Pushing Boundaries feat. Jeff Moseley '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.

[00:14] Jeffrey: I'm a paratrooper. So, I love jumping out of airplanes. I'm terrified of heights. That's why I love jumping out of airplanes.

[00:20] Scott: On today's episode of Owl Have You Know, we're joined by Jeffrey Mosley who obtained his MBA from Rice Business in 2021 through the online MBA program, with a focus on corporate strategy, marketing, and brand strategy. He is a young alumni ambassador, and he's helping design a global field experience for Rice Business. Jeff shares with us his background and experience through his time in the Army and his assignments in countries like Russia and Chile and others.

All right, Jeffrey, welcome to the Owl Have You Know Podcast. It is a privilege to have you on. Want to just jump right in, what interested you in getting involved with Rice and participating in the program?

[00:59] Jeffrey: Let's call it an accident, if you will. So, I've spent, at this point, almost 20 years in the military. I'm getting close to my retirement. But I had finished my job in Russia. I was in California in an advisory role there. And I had this wild hair of, "Hey, you know, maybe I hang in a little past 20 years and do a Congressional Fellowship." And yeah, having come from Russia and dealt with some politics and stuff, that sounded pretty interesting to me.

And I wasn't eligible for the fellowship. In a weird way, I was a little too young by their standards, and had not had enough time in my current rank. They'd say it's been kind of penalized for promoting a little quickly. And so, I said, "Well," I said, "I'm not going to hang around for two more years to try to apply and then do another four years. So, let's take a look and see what else is out there."

And about that time, Southern Cal and Carnegie Mellon had these hybrid MBA programs. And I was kind of looking for top-tier programs that had a hybrid format, and Rice was just standing up their MBA at Rice program. And I kind of took a look at it and I said, "Hey, you know, if I'm going to pick between where I'm going to spend time—Texas, California, or Pennsylvania—I kind of like Texas. I kind of like Texas a lot."

And so, I started digging in a little more. And I, you know, found the smaller cohorts and kind of the more the community feel. And it immediately felt like home. And I think Dean Rodriguez gets a huge shout-out here because, during the whole application process and everything, only one school's dean reached out to me. And that was Peter Rodriguez. So, that definitely solidified everything, is, this is probably a place that I want to be involved with.

[02:33] Scott: I love it. We'll dig into more of kind of your experience at Rice. But I want to rewind the clock and go back to, you know, you mentioned you've spent a career in the military. What was the original inclination to go into the military? And if you could share with the listeners a little bit about the branch of the military that you've been working in, just a little bit of that kind of origin story. Like, what got you there in the first place?

[02:59] Jeffrey: Yeah. So, I'm an army guy. And, you know, to be honest, I didn't really see myself in the military when I was growing up. Oddly enough, I grew up in Montgomery, Alabama with an Air Force base in my backyard—literally, my house backed up to the Air Force base. And had neighbors in the Air Force on both sides, but never really saw myself in the military.

And, you know, I graduated high school. I go to Georgia Tech. And that was about the point in my life that I realized that I had no clue what I wanted to be when I grew up. And it was a process of elimination from there. So, I did some time at Georgia Tech, ultimately dropped out, said, "Well, this whole engineering thing isn't what I want to be. And I kind of like this public policy thing, but I'm also at an engineering school, so this is kind of odd. And I really don't know. So, let's take a semester and kind of go figure things out." And a lot happened in the end of 2001 that really kind of changed things for me. 9/11 happened, and a lot was going on in the world.

And I said, you know what? I said, now is a great time for me to take a pause. Let's go in the army. Let's do a couple of years and kind of figure out what I want to be when I grow up. And I'll pay off some student loans and everything else. And then, you know, two or three years, I'll be, I'll be back in college with a better idea of what I want to do. And here we are, 20 years later.

So, I kind of fell into it, and I fell in love with it when I got in. And it was the perfect environment for someone like me that likes fast-paced things. And it gave me something that, at that time, college didn't give me.

[04:27] Scott: Can you talk a little bit about some of those things that the army experience gave you that college didn't in terms of just like, I don't know, I just imagine, you know, with... I've got a brother that's in the army, thinking about just like resilience and like pushing past fear and, you know, these kinds of things that you kind of just push your own boundaries and like re-establish the fringe of who you are and what you can do.

[04:52] Jeffrey: You know, I think that's the addictive part of it, kind of what you said, pushing the boundaries. So, you come in on a basic training or come into basic training, and you don't really know what to expect. You've watched Full Metal Jacket. And you've watched these different movies and you're like, "Er, I don't really know what's going to happen here. But I know it's going to suck. I know it's going to be tough." And you get through that. I mean, it's varied through the year, six weeks, 10 weeks, 12 weeks. You know, the program changes a little bit. But you get through that block of time. And you're like, "Wow, like, okay, I made it through that. And I did that. And it was tough, but I overcame it."

And no matter who you are, there's portions of your basic training that you are not good at or not naturally adept at, whether it's ruck marching or it's running or it's listening to people telling you what to do 24 hours a day, seven days a week. You know, everybody's going to find their own challenge in that. And that's kind of the goal, is to break you down and build you back up and make you comfortable being uncomfortable and comfortable with those things that you never would've considered yourself capable of doing, you know, in a previous life.

So, you get through that. And then, I think, there's kind of a division in the military at that point. There are some people that kind of get there and like, "Okay, you know, I've done that. And I'm going to go do my time." And then, they don't really push that boundary anymore as they progress through the military. And maybe they do three or four years and call it a day.

But the ones who tend to stick around are the ones to go, "Wow. All right. So, I just did something I thought I was completely incapable of. What's next?" And they kind of find those challenges. And you win some and you lose some. And you've got to learn to bounce back from them, because you're going to lose a lot in the military. It's just the reality of it.

You can be the best at anything you think you are, and there's someone in the military who's going to challenge you and who's going to be better at that. Whether it be physical or mental, it doesn't matter. So, you constantly look for those challenges, and it almost becomes addictive, because you want the next job that's more difficult. You want to go to airborne school. I'm a paratrooper. So, I love jumping out of the airplanes. I'm terrified of heights. That's why I love jumping out of airplanes. The first time you stand on that tower at Fort Benning and you're looking down at a height that's, you know, if you don't live and you fall, then you're probably better off than if you do live after the fall.

So, you'll look at that and you go, "Oh, this isn't so cool." But then you do it, and you're like, "Wow, I did it. I got to do that again." And then, you go back up the tower and you're standing there at the tower. You're like, "Why am I doing this? This is horrible. I am going to die." And then, you jump. And then, you're like, "Okay, I lived. I did this again. Okay. Hey, let's go get on an airplane and do this." And the cycle just kind of keeps going. And I think it's... for someone with a personality like me that likes to have those challenges and frequent challenges that kind of push you out of your box, that's a huge thing. And that's really kind of, what's kept me driving, you know, in the military.

Now, of course, a lot of that starts with the physical side, right? But as you get older, the physical side kind of wanes a little bit and you've done special operations, you've done, you know, Airborne School or Air Assault or whatever, and now you're getting into the really, really tough jobs.

You thought you had the tough jobs before. But now you're getting into the more of the mental challenges, which is kind of the state and the career that I'm at right now, where it's more about, more about the brains and less about the physical, which I absolutely love.

[08:10] Scott: And one of the challenges that I wanted to ask you about and somewhat timely, I know you spent some time in Russia with the DOD, what kind of led to that outpost and what were some of the things that you learned through that experience, and maybe any insight to some of the current geopolitical activities that are going on?

[08:30] Jeffrey: Super pivotal moment in my career, absolutely life-changing. I came in the military. I had a very wise family member that advised me that, don't take the infantry job, take something that's going to make you smarter. And you can still go do all the fun stuff, even with a smart guy job, as they would say. So, I came in with a background of satellite communications. I kind of left Georgia saying, I'm done with engineering and technology stuff. And I'm done with Georgia. And I joined the army. And they said, "Hey, you're going back to Georgia. And you're going to study satellite communications and get back into engineering. And I've kind of accepted failure at that point. I couldn't escape it.

So, I go through that portion of my career and end up in special operations. I'm doing communications stuff from them—a geek, not a cool guy. I'm just a geek. I'm a geek for the cool guys. But it opened up a lot of doors, through security clearances and language capabilities and things like that. There came a point where I had to leave and I had to go do something else. Tim Lehman, one of my mentors, he kind of said, "Hey, there's probably something you should go check out. Call the Defense Attaché Service." He's like, "Reach out to a guy, and you'll have an email and have a conversation." So, always take the call, right? So, I had the conversation. And, of course, Russia wasn't part of the discussion at this point. It was just, "Hey, would you be willing to come work at an embassy? We have a position." And I had three criteria—can I take my family and can I take my dog? And I don't remember what the third criteria was. But the main thing was family and dog. And the answer was, "Yes, you're going to be able to take your family. You're going to be able to take your dog." And so, I said, okay, like, let's go down this road and let's do this thing.

And I think what the military was looking for at that point is they're looking for someone who had the capability to learn languages, had the security clearance, and could do all of the things that I had been doing in special operations, which was, you know, build a team, work with a team, but also be completely independent. When you go to an embassy in Russia, the flag pole, so to speak, as we like to say, your headquarters is a long way away, all the way back in Washington, D.C. And they need people who can operate in that kind of environment that's kind of unsupervised and still do the right thing and still carry on, you know, what the nation wants, what the military and the presidential administration, the foreign policy goals, and everything.

So, you have all these things to do, but you're a long way away. So, there's a lot of rope to hang yourself with. So, they're looking for a very specific type of person that's going to thrive in that environment. And my time in special operations really set me up for that. And I was able to make that pivot from communications and special operations into a diplomatic world. I mean, definitely one of the best things that ever happened to me, because it's a tough assignment, but it was eye-opening. It was definitely a game-changer in the way I saw the world, in the way I saw, you know, our own government and the way policies and political things were decided. So, definitely, a life-changing experience for me.

[11:26] Scott: I suspect that there's a fair amount of your experience there that you probably can't share. But I wanted to ask, like, what is like your favorite Russia experience story, just in terms of like highlighting the nuance of being there in that kind of role? Is there a story that you can share?

[11:43] Jeffrey: The stories are endless, but there is what I can tell and what I can't tell. But I think what shocks me when I go around and from my cohort at Rice, which was a very diverse cohort, to, you know, working private industry things and getting around the world, meeting people, particularly in the United States, is how few people have actually lived and worked abroad.

And there's only so much of a culture that you can really understand through tourism. You can go. You can spend a week or two. You can see some things. And it... and it’s eye-opening. And everyone should travel. Everyone should travel the world. But living there takes it to a different level. And it takes you to a different... you just see more. You see more of the underbelly. You see more of the good, the bad. You start to see the people for who they really are.

And probably, my favorite Russian story, which has nothing to do with work, but it's really a culture thing, we had two young children at the time. In fact, my daughter was born in the states while I was already in Russia. So, I flew back for the birth. And then a few months later we had passports and visa squared away for. And my wife, Melissa, and the kids joined me. And so, Arielle was our baby. And I had my backpack carrier that I love to use to carry her around, which is just not a thing in Russia. You just don't see dads doing that.

So, here we are one Saturday afternoon, and Melissa's got my son. They're at a toy store getting a birthday gift for a birthday party. And I'm going to run to the market around the block from the embassy. And I've got my daughter. And she's in her little snowsuit. She's about six months old at that point, all bundled up in the backpack, beanie on, everything. It's cold outside. And I sat on foot to go to the market. And I walk into this market. And anybody who's lived in Russia will tell you about babushka confrontations. The grandmothers rule Russia. With age comes the ability to say and do anything. And they will correct anyone, and they just see it... You know, they say it like it is.

So, she comes out from behind her stall and she starts yelling at me and rushing, you know, asking me, where is my wife? And I'm like, "Yeah, why? At the store. You know, I'm here." She's like, "This is shopping. This is her job. And you shouldn't have your kid." And she walks behind me and she snatches my daughter out of that backpack, gives my daughter to her 20-something-year-old daughter, and says, "We will take care of you. She will watch your child. Would you like to buy any cheese?"

And I'm just... I'm sort of like, is my kid about to get kidnapped here? What is going on? And I'm getting a finger-waving lecture about how I need a new wife from this babushka, and this is what a woman is supposed to do. And for me, being an American, I mean, this is surreal. You know, we don't... you know, we don't operate with those gender roles the same way that the Russians do. And, you know, I'd like to say we've progressed a long way from that. But in Russia, that's still very much ingrained in their culture. So, you know, she had really, really good cheese, and... which is hard to find in Russia. So, I bought my cheese and I let my daughter play with her old-enough-to-be-my-wife daughter at the time and did my shopping and enjoyed the free babysitting. And you know, it only cost me a lecture on gender roles. So, yeah, I'll take it.

[15:02] Scott: Yeah, that's amazing. Thank you for sharing. That's fantastic. I wanted to pivot a little bit. Because I know that Russia was not your only foreign outpost and assignment. I understand that you spent a little bit of time in Santiago, Chile. And wanted to just ask you about kind of your experience of being in Latin America and, really, kind of the experience with the language and the people and… but just some of the challenges there and how those might differ from what you were experiencing in a completely different part of the world.

[15:31] Jeffrey: I'm joining you from Chile now. I haven't fully made the transition back to Houston. Although, it's coming here in a few short months. Chile was absolutely accidental. We stumbled upon this assignment. I was in California. I had started the MBA at Rice program. My time there was only supposed to be two years. So, I knew it was going to be short. And I got the phone call, "Hey, you want to come back to Russia?" And I was like, "Yeah. Yes, I do." I really want to go back and do that job again. It was great.

So, we agreed to do that. And visa negotiations fell through. And as things happen, you know, it's volatile times with Russia, more so now than it was then. But this is 2019, where it's still... we've, you know, we've PNG'ed a whole lot of people—PNG, persona non grata. We kick Russians out; Russians kick us out. It's a diplomatic game.

And at this point, visas were being negotiated at the highest levels of both of our governments. And the call came in and said, "Hey, you're probably not going to Russia. So, you can, you know, come back to DIA headquarters and work for us for a little bit and wait for a visa—DIA, Defense Intelligence Agency." That's my administratively controlled agency. And then, well, you know, I'm just not a big fan of working in D.C. That just did not seem appealing. And I know that those waits for visas can take a long time. Sometimes, you have to wait for an election to change things, you know, on one side or the other. And I didn't want to sit around in D.C. forever waiting for the next role and kind of picking up positions in a headquarters building, waiting on that next job. So, I said, what else is out there?

And eventually, Chile came up. And I said, "Okay, this is great. I would love to pick up another language. I would love to go work in a region that I'm not familiar with." But the language is key. Like, I've got to have some language training here, because I'm not a Spanish speaker. So, in a true military form, they make promises they sometimes can't keep, like, "Oh, yeah, we'll get you language training."

And so, I head to D.C. And I'm like, okay, we got six weeks to get you language training. And you need to get down there. Six weeks. Like normally, it's like six months. Six weeks, all right, lets... I guess we'll make the most of this. So, I got a six-week crash course in Spanish and made it down here just in time for the pandemic. I got down here about two days before they locked everything down. And, you know, it's been great. It definitely has slowed my Spanish capability, some. But this is a unique place to be and a really, really interesting time to be here.

I was still in D.C. when the civil unrest kicked off down here in 2019. So, I was just kind of getting familiar with Chile at that point. And in my spare time kind of working the regional ops in Chile desk at our headquarters. And then, I get down here. And it went from mass protests to silence, to quiet, because here we were in the pandemic and Chile was locking down. And it was super convenient. Not that the pandemic has been convenient for most people, but when you've got a nation in unrest and you've got a reason completely out of your control to send everyone home and to lock up, you know, in some ways I think it's, I'm not going to say safe Chile, but it definitely forced the discussion to be more political and more civil than just taking things to the streets. So, it changed the way things evolved down here, which was fantastic to see unfold.

[18:48] Scott: Can you share a little bit about just kind of the… not looking for any specifics, but just the job that you do working in operations and strategy, and those kinds of engagements. What is a day in the life like? What is a typical, again, whether they're in Chile or in Russia, or, just asking kind of generally, like, what are some of the things that you find you're spending your time on?

[19:13] Jeffrey: I hate the day in the life because they're never the same. And that's what I love about it.

[19:16] Scott: Right, super different.

[19:17] Jeffrey: But, you know, it's just a massively fascinating thing to work in an embassy because every day is different. But kind of the nuts and bolts of it is it's not about a person or a position or an individual. It's really about agencies and organizations and kind of how we all play in together.

So, obviously, I'm an army guy. And a lot of people go, wait a minute. We only thought Marines were in the embassy. And like, no there are security guards. But there are these things called attachés and defense attaché offices. And there's offices of security cooperation and all these different elements. We even have a science office here in Chile, where we've got Navy and Air Force and Army doing research grants on the scientific level down here in Chile. And that's just the Department of Defense. So, then you've got, you know, all these other agencies, state department, obviously, the big proponent of embassies. But you've got your law enforcement agencies. You've got the FBI. You've got DEA. You've got Secret Service in some embassies. Then, you've got, you know, agriculture. You've got U.S. Commercial Services. Within your state department side, you've got an array of sections from your political and economics and science sections. So, all these different organizations coexist in an embassy.

And at the end of the day, we all report to the ambassador, and our goal is to establish what they called an integrated country strategy. So, an ICS. And we collectively come up, we take the presidential administration and the cabinet, they all have priorities and foreign policy goals. So, we kind of take the overarching guidance for the hemisphere, for the region, or for the country from there. And we develop this integrated country strategy. And it's ultimately not as individual organizations as an embassy, what are we going to get after on behalf of the United States government down here? And we publish that document. And if you ever want to nerd out a little bit, you can go on state.gov and look up "integrated country strategies." And you can see what they are for every country in the world that we have an embassy and how we handle that. They're all published.

But then, you come into the individual team. So, we have those goals, but how do we get after them? And that's where somebody like me comes in, that I'm going to say, "Hey, we've got... you know, let's talk about..." let me pick a good topic here. "Let’s talk about crime and drug trafficking." That's a great one that we have to get after that involves a lot of different agencies. You would think drugs. That's DEA, right? Not so much because there's a political element to it that our political section is going to be involved in. There's a military side of it. You know, you go to some of these countries. And the, you know, the host nation's military are the primary proponents of eradicating drug trafficking.

So, there's the DEA side, of course, but there's also the DOD side of it. If there's civilian aircraft and stuff involved, you've got TSA and FAA involved and all these other agencies that exist in the embassy. So, we come together and we figure out, how do we get after that? How do we not step on each other's toes? Where can we take our DOD team and affect the outcome of these goals and, kind of flex our network to achieve the goals on behalf of the United States? But we also don't want to step on the other agencies. But we also want to do this the most efficient way possible.

So, sometimes, we have to sit down and look at it and say, "Hey, you know, this agency is really good at this. And my agency may not be as effective at this. So, we're going to let them run point on this particular goal or in this particular engagement." And that's where the strategy side comes in. There's a whole lot of networking that goes on understanding your host nation government, understanding cultural, the political dynamics, everything that goes into their decision-making process so that we can kind of saddle up next to them and achieve our goals together as the United States and, in this case, Chile.

[22:59] Scott: Very cool, really insightful. We talked about kind of the travel and the experience. In an assignment like yours, are you able to sort of visit neighboring countries and other things? Or, do you find yourself pretty well kind of within the boundaries of the country that you're assigned? Are you able to sort of branch out to Peru or Argentina or any nearby countries there? I mean, obviously, sort of pandemic, I'm certain, made that a little bit more challenging. But was just curious about sort of the flexibility in your role to be able to kind of travel when time allows.

[23:32] Jeffrey: No. The goal is to travel. I mean the... I want to spend as much time seeing the world as I possibly can. And kind of tying it into Rice, I'm largely here because of Rice. So, I did a GFE in Mexico City as part of my program, and—

[23:48] Scott: A global field experience, right?

[23:48] Jeffrey: Yeah, global field experience in Mexico City. And that was my, you know, not my first time in Latin America. I had spent some time traveling through just on, you know, the tourism side. But from a work perspective, I'm like, wow, you know, this is pretty interesting. It's definitely a different dynamic from the Middle East and from Russia and Germany and countries that I'm used to working in. So, let's see what's in South America. And let's see what's out there. And it opened my eyes to the business opportunities here as well. You know, we all have expiration dates in the military, and mine is coming up. And so, I got to go get a real job. And that global field experience in Mexico City kind of made me, made me think, hey, I still want to work on the international side. Like, I want to work in a company that does business internationally. And I'm probably never going back to Russia. So, let's start looking at places where I can pick up a language that’s going to be more useful, in a region that's probably going to be a little bit more fun to work on in long term.

And when Chile presented itself... and trust me, there were a whole lot of other things that came in between Russia and Chile, that were possibilities. But when Chile presented itself, I'm like, this is a no-brainer. Mexico City was pretty fun. And they're not offering me Mexico City. But that kind of ignited that spark to travel and see Latin America. And we've honestly been trying to do as much as we can down here. Chile really locked down in the pandemic, in a way that most other countries didn't. So, it was really hard to escape. And we were down here, I think, 18 months before we were finally able to actually go see and do something, you know, kind of outside the Santiago region. So, it's been a challenge from that front, but the goal is to see as much as I can when I'm down here.

Now, working in other countries is a little different. You know, you're only accredited as a diplomat to your, you know, to your one country, which is Chile. So, I'm not, you know, taking a quick hop to Argentina for work or anything like that. I've got to go through a process and get a diplomatic visa and all that if I'm going to work there, which I have done for a couple of countries. You know, never discount Uruguay. Montevideo is fantastic. Got to spend some time working there. It's amazing. But personal travel, that's the beauty of this job, is when you, when you land in another country, you can hop on a plane and go somewhere you've never thought of it pretty quickly.

[25:53] Scott: Very cool. Can you share a bit about just some of the opportunities and challenges of doing an online MBA during the pandemic? It sounds like, in part, in a different country, what were some of the unexpected challenges and maybe some of the bright spots of having gone through it?

[26:12] Jeffrey: You know, I'll start with the good stuff first. The pandemic wasn't all that. For the first time in my career, I was basically locked down with my family and got to spend an enormous amount of time at home with my kids and my wife. And that's not something that I typically get to do. Normally, I do travel a lot. And from that perspective, it was great. From the perspective of time at home and being able to work on an MBA program, all that time not spent traveling and bustling through airports and things like that, you know, that was time to study and that was time to get schoolwork done.

So, on that regard, you know, there were a lot of bonuses to the pandemic. You know, you always got to hunt the good stuff. And there was good stuff to be had in the pandemic, despite all the chaos that was going on in the world.

But on the downside, man, my job got boring. And... because when the Chilean government went home and shut things down, that made it increasingly more difficult to do my job. And there was a lot of time lost in the program, chasing things down, chasing people down, trying to figure out how to call contacts, how to make things happen, because no one's in the office to answer the phone. And they're all... you know, all of my counterparts in the Chilean government are scattered around. So, how do I get work done? How do I make things happen? And those calls, when everyone I was at home, you know, there was no, there was no boundary on that schedule. So, there was no, you know, 8:00 to 5:00 workday anymore. The workday just became a revolving, you know, 24-hour clock of when you could get things done.

And, you know... and a lot of counterparts of mine got out of the country right at the beginning of the pandemic and couldn't get back in. So, now you're not just dealing with people that went home and you're trying to track them down where they're at in Chile. You know, they're in other countries. They're in other continents. They're in other time zones, completely.

So, that's where it got a little chaotic doing an MBA program, because, you know, I had kind of blocked out my nights and my weekends and stuff for this. But suddenly, the workday had no bounds. And it makes things... you know, it made things difficult. And I like to think, with remote work, we've kind of got that locked in. Now, everyone's back home in some way, shape, or form. So, we're getting back to setting boundaries for remote work. But early in the pandemic, it did not exist. It was definitely challenging. And then, you know, the fact that the kids never leave the house, probably one of my favorite parts of the pandemic was the viral videos of kids busting in on Zoom meetings and everything else. I'm like, man, you know, that hits me right in the fields. I can relate to that one. I can relate to that one all the time—kids running in during class and you're trying to do meetings. And it definitely makes it challenging when you can't kick the kids outside and say, "Go play outside. Spend about an hour taking an exam or studying or whatever." Couldn't do it, so you had to deal with what you had.

[29:06] Scott: One of the, you know, opportunities for the MBA experience, generally, is to build relationships and network with your cohort. What were some of the things that you guys did to stay connected and build those relationships from afar?

[29:21] Jeffrey: We still do Zoom happy hours. I probably shouldn't, I probably shouldn't say that, but we still do Zoom happy hours with a lot of my classmates, connecting from around the world and having a drink every now and then. The interesting dynamic of a hybrid program when the pandemic hit is it was no longer hybrid. It was just normal. And everybody went to that model. And suddenly, the things that we had been doing for a while, everyone else was just kind of falling into for the first. And I would say that we had a leg up, you know, on a lot of people in that regard, because we had already, you know, proof of concept that you can have a cohort and you can be close and you can be tight from, you know, time zones and miles away via computer.

I get approached a lot by fellow government employees about doing an MBA. And all of... you know, almost all of them, they're not going to have, you know, two years in one location where they can do an executive MBA or nights and weekends or whatever. So, they've got to start looking at these online programs. And I tell them, not all online programs are created the same.

And the beauty of the Rice program is that it's intentionally small. And I love that about it. Because, you can't have a cohort of 200 people or 300 people and develop those relationships in an online format that you can get at Rice. Because, when you're at Rice and you're in those smaller cohorts, you are going to be on a team with everyone several times and do several projects throughout the duration of your program. And with that comes... you know, it's not just the class time that's spent together. It's that when you're working on a homework assignment, you're on a Zoom call on a Saturday afternoon for two, three, four. I mean, there were times where, you know, the capstone project, we spent, you know, six to eight hours in a run, you know, on a continuous Zoom call, working in Office 365 and hashing everything out together and running our spreadsheets and our PowerPoints simultaneously.

It's no different than being in the military. You build a lot of camaraderie when you're going through challenges like that, even though it's, you know, from miles away on a Zoom call. And those relationships are fantastic. I'm still very close with a lot of members of my cohort. We talk all the time. My last couple of vacations, I made it back to Houston. And in large part of, I want to see my friends. I want to go out to dinner and see them in the flesh and have a drink and let's get together and get the families together and everything. So, those relationships are absolutely formed, which is what I love most about the Rice program.

[31:51] Scott: You had mentioned your GFE experience. My understanding is that you're working with Rice Business now to kind of expand the GFE and do some things there. Can you share just a little bit of what you're designing and the anticipated impact for future classes?

[32:05] Jeffrey: Yeah, you know, and I'll go back to challenges of the pandemic, in regards to an MBA program. Because my intention was to do every GFE global all-site elective, everything I could do abroad, I wanted to do. I wanted that time in person with people, and I wanted to go see different parts of the world, too.

And the pandemic kind of squashed that a little bit. So, that was definitely a challenge. It changed my course load and what courses I had to take and how I accomplished things. But that's, you know, I love the global field experience. I love the overseas electives. Kind of going back to what I said about, you know, people that hadn't traveled and worked abroad, you know, I would tell any student in this program, do every single one you can, because they're all going to be eye-opening and amazing in their own ways. And, you know, here I land in Chile and Rice is coming down to Chile. And I'm like, wow. You know, I've got a network down here. I think I can help you out. I can make this better for you. And so, a conversation started.

And, you know, I love the entrepreneurial vein of the Rice program. And that's one of the things that Chile has to offer, is an amazing amount of entrepreneurship and small businesses that I think our students can really learn from, because of all of these businesses... What's the end state goal for a business? You know, we want to make money. We want to grow. That's what a business wants to do. And you're probably not going to do that in one market. You're going to have to expand beyond your own borders if you really want to make a good business model.

And there's a, you know, for an American MBA student to come down here and see these small businesses and to see them thriving and realize that, hey, there's a… they're going to grow. And they want to grow. And they want to learn from you. And they want to expand.

You know, I look at NotCo. NotCo is one of my favorite Chilean startups. They're a food company, but they're really a tech company. They're a food tech company. They figured out the AI behind taking a food product and making it from plants and making it really, really good. And they're a Chile startup. And they're in the states now. They've busted into the U.S. market. I would love to see them go public and do an IPO, although not this year because IPOs aren't looking good this year. But they're just a prime example of what a small startup from a country like Chile can do on the global scene.

And I really want the students to come down, and I want them to meet these people. And I want them to meet American ex-pats who've come down here and started businesses. You know, we've got wineries that are down here that are American-owned and operated, people who came down here and said, "Wow, that's really beautiful down here. I think I'm going to stay. But I may not have the Spanish capability I need. So, why don't I just start my own business? And then I can kind of, you know, make a living my way."

And that happens a lot down here. You've got the mining industry, the energy industry, so many different things operating down here. And these are opportunities for our future MBA graduates to get exposure to American companies operating abroad, Chilean startups, and international companies operating abroad. And maybe, we take those positions. Maybe, we have someone who comes down here who gets the spark for international work and travel and says, "You know what? I'm going to talk to Chevron about coming in, working down in Chile," or, "I'm going to talk to... you know, pick a company to, you know, one of the mining companies. Or, maybe, I'm going to start up my own company. And maybe I look at Chile as a place to do manufacturing or a place to resource talent from." And let's grow that international segment in the Rice community.

So, I'm super passionate about that. We've got a great GFE coming up down here. Adrian is doing great work on it, and so is Kaylin. And we really hope to kind of see the entrepreneurial and social impact side of what's going on down here in Chile.

[35:55] Scott: That's fantastic. Really excited to see more of that come together. Certainly, the global experiences that Rice curates and pulls together make it a unique experience. And the people that you're talking with, as you mentioned, come to you and ask advice on doing an MBA. What are some of the things that... or words that you use to describe kind of the Rice experience in advocating for their participation in the program?

[36:25] Jeffrey: You know, it's kind of like we talked about earlier. It's all about that network and being intentionally small. And I think that is one of Rice's biggest assets, is that they can have a MBA program in an online or hybrid format where you're still getting face time, literally, every day, I mean, with the right program. Every day I was on, you know, with someone, whether it be a classmate or professor or whatever. So, you're still getting that face time that you need to build that network that you would get in a full-time environment.

And in many ways, I think you probably get a little bit, a little bit more personal in your face time with people, because you are doing it, you know, at nights and on weekends. And, you know, outside the classroom setting, so much is happening, that you really develop these personal relationships that really will carry you into your career as you go forward and throughout your future. You know, I'm getting ready to make a pretty big transition in my life, as I exit the military and go into the private sector. I can drop job applications all day long. And we all know how that works—not very well. So, the best thing you can leverage is your network.

So, when I pick up the phone and I call one of my classmates or if I get on LinkedIn and I say, "Hey, I'm really interested in this company. And you went to Rice, and I went to Rice. And we don't know each other, but we, you know, we have the Jones Graduate School of Business in common. Can we have a chat and talk about your company and your role and maybe a way I can get in the door?" And you know what? No one's ever told me no.

And that's kind of one of the things that I think Rice carries forward is when that Rice alumni or that Rice student calls, you answer. And you don't get that in other programs. Those relationships are built. That network transcends your cohort in your class into cohorts, past and present. And that's something that Rice has, that, you know, especially even in this online program, the MBA at Rice program, that I don't think other schools quite have yet. And that's my biggest selling point for Rice.

[38:30] Scott: I love that. I see it every day. Jeffrey, as we wrap up here, just kind of one last question. I'm just curious, like, in all the cool things that you spend your time doing, what kind of hobbies do you have, or what do you kind of spend your time when you have some spare time? Anything that comes to mind?

[38:45] Jeffrey: Oh, geez, we can go on for days about this.

[38:48] Scott: Probably, a whole another podcast on.

[38:48] Jeffrey: Yeah, that's a whole another podcast. You know, I don't, I have a personality flaw in that I don't partially do anything. I kind of go all in. And it's a problem. I’m addicted to hobbies, as one of my friends would say. And I don't know, I don't want to tilt my computer here and make a bunch of noise, but you can kind of at least see one or two guitars hanging out the back. I love music. I’ve always been a big music fan. And actually, I wrote on my admission essay for Rice, you know, the essay for application, there was... I think it had to do with bucket list. And I described myself as... you know, I said I wanted to learn to play guitar. And I described myself as the world's worst guitar player. Meaning, for, you know, for years I would take an acoustic on a deployment. I would learn to play guitar on the deployment. I'd get home. I'd get busy training, family, and everything else. I'd put it down. I wouldn't touch it six months, eight months. Go back on another deployment. And I'd pick it back up again.

So, it was the constant cycle of forgetting... learning, forgetting, learning, forgetting. And I found myself sitting in D.C., away from the family, doing Spanish training, everything. I was like, well, I'm a full-time student at night and weekends. I'm a full-time student during the day in a Spanish program. And I don't have any family here. I need something to make myself sane. And I dove into guitar head first and started doing private lessons. The wallet just opened up and the cash and the credit card started falling out and guitar started showing up. I don't know, I've got like eight or nine back there now. And it's a passion of mine.

And I've got, I mean, so many others. I love sports. I love golf. I love mechanical watches and the science and engineering that goes behind them. And I even have my Rice watch. You know, some people do class rings. I did my Owl watch. Actually, I'm appropriately wearing that one now. I know the podcast can't see it, but I've got my Owl on the back of my Reverso there. And, yeah, that's a huge passion of mine. And I hear WatchBox is opening up a store in Houston. Maybe, I can talk to Tim Mosso or one of those guys to give me a job down there.

[40:56] Scott: Oh, this has been fantastic, Jeffrey. I appreciate the time and coming on the show, just a privilege. Jeffrey Mosley, online MBA grad 2021, and a part-time musician. Thanks for being on.

[41:08] Jeffrey: Thanks, Scott. I appreciate it. It's been a pleasure.

[41:11] Scott: Thanks for listening. This has been Owl Have You Know, a production of Rice Business. You can find more information about our guests, hosts, and announcements on our website, business.rice.edu. Please subscribe and leave a rating wherever you find your favorite podcasts. We'd love to hear what you think. The hosts of Owl Have You Know are myself, Scott Gale, and Maya Pomroy.