0:01

Please be advised the following episode

0:03

contains references to violence and

0:05

may not be suitable for all audiences.

0:12

Welcome to Veterans You Should Know a

0:14

podcast from My Heart Radio that celebrates

0:17

the men and women who have honorably answered

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a call to serve their country and the

0:21

armed Forces. I'm Rob Real,

0:23

actor, comedian, and former Marine

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raw In this special series

0:28

Honoring Veterans Day, I'll be speaking

0:31

with four incredible veterans as they detail

0:33

challenges they've faced and how

0:35

their experiences in military service

0:38

served them in their everyday civilian

0:40

lives. I totally

0:42

treated like it was the military, so I broke it down

0:45

and end up graduating in just two

0:47

years, get that four year degree done in two years,

0:49

thankfully graduated with honors, I think because it

0:52

was just so focused. In

0:54

our final episode of season two, we

0:56

are speaking with Nishan Roy. Nashan

0:59

is the first in his family to serve in the U.

1:02

S. Military. He chose to enlist

1:04

in the Air Force following high school and

1:06

followed a career path in the security

1:08

forces. Following

1:10

his time in the military, he enrolled in St.

1:13

John's University and finished a four

1:15

year degree in two years.

1:18

Nashat's varied civilian career includes

1:20

working for the Clinton Foundation, Goldman

1:23

Sachs, the U S Department of Agriculture,

1:26

and the Agency for Internal Development.

1:29

Deshan currently is the chief of staff

1:32

for the CEO of Shabani

1:42

Nashat. Welcome to the show. Tell

1:44

me where you from, where

1:46

you grew up, and then tell me how

1:49

your path crossed with the military.

1:51

Robbed. First off, thank you for your

1:53

service, and it's

1:55

truly an honor to be on the show. I appreciate

1:58

it. So I guess taking it

2:00

back to two thousand,

2:03

which is when I graduated from high school. I grew

2:05

up in Long Island, New York, in

2:07

Great Next So if you're happy to be familiar

2:09

with the books The Great Gatsby, Uh,

2:12

it was West Egg and so

2:14

I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do

2:16

coming out of high school. I was a little bit of a jackass during

2:19

high school, didn't really take it as seriously as I should.

2:22

I think I barely passed to kind of get

2:25

it through high school. But ultimately

2:27

I've come from an Indian family and so

2:29

my my dad kind of sat me down. He said,

2:31

well, where'd you get into school? You

2:33

got into the community college local and

2:36

you got into Arizona State,

2:38

and then what are your choices? Like, what are

2:40

we gonna do here? And so I

2:42

said, actually, I think I'm not going to do the education

2:44

piece yet. I think I want to go serve the country.

2:47

My dad, who immigrated here in nineteen seventy

2:50

nine so that he could provide his children a better

2:52

way of life and not necessarily go through

2:54

kind of difficult hardships, said

2:57

well, okay, what part of that equation is you

2:59

getting an engineering or PhD

3:01

or mp D? And I said, none

3:04

of it. You know, I really want to actually go travel

3:06

the country. I want to pay for college on my own.

3:09

At that point, it's two thousands, so there's no conflicts

3:11

going on. So my dad said, you know what, all right, I'll

3:13

indulge this. Let's invite

3:15

all four branch recruiters into

3:17

our house and let's have a conversation with

3:19

each one of them. And we met the

3:22

Army, Marine Corps, Navy,

3:24

and Air Force recruiters. I was

3:26

going in enlisted. So my dad asked

3:28

really good questions and whatnot. I was gung

3:31

ho about actually joining the Marine Corps. Would love that, Rob,

3:33

I'm sure but my

3:35

my father said, look, at the end of the day,

3:37

after having these conversations with these recruiters,

3:40

I'm actually pretty bullish about either the Navy

3:42

or the Air Force for you because this

3:44

focus on education and there's

3:47

some transferable skill sets that you can kind

3:49

of apply into the private sector at some point in time,

3:51

so you have some additional optionality. Absolutely

3:54

absolutely. And by the way, just so you know, my

3:56

father very similar, Uh,

3:59

we want to to talk to all everybody.

4:01

Uh, and actually was like, you know, the Air Force a pretty

4:04

good deal here and no DA and so

4:06

I understand that as well. But back

4:09

to your story. So the recruiters

4:11

come and go, and the best salesman out

4:13

of all of them was the Air Force.

4:16

Yes, I would say, I would say they

4:18

kind of checked more of the boxes for

4:20

for for dad, I was really more

4:22

just kind of bullish about joining the service.

4:25

And what planted the sea for me

4:27

was my grandfather, my father's father. He

4:30

had actually worked for the British

4:33

Air Force in India because

4:35

the Brits at colonized India

4:37

at one point in time, and so

4:40

I that kind of planted the sea for me about military

4:42

service and the structure,

4:44

the discipline, the ability to travel. Now

4:47

was my chance to kind of go put this into

4:49

reality, and so I said, all right,

4:52

let's do the Air Force. And

4:56

I started initially coming in to

4:59

focus on the light, wide band and telemetory

5:01

systems. So there

5:03

I was supposed to be basically setting up communications

5:06

and remote areas fast

5:08

forward within my my enlisting

5:10

time, I basically said, well, I want to do something a little bit more

5:12

hands on, you know, enter Lackland

5:14

Air Force based in San Antonio, Texas, and

5:17

they start introducing us to the pair of rescue team,

5:19

the combat control team, and so

5:21

I said, I wanted to do security forces actually,

5:24

and because it's it's the basically

5:26

the infantry of the United States Air Force. And

5:29

and so that's how I kind of got my entrance

5:31

into the into the military, and how

5:33

we got into security forces as a career field.

5:36

That's fantastic. The security forces in the Air

5:38

Force are outstanding. They really are

5:41

very well trained, incredible skill set from

5:43

a war fighting perspective and security

5:46

perspective because you're always on the cutting

5:48

edge of technology

5:50

and communications and

5:53

you know, go down the list of I

5:55

T possibilities. Air forces

5:57

always out there in front as they should

5:59

be. They're the most advanced force we

6:01

have. So you find yourself in the security

6:04

force, you find yourself developing really

6:06

amazing skill sets. As far as I can tell,

6:09

did you ever have an opportunity to deploy

6:12

or or go forward with all this? I

6:14

did, actually, uh, and and it sounds

6:16

like reading some of your history, Rob, I think

6:18

we may have actually overlapped in in

6:20

Afghanistan at at some point in

6:23

time. So eleven

6:25

happens. I'm actually at M sixty school in

6:27

San Antonio, Texas, the the goodal

6:29

M sixty machine gun. We had just completed

6:31

our full training. We're now deployable,

6:34

and we got orders to go support

6:37

an operation in Afghanistan

6:39

to start to take out some of these

6:41

camps, the training camps. I

6:44

believe we got orders around October

6:46

seven, I want to say, to start

6:49

engaging in support of

6:51

the bombing of some of these things. So our our role

6:53

in it was to get in secure the airfield

6:55

within Kandahar and later

6:58

on make sure the assets our aircraft

7:01

were secured. And so that's uh,

7:03

that was our role. And I was on the ground

7:05

for about three months or so. Oh wow,

7:07

So this is the fall of two thousand one. Yes,

7:10

Oh we did. I'm sure we did cross paths

7:12

then, whether it was going through K two or because

7:14

I was in the north. I was in Missouri Sharief. But

7:17

but there wasn't many. There wasn't a whole lot

7:20

there in the fall of two thousand one. We were a

7:22

very small footprint. Yes, as

7:24

you can. You remember. Uh, now they've

7:26

got freaking burger kings and stuff at these

7:28

bases. You know, back

7:31

then we didn't have porterfar We're still digging our own

7:33

holes. So so what was your experience

7:35

like then? I would say, you

7:37

know, that deployment first off was

7:40

eye opening. You know, you train, you train, you train,

7:43

and then it's a matter of execution. And I

7:45

remember just almost having a little bit of an outer body

7:47

experience on that first deployment

7:50

to kanadaar I took it

7:52

so personally, right, I'm from New

7:54

York. Why are we in Afghanistan?

7:56

It's because we got attacked on nine eleven

7:59

and couldn't have been more proud to be able

8:01

to do something. The whole spirit here

8:04

within the United States was it's

8:06

a big call to action. Everybody

8:08

wants to do something, even if

8:10

supporting your local firehouse, your local police

8:13

Department, anything in the community that you

8:15

could do to bring us all together,

8:17

and I couldn't. I was so unbelievably

8:20

proud to just take the fight to the enemy.

8:23

Having come from New York. Because I just took it, took it that much

8:25

more personally. It wasn't just our country that was attacked, it was

8:27

our city. I'm right there with you. I was in

8:29

New York on not eleven. I took it very personally.

8:32

Um, I was in the reserves at the time. I just

8:34

left active duty and I've only been a resource for

8:37

a year, uh and volunteer to go back

8:39

on active duty because of that very same thing. I

8:41

took it very personally. It felt

8:43

like a call, and I just felt lucky

8:45

that I was in uniform and I was in a position that

8:48

I could go do something about it. The

8:51

Shot completed his second deployment in two

8:53

thousand three to kirk Cook, Iraq.

8:56

His mission was intelligence gathering and converting

8:58

an old Iraqi Force space into

9:01

a US Air Force space. When

9:03

the Shot returned home, he was met

9:05

with a new set of challenges and obstacles

9:08

to overcome, but he also

9:10

found an appreciation for some of

9:12

the values instilled in him from his time

9:14

overseas. Was

9:18

there a takeaway? Was there something where you went, Wow,

9:20

that is a lesson I'll never forget. Um.

9:23

Did you have any moments like that? Did you have any epiphanies

9:25

like that? I think the big

9:27

takeaway was, of course, on teamwork and

9:29

what it means right. You you

9:31

say what you're going to do and then you do what you're

9:34

actually going to say, and you don't actually necessarily

9:36

see that in the civilian

9:38

sector, as you were saying, and that's a point

9:40

of frustration. But when I came

9:42

back, I was frustrated the fact

9:44

that that folks were saying that they were going to do things,

9:47

they had a more kind of a political lens to why

9:50

they were doing it. It wasn't necessarily

9:52

about the mission. It was about

9:55

self preservation, I think for folks more

9:57

than anything else. And that was that's been a bit frustrating

9:59

still to kind of observe as a behavior. And

10:02

when I came back, I would say

10:05

I needed to find that mission again, because I

10:07

looked at everything that I was doing

10:09

in my life as if it was a mission, and I

10:11

had to break it down to its representative objectives.

10:14

When I did that, it made it made the

10:16

integration back to civilian life far more digestible.

10:19

If you will, Yeah, and you're you're still

10:21

right too, because I talked to so many veterans

10:23

and I hear the same thing in

10:25

different ways, but I hear the same

10:28

themes and some of those things

10:30

are you know, they

10:32

miss having a mission, they

10:34

missed the purpose, they missed the integrity

10:37

of the communication. You

10:39

know, if I say, if I say to you, we're

10:42

going to do something, you can pretty much count

10:44

that we're going to try to do this thing. We

10:46

understand our roles, we understand our responsibilities,

10:49

we understand the team, the bigger picture, we

10:51

understand serving the mission. So we're gonna

10:54

find ways to make it happen. We're gonna adapt,

10:56

you know, if that means I got to do something different or that

10:59

will will find the way, we'll get the mission

11:01

done. And it was service

11:03

to this bigger purpose. You hit on

11:05

something that reminded me of

11:08

three things that I just still live by today

11:10

and it's been ingrained in me since my

11:12

time in service. Uh, the Air Force

11:15

has three core values, and I would imagine it's

11:17

got to be somewhat similar across all the different branches.

11:19

But it's integrity first, it's

11:21

service before self, and it's excellence

11:24

in all we do. It sounds hokey,

11:26

of course to say those things, but how

11:28

do you actually live those values out is

11:31

a very different story. And you

11:33

know, coming back into civilian life was

11:36

initially challenging because of the reasons that we

11:38

said earlier, and my integration

11:40

back became frustrated for that very reason.

11:42

I think I found myself to be pretty angry for

11:45

no good reason. I was telling this to you

11:47

know, friends earlier. But something as harmless

11:49

is like playing video games with my younger brother. He

11:52

was cheating and or

11:55

maybe I don't know younger

11:58

brothers, there was a way to cheat. They know the coding

12:00

or something trick. I

12:02

remember getting so upset with him

12:05

that I got up,

12:07

threw the controller down, and I punched

12:09

a hole in the door and

12:11

I'm like, whoa, that was not a commenced

12:14

response to a video game.

12:16

And I remember at that point I

12:18

was like, Okay, I need to go start seeking

12:20

some counseling. I need to start having some conversations

12:23

with some folks, because that's that's

12:25

a flag for sure. So I started

12:27

to reach out to the v A. I started to reach out to

12:29

a couple of other like Wounded Warrior Project

12:32

and a few other folks. I

12:35

wasn't necessarily taking it seriously in terms

12:37

of the follow up. And then another day

12:39

I found myself at a right

12:41

aid CBS something like that. So

12:44

I'm on my way to check

12:46

out, and somebody

12:49

literally comes over from my right side,

12:52

and for whatever reason not logical

12:54

at all, ROB like, this person I think

12:57

of them is trying to go after my pistol

12:59

that's on I thought, which clearly do not have a

13:01

pistol in my thought, and I grabbed

13:03

that person's hand, I put them in an armor

13:06

and I put them down, and I caused

13:08

such a scene. I'm like, yep, we're not

13:10

going to do this anymore. We need to start taking

13:12

counseling very very seriously.

13:15

And so I started to

13:17

talk to folks through the v A and

13:19

it's it was. It was a process for a while.

13:22

I feel so much better for having

13:24

done it. And thankfully, in the spectrum

13:26

of you know, what they've diagnosed as post traumatic

13:28

stress disorder, which is like a big

13:30

tent of whatever, I

13:33

would say, that's like the lowest grade, you know, in terms

13:35

of what other folks may be going through, and

13:37

so that was a tough part of the

13:40

integration back. But then connecting, reconnecting

13:42

with the folks that I had served with, who came from

13:45

all over the country, all economic

13:47

classes, talking about that experience

13:50

made it actually easier for all of us in terms

13:52

of our integration back into society. Um,

13:55

so that was that was helpful. I'm

13:58

glad you brought that up though, because it is

14:00

in critically important and it's it's one of the reasons

14:02

we're you know, talking today, is because again,

14:05

the veterans that I've visited with yourself

14:07

included, you know, when they get home

14:10

and they are experiencing these things, they don't

14:12

understand and why am I Why am I

14:14

willing to get out of my car and punch this guy

14:16

because I perceived that he cut me

14:19

off. You know, maybe he just didn't

14:21

see me. Maybe I don't know, but there's a rage level

14:23

that's inexplicable. You just can't understand

14:26

it. And then then you start to question yourself

14:28

and you start to panic, and you start to think what's

14:30

wrong with me? And and then the

14:32

worst case scenario, you isolate. That's

14:35

where veterans get into so much trouble is when

14:37

they isolate and they think I'm the

14:39

only one with this problem. There's something wrong with me.

14:41

Why could everybody else deal with it? And I can't

14:43

and it's snowballs, uh and

14:46

it's terrible. So the v

14:48

A and other organizations great for

14:51

being able to just go talk to someone and when

14:54

they when you hear their stories, you're like, oh,

14:57

I'm not a freak, I'm not weird,

15:00

I'm not you know, this is happening across

15:02

the spectrum and talking

15:04

about it's a good thing and recognizing it like you

15:06

did. Being able to say that wasn't proportionate.

15:10

I need to talk to somebody. You know. I'm

15:12

proud of you for being able to say I need to talk to some because

15:14

a lot of people say, oh God, something's wrong

15:16

with me, and then God forbid, they start

15:19

self medicating or any of that other garbage. Being

15:21

able to talk to someone else and realize,

15:24

oh, no, I'm you know what these it's

15:26

it's almost like when you learn about the steps of

15:28

grieving. You know, there's five steps

15:30

to the grieving process, and once you

15:32

learn them, you're like, oh, well that explains this,

15:34

this and this and and it actually

15:36

makes sense to you and you're able to deal with it better.

15:39

And I think that's what you're describing with

15:41

your outreach and your connection with these

15:43

veterans organizations. And that's huge

15:46

for our audience to hear that, because I that's if

15:48

nothing else, I hope they take that away that if

15:50

they are ever feeling this way, if they go talk

15:52

to someone, they might not be so lonely on this. If

15:56

there's so many of us that

15:58

have kind of gone through such traumatic

16:00

experiences, and you made an even view it to

16:02

be traumatic because for so much e's move but there's

16:06

no harm. And of course talking to somebody that actually

16:08

could probably understand it better than other

16:10

folks in the civilian world. I think that was you

16:13

know, that's part of our frustration obviously, right coming

16:15

back into civilian life, is how

16:17

do I articulate this in words that

16:20

experience. I don't want to talk about feelings.

16:22

It's not about I. It's about a

16:24

team. You've always been serving in a team. It's

16:26

it's odd to be kind of talking about one

16:29

individual and and that that yourself,

16:31

or if you're talking to a wounded service

16:33

member who's got been you know, drastically wounded

16:36

catastrophically wounded. You know, you feel

16:38

like, well, my my experience doesn't

16:40

rate any attention when I see these

16:43

catastrophically wounded troops. So

16:46

then you you tend to clam

16:48

up and go back in your shell, when the truth is

16:50

is your experience is just as valid. You

16:52

just need to talk about it so you can work

16:55

the process and get through it. I

16:57

want to ask you something that you know, maybe different

17:00

cult, I don't know, but to talk about.

17:02

But there was a time when you lost

17:04

your vision. Yes, take me

17:06

if you would, from the beginning to the end.

17:09

How did it evolve? I mean,

17:11

what was the diagnosis, What

17:14

was going on in your mind as

17:16

this was unfolding for you. I still

17:18

get a little bit choked up about this. But

17:22

so I had just come back from

17:24

UH service in Iraq, moved

17:27

back home to New York, living with my folks.

17:29

I enrolled at St. John's. I'm taking some classes

17:32

online and one

17:34

day I start to see that my

17:37

vision in my right eye starts to start

17:39

to go. So I had vision, remarkable

17:41

vision, And what

17:44

was happening was that there was it

17:47

looked like basically whatever

17:49

was in front of me looked like it was three

17:52

houses over or something like that. It looked like

17:54

pretty far away and it was happening

17:56

to one eye pretty dramatically, and my dad was

17:58

like, you're just you know, you're going out

18:01

to the clubs too much and smoking too much shisha

18:03

and stuff like that. And I said, no, this

18:06

is for real, this is something that's going on,

18:08

and I don't know quite

18:10

what to do. So I thought rest

18:12

would make it a little bit better. So I let a little bit

18:14

more time elapse. Then I start

18:17

to losing in my other eye, and I

18:19

finally tell my dad. I said, either you're gonna

18:21

take me to the hospital, or I'm gonna call

18:23

a cabinet, or I'm gonna walk and take myself, but

18:25

I need to get to the hospital ASA, because something's

18:28

wrong here. For sure. I get

18:31

to the hospital, the

18:33

doctors didn't know how best to diagnose it. They

18:35

start running all these different scans. At one point,

18:37

I think the consensus was that I had multiple

18:40

sclerosis MS, and

18:43

at that point I'm just devastated,

18:46

But you know, keep as much composure as

18:48

possible because it's just a diagnosis.

18:50

For now. The more time that's elapsing,

18:52

the worst my vision is getting. And

18:55

the next day, I'm lucky enough to get an appointment

18:57

to go see this retinas specialist in Great Neck.

19:00

Shout out to Dr Jeffrey Shaken,

19:02

who's remarkable. It took

19:04

him some time to to actually figure out what was

19:06

going on. He said, this is a

19:08

rare condition, but it's called void coin

19:11

Nagi Hurada. It's named after the three scientists

19:13

that studied it. And I

19:15

don't think I've seen this since I was in med school. And

19:17

this, mind you, this guy was like seventy

19:21

or so. He says, Nishantha,

19:24

this is if not treated, what

19:26

ends up happening with this thing, is your retinas

19:28

detached. Yes, so you go completely

19:30

blind and your your

19:33

hair follicles they all turn white, and

19:35

then you start to lose your hearing. So

19:39

he said, it's good you're here. Now. They start

19:41

to run a vision test and I remember my dad being

19:43

next to me, and my dad's a pretty stoic guy, and

19:46

um, he definitely never

19:48

likes to project any sort

19:50

of kind of vulnerabilities because we've gone through

19:52

so much in our childhood. I mean, I didn't even get

19:54

into the fact that Mom wasn't

19:57

around and all these other things. But he's

19:59

a he's a pretty well composed guy, and

20:02

he I hear him break down a little

20:04

bit. He starts to he starts to

20:06

cry because, Um, they

20:08

literally put a license plate in front of my face. I

20:10

couldn't tell you what letters

20:12

or numbers or anything like that. He's like, my God,

20:16

what happened? And thankfully they put me

20:18

on this kind of high dose

20:20

I think of like prednisone or something like that. And

20:23

for about two months I

20:25

didn't have strong vision at all. I think

20:27

my vision when they did that test was about

20:29

twenty eight hundreds. So literally that license

20:31

plate, I couldn't tell you a single letter

20:34

or number that was on there. At that point,

20:36

I kind of took that. I felt like I've taken so

20:38

much of for granted with my own vision. I

20:40

think for the first time in my life, I had

20:43

a panic attack. I don't think I've ever had a panic

20:45

attack before in my life. Despite all the

20:48

crazy and fun experiences that I've been through to

20:50

date, this was the first

20:52

time where I felt like, oh my gosh, I need to work

20:54

on my breathing. I need to get

20:57

my composure back, get regain

20:59

that perspective so that I can kind

21:01

of continue. But that that was a

21:03

big. That's a big, big

21:05

moment for me. And and I

21:08

assume, I don't want to assume anything, but it

21:11

appears that you have had a full recovery.

21:13

I have had a full recovery, thankfully. I

21:16

wanted to, you know, look at this almost from like a military

21:18

perspective, like, what's my after action here?

21:20

What what happened? What's the diagnosis, what's

21:22

the root cause analysis. I go

21:24

to the doctor and said, what, you know, what happened

21:27

here? How do I prevent this from ever happening again?

21:29

And you know what, what what was the

21:31

cause of all this? And so he

21:33

said, look, the only thing I could speculate, because

21:36

this is a rare eye condition that's if

21:38

if at all prevalent, it's within the

21:40

Japanese community. And you

21:43

know, I haven't done it twenty three in me and

21:45

I know I don't have any Japanese ancestry.

21:47

But he said, the only other thing that could

21:49

be is that you had to exposure

21:52

potentially to some sort of kind of chemical

21:54

warfare or those sort of elements.

21:57

It makes a ton of sense because you spent a year in

21:59

theater in you Rock and the

22:01

hometown of the guy who ran the chemical

22:03

warfare program. You know, who knows,

22:05

who knows. I still don't know to this day

22:07

exactly what the cause

22:11

was, but the retina specialist

22:13

is pretty bullish on the fact that it was something that we

22:15

were potentially exposed to when we were over there, and

22:18

my body reacted to it um in some

22:20

you know, over a period of time. But

22:22

thankfully thing it's in remission

22:25

now and I do constantly

22:27

monitor, um, you

22:29

know, what's what's going on with the vision. But yeah,

22:32

one of the scariest moments of my life. For sure.

22:35

It had to be. It had to be. I you

22:37

know, you talk about that fear of that anxiety

22:40

and that panic attack, and I

22:42

hate that feeling because I know it

22:44

and it's a terrible feeling. So

22:47

I can empathize, especially when you're

22:49

faced with the possibility of losing

22:51

your sight out of the blue. You're going

22:53

through life and then all of a sudden you

22:56

know you're being threatened with that. That's a

22:58

tremendous thing to over come. Stay

23:04

tuned for more of the Shan story after the

23:06

break. Welcome

23:20

back to veterans. You should know you

23:26

have this diverse background. You worked for

23:28

domestic policy right as

23:30

an analyst for Goldman Sachs. You were

23:32

worked in the US Agency for Internal

23:35

Development. I gotta know what that is. And

23:37

you work now currently for

23:39

Chobani and you're the chief of staff of

23:41

the CEO, so you're the aide. You're

23:44

the aide de camp uh,

23:46

but even higher than your chief of staff. So

23:49

you're really getting uh.

23:51

Probably one of the greatest seats in the world

23:54

as far as learning and understanding

23:56

leadership like that is one

23:58

of the great grooming position is to

24:00

be in to become a leader. Hello,

24:02

Mr President. So

24:05

that's what I keep saying, because you're bound for leadership.

24:07

So tell us about that. Tell us about your civilian

24:10

son. So I I come back to

24:13

civilian life around two thousand five,

24:16

and I am behind

24:18

the ball, if you will. From my peers.

24:21

They had each gone off to college and

24:24

now they're in the workforce in New York City

24:26

and they're earning. And so I said, Okay, I

24:28

need to catch up, and I need to catch

24:30

up fast because I need to make some money. Uh,

24:33

I need to get my degree. Uh.

24:35

So I go off to I enroll at St.

24:37

John's University. Thank god, they

24:40

are so thoughtful about

24:42

supporting folks that are returning from

24:44

service, I ended up going there for free. Basically

24:48

they their their remarkable

24:50

institution. At the same time, I said,

24:53

I'm still missing this kind of mission aspect

24:55

of things, and I still want to break it down to its representative

24:58

parts again. And so I

25:00

hear President Clinton speak

25:03

and he's talking about setting up this foundation

25:06

and it's focused on international

25:08

as well as domestic and those sorts

25:10

of things, and so I was like, wow,

25:12

this is this is pretty remarkable stuff this

25:14

guy is doing, and it's here in New York and I

25:17

happen to be available on

25:19

nights and weekends. I want to enroll

25:22

and as many classes as possible so I can catch

25:24

up to my peers and at

25:26

the same time work for this guy

25:29

and whatever capacity I can work in

25:31

and keep that mission going.

25:34

So I end up working on looking

25:37

at gentrification issues actually within New

25:39

York City. One of the things I think that

25:41

President Clinton and others have gotten

25:43

flak four is like, hey, he set up his office

25:45

in Harlem, and folks said, hey, that's

25:47

the reason that gentrification happened in uh

25:50

in Harlem, when in reality, like economic

25:52

livelihoods were actually just increasing and all across

25:54

the country, and folks

25:56

were moving up to the places like Harlem and unfortunately

25:58

pushing out exist sting businesses. So

26:01

what I got to do was actually sit

26:03

in on some of these smaller businesses understand

26:06

their baseline metrics. I got to work

26:08

with a couple of consulting firms and

26:10

we started to put together some plans to

26:13

support those local and small businesses.

26:15

So that's how I got to start to get this flavor of domestic

26:18

policy and what it means to support businesses

26:20

and whatnot. With President Clinton. In

26:24

parallel, going to college, end

26:26

up graduating in just two years, get

26:28

that four year degree done in two years. Fantastic.

26:31

I totally treated like like it was the military. So

26:33

I broke it down and thankfully

26:36

graduated with honors, I think because

26:38

it was just so focused. And I got to travel

26:40

a ton with President Clinton in the process too,

26:42

which was which was awesome because whatever

26:45

your political leanings are, the guys brilliant,

26:48

I mean just brilliant. He he can

26:50

have a full conversation with you, be fully

26:53

engaged while kind of quickly

26:55

looking over his notes, and deliver enough

26:57

to deliver a two hour long

26:59

speech about being a farmer, which you know he's

27:01

never been, but he can he can talk

27:03

about being a farmer as if he's been a farmer's entire

27:05

life while still having a full fledged conversation with

27:07

you. And so working with

27:09

him was pretty remarkable because

27:12

he's like, I see, Nishan, that

27:14

you are pretty motivated to

27:16

want to go off and do big things.

27:19

I would love for you to do it with the within the foundation.

27:22

And now that you've graduated from college, you

27:25

know, what are what are you thinking? You know, post graduation?

27:27

And I said, well, I'm thinking

27:30

about just taking that job at the foundation. He

27:32

said, why don't you forget the job at the foundation

27:35

or forget anything else? Why don't you think about going

27:37

into engineering school or to law

27:39

school? I said, President Clinton, I've

27:41

just worked my tail off to get my four year degree

27:43

done in just two years. With all

27:45

due respect, I have no desire to go work

27:48

on another degree. My peers are earning

27:50

money, everyone's living a good life. I

27:52

don't know if I want to go do this. Had you

27:54

been talking to your dad or something like how did this? I

27:58

think they may have been who knows, so

28:02

he says, He says, he goes, Nishan,

28:05

you have far more life experience than

28:07

your peers do I think

28:10

getting a degree like an engineering degree or

28:12

a law degree, it forces

28:14

you to think outside the box in terms of problem

28:17

solving, and that's what you need in leadership,

28:19

and that's what you need when you reach the

28:21

highest ranks of government or highest ranks

28:23

of of the not for profit

28:25

sector or even business. I was like,

28:27

look, I hear you, lad and clear, but I want to

28:29

just go and make some money.

28:32

So he brought in this guy, Bob Harrison.

28:35

Bob used to run the Clinton Global Initiative,

28:37

and Bob used to be a partner at Goldman

28:39

Sachs. He's like, you've got to think about

28:42

what does the public sector actually need.

28:44

It needs to understand how to create sustainable

28:47

programming and understand what a bottom

28:49

line actually looks like. And so these are

28:51

all fungible skills you need to learn

28:53

that in the private sector. What better training ground

28:55

than Goldman Sacks. And you

28:57

can transition off into the

29:00

public sector at some point in time if you decide to in the

29:02

future, what was the time frame was this two

29:04

thousand eight or two thousand seven,

29:07

two thousand seven, and so

29:09

write about the time the ship was hitting the fans,

29:11

so to speak. Financially exactly

29:13

exactly. I'm now thinking

29:15

about whether or not this Goldman

29:17

Sax move is the right one. And then finally, I

29:19

think the main key thing that kind of drove

29:22

it home for me was President Clinton and

29:24

Bob both say, look, if if

29:26

not for nothing, you make some money, you

29:28

learn something. And the

29:30

beautiful thing is that they

29:32

work in small groups. And so just

29:35

like in the military, you're working in small teams

29:37

and you're working on execution, and that's what these

29:39

guys are highly focused on. But yeah,

29:42

financial crisis comes two

29:44

eight and every

29:46

bank across Wall Street starts laying off a

29:48

bunch of folks to deal with that crisis.

29:51

I'm low on the totem pole, and

29:54

they said, well, guess what, you're responsibly just increased

29:56

by three x because we're

29:59

we gotten rid of a couple of folks. Uh.

30:02

And thankfully, you know, affirmed like Coleman,

30:04

they have remarkable training, remarkable

30:07

leaders and folks that have gone on to become Secretaries

30:09

of Treasury and masters and so forth.

30:12

So I felt like I was well

30:15

equipped, well, you know, trained to kind

30:17

of go execute in the midst of what was

30:20

you know, what do they call it? The greatest recession

30:23

since the depression. Later

30:27

in the Shot would go on to earn his MBA

30:29

degree. One day, he received

30:31

a call from his friend with a job

30:34

offer. Come work at the U. S

30:36

Department of Agriculture. Without

30:38

any background in agriculture, but plenty of

30:40

applicable life experience, the Shot

30:42

joined the U S D as Chief Scientist

30:45

and the Division of Research, Education

30:47

and Economics. His Balls was

30:49

then nominated to run the US Agency

30:52

for Internal Development. It's the

30:54

arm of the government that focuses on humanitarian

30:56

assistance around the world. The

30:58

Shot followed his ball loss into this

31:00

new agency. His first week on

31:02

the job, the earthquake in Haiti happened,

31:05

and the Shan found himself boots on the ground

31:08

helping organize the relief response.

31:11

The Shan's resume is a list of fearless

31:13

career moves. Today, he is the chief

31:15

of staff to the Chief executive Officer

31:17

of Chobani. If

31:22

you were to look at my resume, it's

31:25

like a hodgepodge of things and you're like, what is

31:27

the how do I threat this all together? And

31:30

I would say this experience working

31:33

with the founder and CEO of Chobani is

31:35

a kind of a culmination of it all in in some

31:38

thoughtful kind of packaged role. What

31:40

I really identified, you know, with Handy,

31:42

who's the founder of the business, is that he's

31:45

a small business guy. You know, he came from

31:47

Turkey, immigrated here in he

31:50

came here just to learn English. He ends up getting a small

31:52

business administration loan and only

31:55

has about three thousand dollars or so in his pocket, starts

31:58

learning English a little bit, arts creating

32:00

this cheese business, turns it into something that

32:02

we all you know, enjoy today,

32:04

which is Chabanni. It's a it's a remarkable

32:07

brand. I saw so many elements

32:09

of my own family and him, So if

32:11

he were to actually come in here right now, he'd probably call

32:13

me brother before he says anything, because we actually

32:16

truly treat each other like we're a family. That's

32:18

fantastic. More than anything outside

32:20

of just the phenomenal products and so forth,

32:23

what Hammy kind of stands for, outside

32:25

of his origin story and how he got here

32:27

to the States and and built the brand, what

32:30

he stands for today is he's the antithesis

32:33

of a lot of the CEOs that he

32:35

saw growing up. He said, look, business

32:38

should be a force for good

32:40

it should be a force for change, positive

32:42

change in communities. We want to do

32:44

what's good for the customer,

32:47

and then we also want to do what's good for the communities in which

32:49

we operate. You seem to find

32:52

purpose and mission and everything you do.

32:54

Tell us about your mission. Uh with

32:56

Chabanni, tell us about why

32:59

that's important to you. Uh.

33:01

Tavani is pretty unique place it

33:04

Uh. You know, we don't have a corporate

33:06

social responsibility type of department

33:08

within the company itself. The whole

33:10

company, from the lowest

33:12

levels to the highest levels, they

33:15

kind of always want to do what's right for the community.

33:17

And so the mission for us is always

33:19

delivering delicious, nutritious,

33:22

natural and accessible food. So

33:24

we follow this acronym using our military

33:26

world d n n A, and

33:30

the accessibility part of it became front

33:32

and center for me, you know, particularly during the pandemic,

33:35

we turned our cafe into a food

33:37

bank. We structured different partnerships

33:39

to kind of get our products into food

33:42

banks across the country. A lot

33:44

of great companies came across and decided to

33:46

go support delivering food. There

33:48

was so much food and security actually, which was so surprising

33:50

to see during the pandemic so

33:52

it was pretty awesome to be a part of a company

33:55

that thinks about food not

33:57

only for just like our specific customers, but for

33:59

the entire country. So it's that acronym

34:02

of delicious, nutritious, natural, accessible, is

34:04

like kind of like, what's the mission and

34:06

delivering getting that food out there. That's

34:09

a really great mission. I can see why you wanted to

34:11

get on board with it. I would say one

34:13

other thing though, that Hampty is very

34:15

much focused on is refugees,

34:17

and so of our work

34:19

force Sierra at Chabani is composed of immigrants

34:22

and refugees. In fact, I think at one point in time

34:24

we had maybe like nineteen translators in the plant

34:27

helping refugees kind of get integrated

34:29

into supporting the mission of

34:32

developing our our yogurt products

34:34

up in upstate New York. Because we had totally

34:36

employed everybody in one town, we

34:38

said, what's the next town over? They said it's Utica.

34:40

Utica has got this big refugee population. Uh.

34:43

And they said, but hobdy, they don't really speak English

34:45

that well. He's like, great, I don't speak English that well either.

34:48

Will bust them over and we'll get translators

34:50

and we'll train them how to do the job. So where

34:52

I get to kind of come full circle now is

34:55

this country is a wonderful place

34:57

for opportunity, and you have the

34:59

refue g cap that's now since risen, and

35:02

we're now also supporting folks

35:04

that served in uniform with US in Afghanistan.

35:08

So the special immigrant folks that came over are

35:10

coming over to this country with a special immigrant visa.

35:13

They're looking for opportunities, they're looking for jobs.

35:15

And so Hamdi's got a foundation

35:18

called the Tent Foundation. Uh and Chibani

35:20

is one of the anchor kind of businesses that's supporting

35:23

the Tent Foundation in terms of employing

35:25

those refugees in uh

35:27

Chibani and other businesses across the country.

35:30

I love that, I really really love that

35:32

that that to me is fulfilling promises

35:35

of keeping our word as

35:37

a nation. So your

35:40

commitment to veterans

35:42

is pretty clear. Your your commitment

35:45

to this country is obvious. What are some ways that you

35:47

stay connected to the ventry community.

35:50

The military is such a big part of my life in terms

35:52

of shaping who I was and creating

35:54

that structure. I wanted to figure out what's

35:57

the best way to kind of engage and help some of

35:59

these veteran service to organizations give

36:01

back to the community. And so I said, well,

36:03

how how can I be a thought partner for

36:05

them? So I took a few approaches. One

36:08

was I had this transition out of the military

36:10

to go into the private sector, and I had

36:13

my learning experience when I was looking at those different

36:15

bios and so forth, and so

36:17

I said, I could be a mentor to folks.

36:19

And so I started serving as a mentor to veterans

36:22

that were leaving the service to help

36:24

them figure out how they can come up with their game plan

36:26

to go join the private sector. The

36:28

other way that I did it was actually with Shabani

36:31

itself. One day I was sitting down

36:33

with our founder and CEO and said, hey,

36:35

this is been a big part

36:37

of my life. I would love more than anything to

36:39

kind of give back. And he said,

36:42

well what are you thinking. I said, well, why don't we use the power

36:44

of the brand to go support

36:46

other NGOs that are supporting veterans.

36:48

And so the other piece of it was on

36:51

housing. So there's a beauty of wonderful

36:53

NGO called the Operation home Front. We

36:56

ended up structuring a partnership with them

36:59

at Chabani and we created a red,

37:01

white and blue yogurt. Actually, so every

37:04

dollar that you buy of the

37:06

Operation Homefront SKEW

37:09

goes to go support veterans getting homes.

37:11

So that was another way in which to kind of stay

37:14

engaged and support the veteran

37:16

community. And then finally I looked

37:18

at I A v a UM,

37:21

and I said, well, how can how can I help

37:24

those? One of one of their commercials that they had was super

37:26

powerful, and I don't know if you remember this one, Rob, but

37:28

it was a veteran that's in the middle

37:31

of I want to say, Madison Square

37:33

Park, he's walking, he's

37:35

alone, and then he

37:37

goes to shake another veteran's

37:39

hand, and all of a sudden everything

37:41

kind of comes to life. And I

37:44

said, well, I can continue to also serve

37:47

as an advocate, a mentor for

37:49

folks that are kind of coming

37:51

out of military service and help them

37:53

also with their jobs. So I looked at

37:55

two different vsos to go help them

37:58

with the job Integration vis IS

38:01

For those listening at Home Veteran Service

38:03

Organization Veterans, Okay, thank you very

38:06

much our acronyms. You know, I

38:08

don't want to lose anybody, I want them to stay with this something

38:10

because that's amazing. That's the kind of

38:12

work that I don't know, I love hearing about it.

38:14

I think there's probably I think the last

38:16

I heard there was something crazy like

38:19

fifty registered

38:21

veterans organizations, and I think I've met with

38:23

all of them, um for one

38:25

reason or another. You know, they want me to be a spokesperson

38:28

or do something. And I listened to their missions

38:30

and they're they're always amazing. But

38:32

to hear when these organizations

38:35

are supported by Corporate America or

38:37

supported by other

38:40

resources that can make their missions

38:42

come true, help them fulfill what they

38:44

set out to do, to me, is

38:47

one of the most honorable things in the world. So thank

38:49

you, Thank you so much for continuing

38:51

to keep that bridge open

38:54

between the civilian and the veteran community.

38:57

I will just add one thing though to it, Rob,

39:00

is a lot of a lot of

39:02

us that you have served in uniform.

39:04

Nobody wants to hand out. And

39:07

I would say a lot of these veteran service

39:10

organizations are structured in such a way

39:12

that they're just providing you the tools, They're not necessarily

39:15

handing everything you onto you with

39:17

a silver platter, so you're not being spoon fed.

39:19

These are great institutions that are out there,

39:22

and I'm so happy that it's grown to be. You know over,

39:25

I love that too, and I'm with you. I think most

39:28

of the least of the organizations I work with

39:30

are designed to give you tools and skills

39:33

so that you can be a self sustaining

39:36

individual, so that you can go out there and succeed

39:38

exactly. So thank

39:40

you so much for spending time with

39:43

us and talking to us and telling us your

39:45

story. Uh, it's a remarkable

39:47

one. I can't wait to hear what

39:49

you're gonna do next as far as whether

39:52

you're going to continue to develop

39:54

in the private sector or if you're gonna become president of United

39:56

States. It's whatever you want. Although

39:58

right now being PRESIDENTE say, it's a tough job, real,

40:01

real tough job. Nobody there's

40:03

nobody. Nobody's winning that one right now. So but

40:06

whatever you do, just keep being a leader because

40:08

that's what this country needs. So thank you very much for

40:11

your time. It was a pleasure meeting you. Thank

40:13

you, Rob. I really appreciate being on the program,

40:15

and thank you for doing what you've done

40:17

in terms of your service of the country my pleasure.

40:30

I want to thank the Sean Roy again for joining

40:32

me on today's podcast. I am

40:34

beyond and pressed with his drive and

40:36

his career, and I cannot wait to see what new

40:39

role in industry he decides to

40:41

tackle next. Who knows, maybe

40:43

we'll be a run for the Oval Office. Thanks

40:53

for listening to Veterans you Should Know. To hear

40:55

more inspiring stories of perseverance

40:58

and camaraderie, check out all our episodes,

41:00

including those from season one, featuring

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veterans who have overcome incredible obstacles

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and found renewed purpose in their civilian

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lives. If you enjoyed this

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episode, please rate and review the podcast.

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We would love to hear from you. You

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can listen to the show on the I Heart

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Radio app, Apple podcast, or

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wherever you listen to your favorite podcast.

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Veterans you Should Know as a special four parts

41:24

series from I Heart Radio and hosted

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by me Rob Wriggle. Our

41:29

show is written and produced by Molly

41:32

Sosia, Nikkia Swinton, and Jackie

41:34

Perez, with assistance from Quincy

41:36

Fuller. The show is edited,

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sound designed and mixed by James

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Foster and Matt Stilla.