Family, Commitment and Fosters feat. Casey Sherrod '21

[00:00] Intro: Welcome to Owl Have You Know, a podcast from Rice Business. This episode is part of our Flight Path Series, where guests share their career journeys and stories of the Rice connections that got them where they are.

[00:13] Casey: I think getting a business degree is a great leadership degree to have just period, from learning kind of like how corporate America is successful in the way that they do things is very similar to kind of how we run things at a higher level in the military.

[00:31] David: Casey Sherrod is an army officer who served in Afghanistan and is a graduate of Rice Business Class of 2021. In this episode, Casey shares stories and lessons she learned around growing up in a military family, jumping out of planes, applying military and business leadership principles and how she helps to rescue and foster animals with her TikTok account. Welcome back to another episode of Owl Have You Know. On the line, I have Casey Sherrod with me. Casey is a graduate of Rice Business 2021. She's also an Army officer. I’m sure we’ll into a lot of that here pretty soon. So, first and foremost, Casey, welcome to the show.

[01:10] Casey: Thank you. I'm happy to be here.

[01:12] David: All right. Well, we are simpatico in a lot of ways. I was a Navy officer fast-attack submarines many moons ago. So, I have a lot of questions to ask about your military experience, as well as your Rice experience. So, the first thing that comes up—and I really want to make this some fun, I have to ask about your animal rescue efforts and your TikTok account with almost 2 million followers. Good Lord, that's very impressive. But the first thing that popped out to me was, I think, on one of your posts or, perhaps, an article about you, you said by the time that you graduated from airborne school, a month later, you had jumped out of more planes than you had landed in. Is that still true? Is that still the case?

[01:59] Casey: Not anymore. But so, the Army sent me to airborne school when I was 19 years old. I was actually a cadet in ROTC at the University of Houston. And so, I got selected to go to airborne school. I had never left the state of Texas prior to that. I grew up in Crosby, Texas, which is a little small town in the outskirts of Houston. And so, they sent me to airborne school. First time ever being on a plane was actually going from Houston to Fort Benning, Georgia. And then I jumped five times, and then flew back. And so, by the time that I got back, I had only really landed twice. And so, it was very an eye-opening position for me. And it was the first time I actually got to go on a plane and I ended up jumping out of it more. But since then, I've been in the Army now for about 11 years, so I've been on a lot of planes and landed on a lot more, and unfortunately, haven't been able to jump as much as I would like.

[02:56] David: That's interesting. So, it's a good segue into your Army experience. And I see that you have a family that has a past of serving in the military. And so, could you share a little bit about what factors determined your decision to join the Army? And I can't tell if you enlisted or if you commissioned, but let's share your story about why you decided to join.

[03:23] Casey: Yeah, so my grandfather was a World War II veteran and also served in the Korean War. So, he spent 20 years in the Army and ended up retiring as a master sergeant, which is an E-8. But he spent his whole life—his young life, at least—in the Army. And so, growing up, I really looked up to him. And then, my dad, he joined the Army in the '70s as an infantry man. He only spent a little while and then got out. And then 9/11 happened. And my older brother who is four years older than me, I was actually like in seventh grade when the Twin Towers fell. And my older brother is four years older than me, so he was in high school. And so, shortly, once he was eligible, he ended up enlisting into the Army while I was still in middle school and high school. And I think there's always been this sense of service within our family in living up to this legacy that people before us have been able to make.

And so, that was part of it. Originally, I wanted to enlist. I was in high school. I was ready to just leave. And I had a few mentors in high school that were veterans who were like, "Hey, listen. You have really good grades. You can get into any school that you want within Texas because you're top 10%. So, why don't you just apply for a few scholarships first before you just end up leaving?" And so, I did that. I applied for an Army ROTC scholarship, and I ended up getting one and deciding to stay in Houston and go to the University of Houston for four years. And then I ended up commissioning in 2011 as an AG officer, which is pretty much like human resources within the Army. But I ended up not really doing a lot of human resources stuff throughout my career. You saw, I started off as a platoon leader. I was 22 years old. I graduated from college. They sent me to Fort Hood, which I thought was pretty awesome because I got to stay in Texas and kind of drive home on the weekends to see my family. But as soon as I got there, they were like, "Hey, you're taking this platoon of 32 soldiers, and we're going to deploy you to Afghanistan. So, get ready." And so, it was pretty much like I graduated college, got my first duty station, and then within six months to a year, I was in Afghanistan.

And I think, looking back, it seems like it was such a long time ago. But I ended up going down range, and I did casualty operations. So, I had a casualty platoon, essentially, that works throughout different hospitals in Afghanistan, from the south to the east. And we had a headquarters also in Kuwait. And so, we worked out in the hospitals. And we did all the casualty tracking. We did a lot of like Purple Hearts and a lot of the ceremonies for soldiers who were wounded or killed in action. And so, I did that for nine months, came back to Fort Hood. And I got to take over our company as the executive officer. So, I was pretty much running logistics for a year or two.

And then they sent me, it was time for me to get promoted to captain at this point. So, I ended up going and being a Battalion S1, which is an HR executive officer type of person for a battalion level of about 500 soldiers or so. And so, I did that at Fort Gordon, Georgia. And then, after that, I went into recruiting and became a company commander down in Southern California.

And so, that was really interesting. That was actually the assignment that I did not want to go to. I wanted to just go to a cool 82nd Airborne, jump out of some airplanes, do stuff like that. But during that time, recruiting was a huge initiative for the Army. And they were like, "Hey, we need you more in recruiting." And so, they sent me over to South Cal. I lived in Orange County for a couple of years. And it was pretty awesome. I mean, it was a hard mission. I think, growing up in Houston where, maybe, we don't have as many wealthy people that have other options for college or other options after high school, really, and a different sense of, maybe, a culture down in the south where people joined the military a lot more than, maybe, in Orange County, California.

But we loved being out there. It was incredible. It was beautiful. I got to learn a lot of marketing. I got to make a lot of relationships with community partners out there. And so, I decided... at that point, I had been in the Army for almost 10 years. I was at this point in my career where I was thinking about either getting out or staying in. And so, they came to me. And I started looking at different options. And the Army was like, "Hey, we will send you to get your master's degree fully paid for if you sign up for some extra commitment to us for a handful of more years."

[08:12] David: That's how they get you.

[08:13] Casey: Yeah. And so, they let me. It was a pretty good deal, I can't deny that. They were like, "Hey, we will send you to any school that you can get into, and fully paid for by the Army. We will still pay you as a captain while you're in school full time." In return, I owed them three days for every one day that I was in school. And so, I loved marketing. I loved really, not even just marketing. I think getting a business degree is a great leadership degree to have just period, from learning how corporate America is successful in the way that they do things is very similar to kind of how we run things at a higher level in the military.

And so, I decided to get my MBA. And I had applied to a few programs, but Rice was always my number one choice. I grew up in Houston. So, I think, anybody who grows up in Houston, like, you know, Rice is the school that anybody would dream to go to. So, to be given that opportunity, it was an easy choice for me to say, "Okay, I'm going to stay in, because now I get to go to this dream school of mine and get an incredible degree all while still getting time in service in the Army." And then, a couple of months after I graduated from Rice, I got promoted to major. And so, now, I'm actually in another master's degree program, getting a degree in operations for the Army. And so, that's kind of what I'm doing now.

[09:43] David: Whew, wow, that was a lot.

[09:44] Casey: That was a lot, yeah.

[09:45] David: Yeah, I know.

[09:47] Casey: Sounds a lot.

[09:47] David: But this is really good. And perhaps, I want to focus on the leadership principles between what you learned in the military and in business school. And if I caught it correctly, you're going to Command and Staff School in the Army, correct?

[10:05] Casey: Yes, they actually sent me to the Air Command and Staff College.

[10:03] David: Oh, yes, at the Air Force. That's super interesting.

[10:13] Casey: Yeah. So, I'm here now. And it's interesting because there's only, there’s about 500 students total from different services, and there's only about 40 army officers here. Different.

[10:24] David: So, you guys have to put on your gloves and make sure to fend for yourselves, right, fight off all the Air Force folks?

[10:32] Casey: Yeah. It's a really cool environment. I think we have a guy in my flight who is from the Space Force. We have a Navy guy in there as well. It is very cool to just learn how different the branches are but kind of the same.

[10:48] David: Yeah, couple of years ago, in my last career I was in, I was actually selling cybersecurity to the Air Force and worked with a lot of joint commands, and even all the way up to the House Armed Services Committee. I say all of this because I always found the military much more interesting when it's a joint command because so many things are integrated and interoperable now. And it's sort of silly, it's like an old school way of seeing the military when you separate out. There's the water, there's the air, of course, now space, and then the ground-based operations. So, I think the big banner cry was, "Hey, multi-domain operations, how do you get a single view of the battle space?" But anyway, you get me really excited thinking about what I had done or will do. But what are some of those ties in terms of leadership principles at Command and Staff School and then business, if any? And maybe, moreover, how do you see yourself putting some of those principles together in application of what you're doing now or what you're looking to do in the future?

[11:56] Casey: Yeah, you know, I think there's a lot of correlation there. So, when I was in business school, I took a lot of classes that had to do with entrepreneurship, a lot of marketing classes, and then a lot of leadership classes, just because, you know, I knew that I was going to go back into the army and be on active duty for at least another 10 years. And so, I wanted to really just learn from professionals who have been there and can give good examples. And I think, like, entrepreneurship, especially, you're learning like, "Hey, yeah, I want to be my own boss, but I have to take all these risks and I have to really understand what priorities are more important than others when it comes to making decisions." And it's different, I would say, like, you know, in the Army, like, as leaders, if we make decisions, bad decisions, they might have more drastic effects, as far as lives go. But at the same time, business leaders, whether you're an entrepreneur or even a new executive or in banking, it really doesn't matter. There is so much pressure that is put on senior business people, period, that they have to face and then figure out how to overcome that and be resilient. So, that's part of it.

I think the other part of it, too, is consulting is a huge thing in business school. You know, we constantly are reading case studies. We're constantly saying, hey, there's this problem. How do we fix it? Or, how do we come up with some type of solution to help? And I think, as leaders in the military, we're constantly faced with problems, we're constantly going into new organizations and trying to fix what might be broken or just to make things better than they were when you got there.

[13:32] David: Absolutely. And in the military or the battle space, risk management and decision-making is so huge as, of course, also in the business space. And so, I always think about risk mitigation or, during COVID, risk stratification. And so, I'm curious, are there any frameworks that you might use in either domain in terms of how to go about managing through risk and determining what risks are acceptable for whatever the operation is? I mean, this is a fundamental idea for business and military, so, I'm really curious how you see that and how you would potentially apply certain risk management frameworks or, otherwise, decision-making frameworks to the business and military space.

[14:23] Casey: Yeah, you know, I think one big thing that I do when I'm doing risk assessments is there's risks that are like, hey, if this happens, is it going to ultimately affect the mission? If the answer is no, then it's almost always like, okay, we can take these risks. I think, when you're thinking about more catastrophic risks, so when it comes to casualties or it comes to essentially completely bombing the mission, that is when you're having to really go through and understand. You know, we like to call it war gaming. And so, you know, we war game, like, hey, if this happens, how do we respond? Because this is the worst case scenario that this could happen, and this is what we need to be prepared for.

And I think one thing that I learned in business school that has helped me as a leader is having this climate that enforces innovation. And I think that if people that worked for you are afraid to make mistakes and take risks, then you're never going to move forward. And that's something that a lot of startup companies and a lot of just businesses, period, have to understand as leaders. Like, there are certain risks that are okay. Because, yes, it might set us back, but if you take this risk, you might also get five steps ahead of where you were before.

And I think that it's okay to make mistakes. And unfortunately, a lot of people in the military — and I think it's because we are the way that we are, you know, we have these standards and we have ways that we do things — are afraid to take those risks. Or leaders have this issue of not allowing this positive learning environment where, you know, yeah,  it's okay. Hey, we're trying to come out with something better. But if somebody does try something and they fail at it, then it's not going to, you know, ruin their careers. And I think that's something that, specifically, I think is very valuable.

[16:11] David: Have you generated that insight from a particular experience, perhaps, in your army experience or out in Afghanistan? Is there an experience that you would borrow from that generated that insight?

[16:25] Casey: I think, yes. Maybe not specifically in Afghanistan. I think, when I was in Afghanistan, I was so young. I'm a new leader. It's my first leadership assignment. My priority was really getting the mission done and getting all my soldiers home. And so, when it came to taking risks there, I think I was very more averse to taking risks, just because risks there are a lot riskier or a lot more catastrophic.

[16:47] David: Yeah, true.

[16:49] Casey: But I think I can give you a good example in recruiting that I think really goes with it. There were multiple times where we had these huge recruiting missions. And we were struggling. And I think there were certain things that we did. So, for instance, I had soldiers all the time with different personalities, from way different backgrounds that were sent to recruiting. And I had this one soldier who, she was just there and she's like, "I didn't volunteer to be in recruiting." She was so bright. She was an engineer by trade. And she was like, "I'm introverted. Every time we go out to these recruiting events, I can't talk to people. I clam up. I don't want to be here."

And I remember other people within my command being like, "Hey, just send her to a different unit. She's not going to be able to produce, etc." And so, I kind of brought her in, and we had this conversation. And I was like, "Okay, what are you good at?" And she was like, "I can do social media. I can do emails. I can make phone calls. I just, I have social anxiety and I cannot just go out and talk to people at these large events that we are sponsoring." And so, I let her do that. And I knew that it was going to be a risk because my higher command tracked everything that, you know, hey, people are prospecting for this many hours a day. They're out on the streets doing this. They're at these events. And so, I knew, like, hey, if I let her stay in the office and do all this other stuff and then she ends up not doing well at that, it's going to come back on me because people above me were saying, hey, if she's not going to produce, then send her somewhere else.

And so, I was willing to kind of take this risk on a soldier, knowing, like, maybe she's here but, like, why not just try something out else? And so, she ended up actually becoming one of my top recruiters because she was so good at just doing something completely different than the way the military has told people that they should do things. And I think that, at the time, for me, my mindset was, "Hey, if I let her stay in the office and take phone calls and do all this social media stuff separately from what everybody else is doing, then maybe we fail, but she's not going to be any less productive than she was before when she couldn't talk to people, period." And I think that, there’s always, as leaders, there's always ways. Think about risks, but then also think like, "Hey, if I didn't try this, then maybe we wouldn't know."

[19:05] David: Wow, you and my old executive officer and commanding officer on the boat will get along great because all those folks took a lot of risk on me, or they took a lot of risk on me keeping me in their command. So, that hits close to home. It was a bit of a struggle, but obviously, worth it.

Well, I wanted to pivot a little bit to—and I was just super impressed with your TikTok account and what you're doing with the strays and the foster animals that you're helping. I know this is a super passion point for you. So, could you take us through that journey of deciding to stand up social media and to help animals and to foster animals? What precipitated that? And what do your current efforts look like in that space?

[19:54] Casey: It is super surreal. I don't even know. It's like, one day, I made a TikTok of my wife bringing in one of the many fosters that she brings home. And then it just went viral. It's almost like it happened overnight. Like, we have always enjoyed helping animals. My spouse is a huge animal advocate. I love animals. When I was a kid, I would find stray cats, or stray cats would show up at the house and I would secretly feed them, and they would stay around. And then, before you know, we have all these animals and trying to find them good homes.

And TikTok really kicked off during COVID. So, at the time, I was in my second semester of business school. And COVID happened and everything shut down. So, we're working remotely. And both my spouse and I were both at home a lot more. And so, we started fostering a lot more. And so, I actually made the TikTok account because my 12-year-old son had a TikTok, and I wanted to make sure that it was safe for him. And he was doing it because he likes to break-dance. So, he's making all these dance videos and being really cool on TikTok. And so, originally, I made it for him. And I just started filming our everyday life of rescuing animals. And I guess, our little typical video is my spouse comes home through the door, I'm recording, I say, "Hi, baby." She says, "Hi, baby," back. And she has some type of animal in her hand. And she tells a story about it or we go through. When we realized that many people were interested in animal fostering and rescuing, we decided to just do it a lot more because I think raising awareness of the issues of the amount of animals that are euthanized across the U.S., but specifically in Houston. Houston is one of the largest cities that euthanizes animals, just based off the lack of laws that protect animals, but also, just the overran shelters that we have with not a lot of resources. And so, a lot of that stuff comes into play. And so, like, the more awareness that we can spread, the better. And so, yeah, like, over time, my account just skyrocketed. I make this joke, like, you can't really go wrong with puppies or lesbians. So, you throw them both in there and people are all about it.

[22:09] David: That's great.

[22:10] Casey: Yeah. So, we did that. And so, it’s kind of slowed down. And I think it's because I'm in school now. And so, me and my spouse are living separately. And so, I'm out in Alabama. I'm almost done. I actually graduate at the end of May. And so, when we're together, though, all of my stuff kind of goes up. So, we still do it a lot. But at the time, I had just had so much more time on my hands because I was going to school remotely, she was working remotely. And so, we were home a lot more. But we're going to continue to do it. I think it's important to use your platform to try to spread awareness and to just share with the world like, "Hey, this is how great it can be to foster or to volunteer at shelters or to consider adopting a dog from a shelter or a rescue before, maybe, buying one."

And I think a lot of that just can help. I think that another cool thing that came from that is that we have inspired a lot of other people to foster as well in the Houston area. And so, a lot of people joke. They're like, "Man, you guys are leaving," because the army sends us somewhere new every few years. And so, we're actually moving to Chicago this summer. And so, we've built this huge network in Houston and across the U.S. with foster and rescue people. And so, we've just encouraged a lot of more people to kind of, like, consider fostering, consider helping with rescue to try to expand the amount of help that we can to animals that, maybe, aren't necessarily put into the best conditions.

[23:41] David: Yeah, you're preaching to the choir, at least, as far as I'm concerned, because I got my first rescue from Friends For Life, a little black cat. Well, he's not little anymore. He's like 16 pounds. And I call him Sharpie. He got so much love, so much love. So, I say the same message, especially, from my view, no-kill animal shelters are a big part of where my heart is at. And I just see no reason why we would put down animals. So, yeah, that's amazing. And I have to say that again, you can't really go wrong with puppies or lesbians. That's really good.

[24:20] Casey: And it's so surreal, man. So, I'm in Alabama. So it’s not like… my wife and I will get noticed in Houston where people are like, "Oh, my God. I watched you on TikTok. We love you guys." The other day, one of my friends was like, "Hey, we've got a PT test tomorrow. Let's go carb load at Olive Garden." And so, we go to Olive Garden. And we're sitting here, stuffing our faces with pastas. I tell my friend who's with me. And this is the third time this has happened since her and I have gone to dinner. I was like, "Okay, I think there's fans behind you, sorry," because the girls that were sitting behind us kept looking around and smiling at me. And I was like, "I think they know me from TikTok."

And so, one of them actually wrote me a letter and was like, "Hey, I have social anxiety, but I'm a huge fan of your TikTok. Can we take a picture with you?" And so, I walk over there, and they're like, "I just love you." I'm taking pictures with these kids that are in, like, high school. I think it made my night, just because I don't always just expect that to happen. But my friends make jokes, like, "We can't go anywhere with you because, like, everywhere we go, somebody recognizes you and wants to take pictures." And so, there's just ongoing joke, hey, if we're going to go out to eat, then I at least have to look decent. We can't just go from the gym and just run over there, because if I am taking pictures with people... There's just a joke. And I think a lot of people are giving me a hard time about it, but in a loving manner.

[25:46] David: That's an interesting problem to have. Well, Casey, with the last couple of minutes, and thank you for sharing all this, I'm thinking, looking forward... And you said that you plan to stay in the Army for about another 10 years or so, sounds like, of course, you'll retire. So, in that view, and as you combine your military experience and lessons learned from business school and other ventures, what does the future look like for you? And how do you plan to either help, or what are you planning on building? What are some of the things? How does all of this amalgamate together to create that future vision for whichever way you're headed?

[26:30] Casey: It's interesting. The Army created a new officer branch in 2019, which is army marketing. It's headquartered down in Chicago. It's a very selective process. They only select about maybe 6% of applicants. The minimum qualification is that you have to have an MBA in residence, preferably top program. You also have to have experience with marketing. And you also just have to, you know, one, be able to sell the Army's product, which is the Army. And so, I think that's what my job is now. So, I put in an application my last semester of business school to switch over from doing what I was doing before to doing army marketing. And I get to start doing that as soon as I graduate from the school that I'm at now.

And so, I'm very excited about it. When you see all the cool GoArmy commercials and the websites and all of the cool things that the Army gets to do, the Golden Knights, and we have all of these different really cool recruiting platforms that, really, marketers are in charge of. I'm going to do that for the next 10 years. I'm really excited about it. I hope that, ultimately, I get to go back into the United States recruiting command and be a battalion level commander within the recruiting realm.

For me, I have a pride in serving. A lot of it does come from the legacy that I've put the shoes that I am filling within my own family. But I also, I think about where I came from and the opportunities that the Army has opened up for me. And so, for me, I love the Army. It's a love-hate relationship. Some days, it can be stressful. It can be not exciting.

[28:15] David: I know the feeling.

[28:16] Casey: Yeah. But even right now, I'm mad at the Army. I'm like, "Man, I got to live away from my family. I just want to be at home," and things like that. But I didn't come from a lot. My parents didn't have the opportunity to go to college. They didn't have a lot of the things that the Army has opened for me. And to be able for them to send me to business school fully paid for and then for them to let me use that business degree within the Army is just incredible. And so, I'm excited. I hope they let me work on some content creation. I like that stuff. But, you know, who knows what I'll be doing? There's so many different jobs within Army marketing between strategy and data analysis and content creation and social media. There's a lot that goes into it. I'm just excited to kind of join the team and learn from a lot of the leaders that we have who have been doing this for a while.

[29:05] David: Fascinating. Sounds very exciting. And I have so many other questions because I've done a lot of work in the industry helping the Department of Defense and also, of course, being in. So, we'll adjourn for now. And Casey, it's been a pleasure today. Thank you for sharing all your personal stories. And really excited to see how things play out for you. And if I happen to see you out on town, I'll have to get a picture and, I don't know, throw it up on TikTok or my socials, too. Well, thank you again, Casey.

[29:38] Casey: Thanks for having me, David.

[29:41] Outro: This episode is part of our Flight Path Series, a podcast from Rice Business where guests share their career journeys and stories of the Rice connections that got them where they are.