Officers leaving the military find MBAs ticket to success in civilian life

Surprisingly, officers leaving the military — even after service in Iraq — are finding that a bachelor’s degree and leadership experience are not enough to arm them for more than an entry-level job at a Fortune 500 company. So what they’re seeking — and what makes them particularly desirable to employers — is a master of business administration degree, says Stuart I. Greenbaum, Ph.D., dean of the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis.

More and more officers leaving the military are seeking MBA degrees to become more attractive to employers.
More and more officers leaving the military are seeking MBA degrees to become more attractive to employers.

Capt. Kara Bates spent nine months in the Iraqi theater as a U.S. Army Kiowa Warrior helicopter pilot with responsibility for 30 troops and eight aircraft. She flew more than 150 combat hours and led her troops through many successfully completed battles. She and each of her pilots returned home with the Air Medal of Valor. Still, Bates and her husband, Heath, also a veteran who served in Iraq, knew from friends and colleagues that they would need to improve their marketability in the transition to civilian life.

“We decided that we wanted to pursue an MBA to put us really in positions of responsibility that more closely resembled the responsibilities we had in the military,” says Bates, who along with her husband, is in her second year of Olin’s MBA program. Both have already been offered positions with Guidant Corp. Inc.

More and more military officers — captains and lieutenants with five to seven years of service — are finding that an MBA is their ticket to success, says Greenbaum, who also is the Bank of America Professor of Managerial Leadership at the university. From the business school’s perspective, these officers bring a great deal to the classroom and employers see in them extraordinary employment candidates. The school actively recruits commissioned military officers.

For former military officers with MBAs, average starting salaries reach $84,000, with many getting signing bonuses of about $16,000.

The high salaries confirm the findings of a recent report issued by Military MBA, an educational resource center that encourages officers to go to business school. According to the group’s Web site, 3.5 times more military officers will hold MBAs by 2007 than in 2004.

“These former officers have finely honed leadership skills,” says Greenbaum. “They are incredibly focused and mission-oriented. They elevate the tone of the program and the experience in the classroom. When they seek employment, they are very, very desirable employees. Our corporate clients are more than eager to have them, and we’ve had great placement success.”

Joe Stephens, assistant director of Washington University’s MBA Admissions, says, “It’s no surprise to us that our military graduates receive offers quicker than the average classmate, and they get some of the better offers out there.” Stephens oversees military recruitment.

On the other hand, “without an MBA, veterans can be in for a huge letdown,” Stephens says. “Often they come to us when they realize the positions they’ve been offered are entry level. The salary offers may be better than military pay, but the level of responsibility is such that it’s just not a challenge for them. The MBA allows them to skip that first step and get a job that meets their expectations and their level of experience.”

More than 70 veterans have passed through Olin’s MBA program. The university recently signed an agreement with the U.S. Military Academy at West Point that will direct graduates to Olin.

Jack Benecke, a U.S. Army captain who served from 1995 to 2000 after graduating from West Point, is now an account manager for Guidant, an Indianapolis-based cardiovascular medical products company. He echoed the sentiment that his MBA from Olin contributed greatly to his success at Guidant.

“My experience in the military taught me a lot about leadership. It taught me a lot about management and it taught me a lot about how to achieve operational success,” Benecke says. “Along with those skills, though, I needed more raw business discipline. I needed to understand the fine points of finance, business strategy, accounting, marketing — all the core business functions.”

An MBA coupled with military experience puts students “in the catbird seat,” Stephens says. Olin graduates now hold positions at corporations such as 3M, Bear Stearns and Salomon Brothers.

Benecke, who has led Guidant’s Gulf Coast region to the second highest sales growth among the company’s 200 regions, sums up his success this way: “I found the right company with the right opportunity with the right job description that made it fulfilling for me. And, oh, by the way, I get paid pretty well.”