? How do you keep that morale up so you can get where you want to go?

[00:08:18] – [00:08:34]
Becki Glatzmaier
Well, you have to “grr” for a moment, and then you move on. That’s what they tell us. There’s power in the “grr.” But for a team, with the different types of folks UNCOMN hires, I’m going to hear what you have to say because of your background and your experience, even if it wasn’t anywhere near mine.

[00:08:34] – [00:08:52]
Becki Glatzmaier
You come with something, and then I come with something, and we’re all here listening to each other. There’s nothing to argue about, because what little piece are you going to bring in for us to make an even better product? Ultimately, we’re going for the same goal. We want that customer happy, and we want them to want us.

[00:08:53] – [00:09:14]
Nick Powers
Absolutely. That’s really what it’s all about. We’re all trying to get to the same place, and we’re trying to make the processes, systems, and really the experience for our warfighter better. I think that’s what ties us all together. From the beginning of the company, we’ve always had that philosophy of finding people in that kind of mold.

[00:09:14] – [00:09:29]
Nick Powers
I don’t think we had a label for it. A couple of years ago, I think that label arrived, which is diversity of thought. It’s the ability to sit in a room with folks and hear all those different perspectives, understanding that at the end of the day, we’re all trying to get where we’re going and accepting that.

[00:09:29] – [00:09:46]
Nick Powers
It’s about working together and taking all the different pieces and applying them to solving a problem. That’s huge. UNCOMN has a lot of other things going on aside from just working all day long. Are there other organizations or anything like that within UNCOMN that you’re participating in?

[00:09:46] – [00:09:57]
Becki Glatzmaier
Women in Business. Last week, we had Sisters in Service over here. They asked me to come, and of course I’m like, “Yeah, I’m coming.” I mean, there was a free shirt too, so…

[00:09:58] – [00:09:59]
Nick Powers
Well, there you go.

[00:09:59] – [00:10:24]
Becki Glatzmaier
I came out here, and it was nice to talk to female veterans, or women who are soon to be outside the service, and give them our perspective on what we learned and what would have helped us along the way, to get them better prepared. It’s a lot of information for anybody. But for us to team up with Sisters in Service and watch out for each other, there is a lot more stress.

[00:10:24] – [00:10:49]
Becki Glatzmaier
How can we alleviate that stress while I’m here? I’ll give you some information explaining UNCOMN. We had Mandy Sater, who is coming up on ten years, and I’m at two. She was able to hone in on what she’s been doing, and I was able to speak as someone who just recently retired. A lot of folks liked the different perspectives of someone ten years out and someone two years out, and what they can learn from that.

[00:10:49] – [00:10:50]
Becki Glatzmaier
Yeah.

[00:10:50] – [00:11:15]
Nick Powers
That’s awesome. One of our newest folks we added to the team recently, Brooke, and I were talking yesterday. I have a high school daughter who has several friends interested in joining the Air National Guard. They have a lot of questions because, as you can imagine, as a 17- or 18-year-old female, there are a lot of things you have to think about if you’re going to make that commitment.

[00:11:15] – [00:11:30]
Nick Powers
It’s great for us here at UNCOMN. Brooke is going to meet with them, sit down, explain her journey in the Army National Guard, and take them through some of the decisions she had to think about and some of the commitments, because this is a big deal.

[00:11:30] – [00:11:40]
Nick Powers
You’re signing up. It’s a very big commitment for somebody that young. But you’ve been through it. You’ve been there, you’ve done that, you’ve seen it, and you know what we’re talking about. It’s great to be able to give back.

[00:11:40] – [00:11:44]
Becki Glatzmaier
My niece just went to boot camp with the Air National Guard.

[00:11:44] – [00:11:53]
Nick Powers
Absolutely. That’s awesome stuff. I’m glad we have those things available to you to be able to work with.