University of Texas at Dallas: Adam Rivon

Adam, who was in Army ROTC at Prairie View A&M University in Texas, entered active duty as a field artillery officer with the 101st Battalion after graduating with an accounting degree in 2000. At the time of his deployment to Iraq in 2003, he was serving as a staff officer in logistics and overseeing unit movement by land, sea, and air. He worked with General David Petraeus in various capacities and earned a Bronze Star for valor before leaving the Army in May 2004. 

Back in Texas, Adam worked as a construction manager for the real estate company Ryland Homes; became a financial consultant with Ameriprise Financial; and published his first book, The Thousandaire Challenge: The Blueprints of Your Financial Stability (about “how to manage to be wealthy with whatever you have”). In 2009 he enrolled in the MBA program with a finance concentration at the University of Texas at Dallas School of Management, because he realized an MBA would “catapult” him “into a position of visibility and give me opportunities I didn’t yet have.” 

Adam is now fulfilling his goal to get into healthcare management. He works in the executive leadership program with Humana in Louisville, Kentucky, and says, “I’m loving the opportunity to work in the strategy group and deal with all facets of the business.”  In what ways did your military experience prepare you for your MBA program?

Even though I’d been out of school for 10 years, my military background in planning operations gave me the study habits I needed to function more efficiently. Also, in graduate school there are a lot of leadership initiatives. Only two people in my class had been in the military, and we were used to being responsible for a hundred people. So a lot of times, we were the go-to guys for resource management or human capital management.

What was the transition to business school like?

The multitasking skills you get from the military are great for going back to school because you’re able to handle several things at once. While in school, my wife and I had a baby, I worked in my fraternity’s volunteer organizations, and I participated in case competitions. People kind of looked at me and said, “Wow, how do you juggle this stuff?” And it wasn’t really a big deal because it was just the way I had learned to operate. Had I not been trained in managing a hundred troops going in different directions, I probably would have only been able to do school and one other thing.

What’s your best advice to others who are thinking about entering a graduate business program?

If I had to give one piece of advice—outside of to have fun—it would be to get involved. You have a lot of opportunities you don’t know about until you get there. If you want to get more out of school—if you truly want an experience—then you have to be involved.

What’s an example of the kind of experiences business school offers outside the classroom? 

Taking part in a business case competition was something I had never considered, and I ended up winning one of the major ones on campus and flying around the country to represent the university in other competitions. My partner and I presented our idea and business plan to actual private equity analysts and owners, who rated us compared to others. Our product was kind of a combination of a speed bump and security device, using threat-detection equipment and cameras that could scan the base of a vehicle without putting anybody in harm’s way. 

You’ve talked about how a military background makes you a better b-school student. How does an MBA help with the transition from the military to civilian careers? 

There is a certain stigma associated with the military—with our rigor, our training, and the way we operate as a hierarchical organization. When you come out and want to go into a matrixed organization, many times people are not sure you’ll fit in. Most employers value the leadership traits you bring, but they don’t necessarily know how to apply those traits to what they do. 

Adding the MBA to your portfolio broadens your base and allows employers to say, “Oh, he actually can do other things, and he’s open and flexible.” You just need to be able to communicate your skill set during interviews. 

Also, I find that an MBA definitely opens the door to opportunities that otherwise might never have crossed my path. I work in the strategy department now, and the opportunities there don’t come unless you get the MBA. You wouldn’t even know about them—they’re in a part of the organization that you just would never see. 

What’s the best way to sell your experience so it makes sense to people who aren’t in the military? 

When you’re writing a resume, the key is to understand function versus job titles and roles. Corporations don’t have a logistics officer in charge of getting the unit from the United States to Iraq under certain timelines and under cover of darkness. So you need to highlight the learnings you got from those experiences and describe them in terms of what you want to do next, not what you did already. 

For example, if you’re looking to be an operations manager at an oil and gas company, you’d structure your resume to translate what you did to meet the interviewer’s needs. The important thing is to avoid going into details and focus on the strategy, the personnel management, and the budget you worked with so you can sell what you know how to do.