This segment is a Veteran Focused talk show that showcases individuals and companies in the community and is focused on Veteran leadership, service, stories and transition. Our Veteran host highlights other Veterans who serve, have served and who are doing great things in their business and in their community. Today our host, Captain Rick Hoffman spoke with Gary Spraggins.
Gary Spraggins
Consultant/SME at Advance Sciences And Technology
Website Address: https://www. adv-sci-tech.com
Short company description:
Corporation providing systems engineering services in the areas of design and management of complex Naval ship operations and aerospace systems. Full system Life cycle approach.
What is one question you would like the host to ask you?
There is a big discussion in the world and specifically in the US about ‘Shipbuilding’. Does the discussion include Sustainment of these assets?
What’s one thing we should know that makes your company unique?
Cooperative Internal and external culture
How do you define success?
Personally a Happy Family. professionally respect from peers.
How did you get started in your field of work?
A friend asked if I wanted to go to Egypt and support their efforts.
What was the most impactful moment of your transition out of the military?
A realization that ‘ASAP’ or ‘I take care of it’ in the civilian world doesn’t equate to a sense of urgency or responsibility I grew up in as a US Naval sailor.
Transcript:
Rick Hoffman:
Welcome back to From the Sea to the Sea Suite. I’m your host, Captain Rick Hoffman, where we talk to people here in Jacksonville who served mostly in the Navy because we are in Jacksonville and who’ve had the opportunity to now transition into the community, continue to serve, in various capacities.
But today, our guest, Gary Spraggins, comes from science, advanced sciences and technology.
I have to laugh. You and I first met 15 years ago when you were doing a transfer of the USS Mach underneath the Pakistani Navy.
Gary Spraggins:
Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
Rick Hoffman:
And you use spent. You served as a sonar tech. An active duty?
Gary Spraggins:
Yes, sir.
Rick Hoffman:
And, And then when you retired from the Navy, you continued to serve on board ships in a variety of nations.
Gary Spraggins:
Yes. Well, thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. It’s a pleasure to have you. We have worked extensively. And going back to the Pakistani Navy and the FMS, the foreign military sales program is, is a very big program for the United States Navy.
And it’s a very complex one that includes geopolitical awareness. It includes politics of working with foreign entities, foreign personnel, foreign hierarchy, foreign military, and it also includes working back with our program officers.
So yes, I’ve been doing that since, since I got out and retired in 99. I enjoy it. I, I enjoy the complexity.
I enjoy having to work under you know, Department of State rules and regulations for international travel, international defense, international capabilities and limitations.
So it’s been a tour and it’s been very rewarding.
I’ve worked in Egypt, as you know, supporting Pakistan with you, doing their maiden voyage and, and getting Pakistan set up with one of our old ships.
And then spent four years in Egypt and four years in Saudi Arabia and, and have been working on the, new transfer program, the new foreign military sales program with advanced sciences and technology, for Saudi Arabia for the last, I’ll say five years or so.
Rick Hoffman:
Yeah. Well, one of the things I like to highlight, when we have these conversations, is the leadership skills that you learn on active duty, and then you transition them.
In your case, it’s even more complex because you’re dealing with really diverse cultures.
Yes, sir. You may be working with Taiwan one day and Pakistan the next day. Not quite that quickly, but still.
Talk a little bit about the resilience necessary to kind of quickly achieve trust and relationships, and set diverse cultures.
Gary Spraggins:
I think the single takeaway and this probably even goes back to my Navy days, is that as a chief, as, chief in the United States Navy, you know, the captain and the leadership on the ships, and Shore Command’s always wanted you to be a straight shooter and give them bad news or good news, no matter what the case.
Yeah, so that they had the tools and resources.
I think that’s exactly spot on for our foreign customers as well. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Turkey programs that I’ve worked with when dealing with the officers, at the, at the program level or dealing with the sailors and helping them, support their chain of command on the ships to fix and repair ex the, the single thing is just tell them straight.
Telling them that they need the training or how to do the training or where to get the parts. How to reach back to the United States. What, what solutions exist?
And, and meeting with them on a daily basis, kind of, I don’t want to say mentor, but showing them what our programs and our successes within the United States Navy and how they convert for them.
So a lot of takeaways from my time in, in the United States Navy and how they translate the complexity of the foreign military program is, is a challenge.
Rick Hoffman:
That is definitely a challenge.
You know, you have the United States government that wants to make the sale, not just the government. You’ve got the State Department and Department of the Navy.
Correct?
Okay.
And then you’re dealing with their political infrastructure.
Yes.
And they’re Navy.
Correct.
And you’ve got you’re selling your basically.
And we learned about this, with the, McEnany you’re dealing with the commanding officer, the ship, who has at that point, a lot of autonomy, too.
I remember the, the, the mooring line conversation that we had, with the CEO of the alum gear.
You’ve got a whole bunch of different conflicting challenges.
It’s a sea. It’s a maelstrom of different challenges and different directions.
How do you navigate all that?
Gary Spraggins:
You start out with what I start out with, what is written down, what is understood to be what my scope of work is.
Yeah. And then I meet with my counterparts.
And that may include having a dialog with the foreign captain for that ship or the foreign commodore for that program office, and understanding what his perspective is.
Yeah. And assuming that there’s alignment there, then it becomes a fairly easy dialog.
If there is disagreement in how he wants to execute it or a timeline that he wants to do it, then I have the role. Usually I have a role in the United States Navy or the Coast Guard or another program office, and we have to have some discussions.
But I found that most of the time our foreign customers rely on us.
They depend on us to give them the straight skinning.
I mean, I was in Saudi Arabia in 2016-17 when the MSC contract was awarded.
And I can tell you that the director of the ship repair facility, that I was there and all of his officers and all the support people were super, super excited that they were receiving four new ships within the next three or 4 or 5 years.
But what I later found out was that what they really wanted, and what they were really hooked on was our programs, our processes, our procedures, how to do maintenance, repair and overhaul, how to do sustainment.
And that is a big deal.
The skills I think of, of leadership, or at least the things that I’ve learned through the day is open communication.
Just don’t be afraid to speak.
Understand what the customer is saying, understand what the foreign entity wants and relay that back to a solution.
So it’s worked for me. I’m happy with where I’m at.
Yeah. I’ve had a lot of friends overseas who still make them in all three of the areas that I’ve worked in.
Rick Hoffman:
Yeah, well, I think you would agree that it doesn’t matter what country you’re in, the skill sets of being a good person who who treats everyone with dignity and respect, treats everybody with, with a sense of equality and, you know, share the importance of your insides in a, in an open fashion.
And once you develop trust, you can go a long distance.
Gary Spraggins:
And I, I agree, it’s funny you should mention Pakistan when I was in Saudi Arabia sometime around 2017 or 18.
I don’t know if you remember, but the chief engineer.
Yeah, he was promoted.
And when I met him, he was now a full board captain and he was running their maintenance facility in Pakistan.
Had flown over to Saudi Arabia to give them condition based maintenance, instruction.
So it’s a small world, even in our community.
Rick Hoffman:
Well, and the commanding officer of Allen Gear ultimately became the naval attaché at the Pakistani embassy.
And I ran into him at the standard surface Navy Association.
So? So, yeah.
Well, Gary, it’s been a real pleasure getting reconnected with you.
It’s been 15 years since we got together, and there is Assalamualaikum with the Pakistanis.
And I know they speak Urdu and I know that was Arabic, but it’s the best I can do on the.
And they also speak Arabic as they do. Of course you do.
And everybody this is, from the sea to the C-suite with Gary Spraggins and, and, connecting with all shipmates and, and, thank you so much for your attention today.
The Daily News Network, Buzz Tv News, and DAILYBIZBRIEF highlight business professionals, nonprofits, veterans and community leaders on over 40 TV Segments including The Horse’s Mouth, Legacy of Leaders TV, Veterans Buzz TV, Finding Your Frequency, and Buzzworthy Businesses.
Teal, The Agency, powered by Client Focused Media, offers marketing agencies a full-service white-label solution to scale their services without the cost or complexity of building large in-house teams. Tailored for small and medium-sized agencies, Teal specializes in relationship-driven lead generation, advanced CRM workflows for personalized client engagement, and end-to-end project fulfillment. With powerful integrations like HighLevel, Stripe, and Zapier, Teal simplifies your operations while optimizing efficiency—saving you valuable time and resources. While other tools on the market like Vendasta, RocketDriver, and DashClicks, may require contracts, Teal provides flexible, no-contract pricing, giving you the freedom to grow on your terms. Ready to elevate your agency’s impact and efficiency? Explore how Teal can help you deliver exceptional results and better serve your clients. Apply on BeTeal.com today to start your journey toward becoming a marketing powerhouse by understanding digital marketing strategies for agencies, SEO best practices for marketing agencies and scaling a marketing agency.
