Writing a Memoir, Scuba Diving, and Leading in Turbulent Times with Rear Admiral Tim Gallaudet, PhD, US Navy (ret)

Laura interviews Dr. Tim Gallaudet, retired U.S. Navy rear admiral, former acting NOAA administrator, and author of "Holding Fast in Heavy Seas," to explore servant leadership, scientific integrity, and leading through turbulent times. From navigating career setbacks and empowering others to scuba diving with sharks, this episode examines how humility, empathy, and an ethic of service can help anyone become a stronger leader.

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Guest Bio:
The Honorable Tim Gallaudet, PhD, Rear Admiral, U.S. Navy (ret) is a former acting Under Secretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere and Administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Prior to NOAA, Gallaudet served for 32 years in the US Navy, completing his career in the Pentagon as the Navy’s chief oceanographer, meteorologist, and hydrographer. He has a bachelor’s degree from the U.S. Naval Academy, and master and doctoral degrees from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, all in oceanography. His book about leading NOAA during President Trump’s first term, "Holding Fast in Heavy Seas: Leadership For Turbulent Times," is available at https://www.timgallaudet.com/ or any major bookseller.

Music Credits
Intro: Givin Me Eyes by Grace Mesa
Outro: Never Ending Soul Groove by Mattijs Muller

Transcript

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Hello and welcome to NPR with your favorite environmental nerds, Nic and Laura.

On today's episode, we talked about what we would do if we lived for 400 years. And it goes very well. Or if this podcast lasts 400 years. We interviewed Tim Gallaudet about writing a memoir, scuba diving, and leading in turbulent times.

And finally, we all know scuba stands for self-contained underwater breathing apparatus, or you do now if you didn't. But did you also know that the light fades on a spectrum as you descend? Red is the first color to go, so if you accidentally cut yourself below 30 ft deep, your blood looks green.

Yeah, that is not something I want to find out for real.

Yeah, let's not do that, yeah.

How about that? Hit that music.

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Let's get to our segment.

All right, so I'm sure you've seen this same thing everyone else has seen on Facebook because that's how it goes, but, you know, there's a shark, you probably know what I'm talking about, that has been identified, that's almost 400 years old.

Right, yeah, green shark, I think, yeah.

Yeah, so like, on one hand, you're like, oh, it's 400 years old, no big deal, but then you think like, like you said, 400 years ago was a Spanish Armada.

Yeah, right, yeah, it was 400 years. It was. I mean, you think about the country is only 250 years old, right? So free America, this shark was like. Like literally like 150 years old, right? I mean, that's crazy to think about. 1626, you know, yeah, but what would you do if you lived for 400 years?

I'd be so bored, you know, to live for like 100 and we're like, oh, it's not long enough, but thinking about 400 years.

Yeah, I feel like anything over, yeah, 200 is haunting. You can't, you wanna do, I mean like what we want to see the world, right? That's the the main thing that we want to do. But even then, the older you get, like, are you 400 years old, but you feel 100? Have you like aged slower or wait, wait, like you know you went from like born to 6 years old over 100 years.

Yeah, right, right, right, that's a very important question because if I'm an adult for like 300 years, that's different.

But man, but if you also age really poorly and so like the last 100 are terrible, I don't want that. That sounds awful.

What a question. What a question this is.

I don't know. I mean, I'm just picturing this poor or these poor animals that live this long, like literally just uh same ocean looking for new cracks to discover.

Their metabolism is super slow. I think they're like, they're pretty much scavengers, and they don't move a whole lot. They were very big animals, they're like 20. No, they're just kind of like, uh, they're like slaws. They're basically slaws cause they're in ice water basically, you know, so they're very slow, and yeah, if you get killed by a Greenland shark, that's your fault. I feel like they, you know, you, you did it, you know. You were, you were lazy and you were like, you know, I don't feel like moving. You can go ahead and keep eating me.

So they're looking at these people like, man, they only live for a short period of time, the way that we look at our cats and dogs, right,

exactly, yeah, exactly, yeah, they're the opposite, you know.

Yeah, but I don't know what I mean, would you do anything special or different?

I mean, I feel like, Oh, I'm haunted by The Good Place. If you make it to the end of that series, that's basically where they end up. Like, what if, what if it's infinite and um and then. Yeah, how long is too long?

Once you've explored everything, you've been to every continent, you see everything, eaten all the food, heard all the music, like, what else is there to do?

Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. You can only go to so many concerts and you know.

I think you'd almost have to like keep reinventing yourself like yeah you you could be a completely different person every 50 years you just like, you know what I love now it's yeah race cars, you know, whatever it is yeah I was vegetarian and now yeah um yeah, you'd have to like, and now I'm gonna be a witch for 50 years and that like instead of experiencing places and things you'd experience a whole life of something.

You'd be an excellent witch. I feel I don't, I don't feel like that's so. That stretch.

No, not really, uh, yeah, I'd have a hard time remembering spells.

Yeah, that's so true. That's true. You actually wouldn't be a good one. You'd be a good witch, you know, you're like a witch, but you don't know how to do anything.

I'm a good witch. I have no spells.

Yeah. I'm, I'm a witch. I don't believe in controlling other people like that, so

yeah, there you go, yeah.

I mean, so we can't heal anyone either, so I guess.

You're just kind of OK. You're an OK witch. You're, you're, you're fine.

Like right in the middle.

That's too funny.

Yeah, so that's uh Laura would be a witch and I would, uh, walk around the world, I guess. I don't know. You know, it's easy. I just set absurd goals for yourself.

Yeah, I just wanna, I think I'd still like meeting people, you know, even after all that time, um, EPR 200 years later,

yeah, yeah, no kidding. That that incredible, so incredible.

Yeah, I don't think I, I don't have anything that I think I would change more. I would just be, I I think I just would find more things to be interested in, you know, it's like a There's only so many movies, right? You can't see them all, but with 400 years you have time.

Yeah, I just wonder how that, you know, how like, you're supposed to live every day like it's your last. Well, what if you lived every day like they were never ending.

Oh gosh, yeah. I really think you get bored. I think you get so bored you wouldn't you just be like, I guess today I'll just lay in a pool again.

It's kind of like Groundhog Day when he gets to like the acceptance part of like this is always just gonna keep happening and he's just like whatever.

Yeah, yeah, I mean like it turns into office space.

Here it is, here's my real answer. I would totally learn how to play as many instruments as I could. That's what I would do. I already know how to play guitar. I would love to learn how to really play the piano.

I could play, I'd like to learn all the languages.

Oh my gosh, yeah, that's another one. That's another good one, man.

Look at us finally being people do that actually within like their actual lifetime, and we're like, if I lived for 400 years, I'll do it.

Yeah, right, right. Kudos to those people.

No, I know it's, yeah, always impressive, but yeah, that's what I would do. I would learn as many languages as I could and I would learn how to play as many instruments as I could. Boom.

Well, this is what happens when our editor Sam is not here to babysit us. So let's get to our interview.

Sounds great.

Welcome back to EPR. Today we're joined by Tim Gallaudet, PhD, Rear Admiral, US Navy retired, and author of Holding Fast and Heavy Seas. Welcome back, Tim.

Hey, Laura, so good to be with you.

I know you were here like when we first started almost 5 years ago in October of 2021. So we have some catching up to do.

We sure do, and uh both of us, I think, have accomplished a lot since then, so we're in a good place.

Yeah, but the one thing that's still here is this podcast, so I'm happy about that. And you have recently written a book called Holding Fast and Heavy Seas, which I already mentioned, but it is a memoir, so that's gonna be most of what we chat about here today. I would like to know though, before we dive into the content of the book, but more about what led you to write it and how was your process doing that.

Yeah, well, first off, it's not a cold complete memoir. I didn't write my every detail of my life story, but it's chronological and it's, it's mostly about leadership.

So I wrote a book about leadership and I did that because when I was the acting NOAA administrator and deputy NOAA administrator. I have our civilian scientists and, and uh professionals come to me every day and ask me about my thoughts on leadership, how I would handle certain situations.

And, you know, it's because of course, I served in the Navy, uh I got to the rank of rear admiral. So, the civilians who had not really much leadership training, unlike me, where I was trained on leadership from day one, that they really wanted to know better and they were hungry for, for leadership advice.

And I, I was really inspired by that. So what I did is actually I put together a one-page leadership philosophy and I sent it all around. People loved it. They Posted it in their offices and whatnot. And then that kind of formed the basis of the book.

I wasn't really planning to write a book, but I wasn't even planning to do a leadership philosophy, to be honest with you. Again, there's people asking me, and then the book idea came after I left NOAA, and I read a book that was a lot like the book I've written, and it was by the CEO of Disney named Bob Iger, and his book was so good.

It was called, cause he's the CEO of Disney, and I've been at Disneyland, The Ride of a Lifetime. And then that's awesome. The subtitle was spent my 15 years as Disney CEO, and I love the book.

It was so human, and it was, he was just such a good strategic thinker, and but he's also a very personable leader, and he divided it into two parts. The first part was learning, and he titled Learning, and that was his whole rise in, in the media world, and he happened to be a broadcast meteorologist for. His first job. And that, that caught my attention cause I've been a meteorologist.

And in the second half, he called leading, and it was all about his time at Disney. And I thought, gosh, this is like my story, my first half of my book, I called Learning the Ropes, and it's what I learned in the Navy about leadership.

And the second half was about how I applied that at NOAA. And I, I titled that Holding Fast. Because, of course, I was leading a science agency under Trump during his first term and Anybody who follows this field, your listeners really know that being in a science agency under Trump is not an easy deal. And that's what the book's about. That's the heavy seas.

So, I think that's a, a great thing to mention here is, you know, why are you here talking about this book? It's because you, you've been in it in the trenches, and a lot of people are always dealing with poor leadership or are jumping into leadership themselves, and it's great to get some advice and real stories from your life. So I'm excited about that.

And So I, I think we talked about this when you first were on, you had started writing the book. So, what was it like putting it together? I know that you had some beta readers. How did you get your book? How do you even take that many years of experience and that many lessons? So you started with your one pager, which is great, but how did you decide what goes in the book and what doesn't?

Yes, well, first off, I'm gonna thank you, Laura, because you, you looked at a very early version that was not that good. And, and, and I took on your advice. I actually rewrote the entire first half based on the advice you gave me, and I give you credit, by the way, at the end of the book and the acknowledgments because I had to grow as a writer.

So I, I, what I did is I, the first half, I decided to orient it in, it was chronological, so it starts with my time growing up in Southern California and being influenced by the ocean. And I go through my Navy career.

And then, but I decided to break it down and organize it, each chapter about a principle in my leadership philosophy. And the very first one is having an ethic of service. And so I described in that first chapter, what led me to the Naval Academy, my parents strongly supporting the military and that kind of thing.

And then I marched through every principle and get to the End of my career in part one in the Navy. And then I decided to, to write all the second half about NOAA about various aspects of leadership.

And for example, uh one chapter is called Leading Through a Storm. And that's all about the Sharpie Gate incident, which is sort of a central point of the book. Your listeners likely know about it when President Trump had tried to defend a tweet about Hurricane Dorian in 2019, where he mentioned that Alabama would be at risk, but it wasn't.

And someone took a Hurricane Center, National Hurricane Center forecast product and used what appeared to be a Sharpie to enlarge in the cone of uncertainty to include Alabama to justify the president's tweet.

So I, in this book, I actually write all the behind the scenes dealings with that, and none of it's been reported so far, by the way, and I'm actually surprised the press hasn't picked it up, but there's a lot of things that don't make the current administration look very good, but that's not the point, it's not a political book, it's just about leading and speaking the truth to science.

And uh and that was a challenge. And in fact, the holding fast and heavy seas part of the second half, that incident almost made me resign. I, in fact, I was going to resign. I didn't want to be a part of any government or agency that supported untruths like that.

And the reason I didn't is because the Chief operating officer of the National Weather Service, John Murphy, great guy, retired colonel in the Air Force, was a meteorologist, and he was, he was revered in the weather service. I think he's been to every weather forecast office, all 122 around the country.

And I wrote him a personal note about this, basically, and he told me to hang in there and that they needed, they needed good leadership to stick around, leadership with integrity.

And that's the reason I did it, because if John Murphy thought I should stay, I thought then that that's someone who I wanna, I wanna lead and support, and then so on and so forth.

Yeah, I think that's a great point. There's a lot of times myself, I'm included in experiencing this, working somewhere and you're like, I don't feel like I agree with the leadership. I don't feel like I'm doing anything, but do I leave or do I stay?

And yeah, so aside from that, someone's sweeping in and telling you, you know, I think you should stay. You've got something to offer here. How would someone internally make that decision?

Well, right. And so what ultimately, I agreed and I actually had a meeting well before that with a well-known Navy Admiral, retired admiral named Bill McRaven. He's a, was a four-star Navy SEAL famous for leading the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, and he was a friend of mine.

And I actually met with him, one of my first meetings when I was the acting administrator in 2018. It was following an American Meteorology Society meeting and I went to the University of Texas where he was the chancellor.

And he told me, and I asked him, I, I confided in him and I said, hey, Bill, I've not been a political appointee before. I'm not sure it's a new territory. Do you have any advice for me?

And he said, yes. Always do the right thing and when you can't, and you're no longer able to, then it's your time to leave.

And so, I was at that point after Sharpie gate, and, but I never got asked to do or say anything untrue. And John Murphy encouraged me to say, so I, I, I thought about what Bill McCraven said, and I just said, OK, I'm gonna stick around, try to do as much good as I can, but always be ready because if I get forced into doing something I, I shouldn't, then I have to leave.

And then that was my criteria. And thankfully, I never had to do that.

I think it's a little different nowadays, right now, I, I mean, To be brutally honest, telling the truth is an occupational hazard in any Trump administration. Bottom line, and that's what Sharby Gate was about.

But the book really covers the fact that I, we were able to accomplish a number of really significant environmental wins. Even, you know, despite the leadership from the executive branch, I was able to really kind of navigate and thread a thin needle by aligning with White House individuals who were doing good. As well as our agency personnel who wanted to do good.

And so we did things like this. We expanded the Flower Garden Bank's National Marine Sanctuary. We established the first National Marine Sanctuary, new one at the, at Mallows Bay on the Potomac River in 20 years.

We also put in some really important missions and to save coral reefs in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. I love the development of a nat of a NOAA strategy to respond to Stony coral tissue loss disease that's affecting coral reefs.

And then we actually put together a whole national strategy to map and explore the US EEZ. We did some great work on invasive species, combating them like lionfish in the Southeast, and so on.

A lot of cool technology too. I actually got a new start. This is like a miracle in the Trump administration to get a science agency to have a new program. And it was the uncrewed Systems Operation Center and Program.

Basically, the All the drone work that we were doing, aerial, surface, and undersea drones, and that program's almost tripled in size.

So, yeah, we were just trying to find creative ways to get advances in our agency without major budget increases and, and staff increases. And, and that's what the book's all about.

I talked about all these new ocean programs we have, some weather, environmental, fisheries, and I enjoyed it. I love the people and the mission, and I'm glad I stayed.

Yeah, so you were dealing with that under the first administration. Are you still involved with NOAA now? Like you said that this, that program has actually tripled in size. Do you think this administration is worse for science programs than the first time around, or how is it different?

I think it is more challenging. I actually agree with a lot of their policy development. So I'm, I know the chief scientist in the administration, Michael Kratzios, because he was the chief technology officer in the first term. And he supported a lot of what we're doing.

We, we did with AI. Now he's really leading. AI in a big way. So I agree with those policies. A lot of space tech advancements and such, but in terms of treating science agency, it's much more difficult because major personnel cuts under Doge.

I mean, 20% of NOAA's workforce has either been fired or, or retired. And that's a big hit. And then they're proposing budget cuts that were even worse than the ones during our time.

For example, cutting the entire Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research, which granted, I think they could become more efficient and effective. However, cutting the entire workforce and programs would undermine hugely a lot of the scientific advances being made at NOAA and other agencies.

So yeah, it's so much more challenging. By the way, it's even harder too now because if you're speaking in support of these budget cuts and whatnot, your time span at the agencies can be very short lived. So the environment is much more challenging right now, and that's the reason I didn't go back.

Right. Well, I feel like when you wrote this, it was holding fast in heavy seas, and now we're holding faster in heavier seas.

So, exactly.

How do you feel the book is being received right now while it's again, Trump administration?

Well, I, I'm really pleased, Laura, because I've had so many people, either former and even current, and elsewhere, come to me and just tell me how much the book meant to them and that it, it really, it inspired them in, in the way I wanted it to inspire them.

And so, what I do though, it's, it's not like a preachy leadership book. Where I highlight my philosophy and, and speak to it. What I really do is just tell my story.

There's a lot of highs and lows. And like for the first half of it, it's the Navy, yeah, but I also had a lot of family situations. Uh my, like, for example, I had a brother who overdosed on drugs. I'm adopted and I found my birth parents. That's a great story.

Yeah, yeah, and it was a beautiful thing because my birth mother, I gave her her first grandchild, and we, my wife and I, of course, and, uh, um, and that was really special, and she had been wanting to find me her entire life, and she was forced to give me up for adoption by her, her mother, and the whole story is in there.

And so like my brother who died of an OD and, and then finding my birth parents, I just learned a lot about myself in ways that are really human and a lot of people I know just they called me right away and said, oh my gosh, I, I can relate to this.

And I mean, like having an addiction in your family, it made me just so much more empathetic, and I, I approached my leadership at NOAA just knowing that on any given day, I was sure to meet with or talk with somebody who could be seeing the same thing at home.

And that is a tough burden to bear. And so there's, that's what the book is about really is this journey of just learning empathy and humility, even though I was an admiral in the navy, that's, that probably made me more humble than anything because I realized, gosh, look at how many, I can't even name all. The sailors and people in my life that carried me to that level.

And so it just made me want to pay forward all the good that was done for me. And that's really was my leadership approach at NOAA. I just wanted to do good and lift up people knowing that that's how the agency would succeed, not me in any great move or program or initiative.

It would just be empowering our people to do good. And how I did that with the various really interesting environmental science programs at NOAA is, is what that whole second part's about. Which I love to dive into.

In fact, literally, I'm a scuba diver, my wife was a navy diver. And so I talk about some of the dives I went on with NOAA scientists in Lake Huron at the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary in Hawaii, up a coral reef nursery, and the like, which I just thoroughly enjoyed.

Yeah, that's amazing. Are you still diving?

All the time, my gosh, this is our big hobby and so we've had a pretty epic year since I left the government or a couple of years since I last talked to you.

Shoot, uh, I, we've been to the Galapagos Islands. We've been to Guadalupe to dive with great white sharks in steel cages.

Oh wow,

we were in steel cages, not the sharks. That was great.

We just got back from Bermuda, really fantastic, healthy coral reefs there. We were in Belize earlier where the blue hole is a really significant dive destination that we did.

And uh all my, my two daughters are scuba certified, so we all dive as a family, and that's so much fun. Uh, and we've been to Fiji and Palau, and I can go on. I can have a whole episode here about diving. So if you want me to come back, let's do it.

Right, right.

Yeah, so all those experiences, I've noticed a lot of wes and hours in your talk, and I, I always noticed that because I noticed when people say I a lot, whether it's in their LinkedIn posts or their speech. I have a feeling that you are cognizant of that as well.

So tell me more about leadership as we rather than I.

Yeah, that's so good, Laura. Thank you for highlighting that. That's a big, there's a whole section of chapter actually on that team nature of leadership.

One of my principles is all for one. So, I have 3 main overarching principles, all good, being positive and inspirational, all in, being committed and dedicated to the mission and the people, and then all for one.

And that's about being, showing humility as a leader and being a team player. And I totally believe that. In fact, that's it.

And this is so true, and I described this in various ways. Once leaders begin to feel self Important, that just creates a toxicity.

And so, every day, you should be checking your ego out of the door and thinking about, what can I do for somebody today?

And they call that servant leadership. And it's a thing in the Navy, it's something well established and it's something companies and organizations should adopt more in my belief.

And that's why I wrote the book really to show what that's about. And what I like is, again, it's just sea stories.

So, the way I, I highlight that whole servant leadership principle is I, uh, just tell stories of great leaders who I, I work with, wonderful human beings in difficult situations.

One example is I had a commanding officer of an aircraft carrier and we were involved both with the first strikes in Afghanistan after 9/11, as well as the first strikes into Iraq during the Iraq War in 2003.

And this one commanding officer of my ship, he got fired. And it's a major thing to be fired in the navy. And unfortunately, oftentimes it's misconduct or poor performance.

And for him, his name is Tom Heil, I'm still good friends with him. He was fired mostly because the ship had a lot of maintenance issues that he couldn't fix overnight. It was the oldest ship in the Navy at that time, the USS Kitty Hawk.

And right after we got back from Iraqi Freedom, we had to get ready to go to, pardon me, enduring freedom in Afghanistan. We had to get ready for Iraqi Freedom in the operation in Iraq.

And the, the ship's engine room is in really bad shape. And basically, he got fired because there's a lot of conditions that weren't his own.

What he did and how he conducted himself is what inspired me is most people are gonna fight it. Their egos are so, so bruised, especially when you're in charge of a national asset, an aircraft carrier, that they would either bring a lawyer in, they would try to, uh, they retire and try to reinvent themselves.

And Tom didn't do any of that. He just quietly turned over, left the ship, and actually stayed in the navy for several more years, serving as the chief of staff of a strike group once. Our admirals, chief of staff.

And this is, this would be like, imagine a CEO of a big Wall Street company, all of a sudden getting demoted to be the executive secretary of that company and having to work for someone that used to be his subordinate.

You think any Wall Street CEO would, would deal with that? No, they leave. And, and this is what that guy did, Tom Hele.

And it really was a big thing for me because during my tenure at NOAA, I got fired. I was relieved as the acting administrator. Neil Jacobs took my place. I stayed as a deputy, thank goodness.

And I described all that in the book and the situations behind it, and it's pretty interesting. And I, I thought about Tom and I thought, no, and then people encouraged me to quit.

Again, this is like, I was like a cat with 9 lives, you know, I, there were so many times I Want to quit or was fired and got to stay. And that's what the book is about, all these situations.

But I stated I'm always, I'm, again, I'm glad I did because I was able to, uh, I think affect people in a positive way and really help the agency do good things and continue its great mission.

Yeah, I mean, I think the visual is there, navy high seas during your career on the top of a wave at the bottom of the wave and then running into the next one, right?

And I think it's important to many of the people that I come to me for career coaching are have been fired and they, they don't know how to talk about it. It's very embarrassing for some people and very personal.

So I think it's really important. I have this thing with leadership. I'm very Anti-authoritarian, so like, OK, so like a lingering teenage angst or something, but I think it's important for people to see the real sides of leadership and that these people have been fired too, and these people have gone through the same challenges that you are at your level and to, to hear you actually speak about them.

I think some leaders not only get to the point where they're a little into themselves, but also They polish a lot.

Oh yeah,

so you don't see the, the reality of how they got to where they were or the, the spots where they, you know, felt like they went totally backwards for a while.

So that's really great. So what, what advice do you have for that?

This is that book, trust me, it's not all pretty. I made some mistakes.

I think actually I understand your feelings about anti-authority. In fact, that's one of the lessons in this book is that no leader should have to exercise their authority to demonstrate leadership, because it's already understood.

If you have the position, your position of authority is there, it's on the table, that no one's gonna question it. And so, you shouldn't have to flex it, right?

Your job is to help your people do their job. And If you just always like certain leadership, if you go back to that and do that, and then, you know, actually, the thing that's gonna happen is, no one's gonna feel like you're flexing your authority.

They're gonna wanna do, Laura, is they're gonna wanna help you succeed and look good.

There's a story here I'll share from my book. When I was a commander on the helicopter carrier out of San Diego. It's a tradition kind of protocol in the Navy that when you finish a tour, duty at a ship or wherever, and if you've done a good job, you'll get some kind of award or medal.

And I have a few of these, and, and my senior enlisted person in the division I was in charge of, a senior chief petty officer, Midwestern guy with great value. His named Lindell Williams.

We were gonna give him his award, his medal, and he wouldn't accept it. And he meant this with sincerity. He didn't do this for show.

He said, no, I didn't do the work. This is all our guys, and we want guys at the time there. This is for the guys. They did their work. I, I, I can't accept it.

And he was serious, and I did not know how to handle this. So I went to my boss who was an oper the operations officer of the ship, Dan Esposito, super great human being, great leader, and he had a big job, the operations officer of the ship, and he took the time.

I asked him, hey, sir, I, I don't know what to do. He won't accept his award.

And he, as busy as he was, he said, send him down.

I sent down Senior Chief Williams, and he says, Senior Chief, what's this about you not accepting your NA tour award?

And Senior Chief said, Well, sir, I, I really don't deserve it. I think the guys deserve it. They did all the work.

And Dan said, Senior, this isn't about you. You have to know that if you don't accept the award, your sailors, these guys who did the work, they're gonna think that they let you down.

And so, take that award, not just for yourself, for them.

And he, he said, saluted and said, yes, sir.

And of course, I was blown away cause I I couldn't do a thing and Dan just showed me this great lesson about humility and how to appeal to sailors and their, and their work and, and it was just every moment in my career, I was just in a master class with great leadership showing me how to be better.

And again, that's why I tried to bring to bear at NOAA.

Yeah, that's great. I think it's crazy that my two of my favorite leadership books, I'm assuming yours is going to be, but the other one is Turn the Ship Around.

Um, and I just, I love that book so much and it always just surprises me that it's from the navy for some reason, but I love the way he talks. I love the way he speaks about leadership and your sounds like in that vein, so,

um, it's very similar, yeah, we have the same experience, right?

Well, I, I find it fascinating that the navy has so much good examples of leadership like this, and I, and I think, you know, you have, in my mind, not a lot of room for margin of error if you're on a ship and you have a directive. You don't have a lot of wiggle room to mess around.

No, no, there, there, yeah, exactly. There's some life and death missions you can't mess up. So that, that does it, it actually, it sharpens the sword of leadership for anybody in, in any position.

I'll probably, if you hope your listeners don't mind these navy stories, but there's a good one here. Another one that's important is, is leading isn't just in one direction. And so besides top-down, you can also lead up.

And one of my favorite stories from the book is a time where I was a, a one-star admiral, and your listeners might not know about these events. They're called Fleet Weeks.

And so when the Navy will come to town in some port and have a big series of appearances and whatnot and open ships up for tours and let just show the public in that area what the Navy is about.

And usually an admiral or two will come along and speak with the governor, mayor, and that kind of thing. And I did one of these, and actually it was a thing called Navy Week, and that's when they do a fleet Week somewhere where there's no ocean.

And so, I did, I did a Navy Week in Springfield, Massachusetts one time in 2015 or 2016. And I got assigned this driver, a petty officer 2nd class who was at the local recruiting station.

His name is Robert Jorgensen, I'll never forget him. And so, he's taking me from event to event. As I mentioned, I met with the lieutenant Governor, I appeared on a local TV station, and I got to know him.

We started talking. Hey, we were stationed in San Diego at the same time, and he was on a ship and, and so, after chatting with him a bit, I learned that he was a single father of 3.

I was really floored by that cause I have 3 daughters and we could not raise 3 daughters alone. Uh, it's, you know, both me and my wife are in a team on this and it takes a lot.

And so I asked him what happened. And he said, oh yeah, well, my wife, uh, she, uh, she succumbed to breast cancer a few years ago.

And I, I thought, oh well, first of all, I really felt for him cause I have cancer in my family too and But then I said, how are you even in the Navy still? That's a hard enough job alone to raise three kids.

Now you're, you're still in the service, you have a great attitude, you're super professional. How do you do it? And why?

And he goes, hey, well, sir, let me tell you, I really owe everything to the Navy, cause this is what happened is when I, I came in late, we were already married with kids and I came in late, so I had got a good job.

And then my wife got cancer, I would never have been able to treat it. But The navy paid for her treatment at Balboa Naval Hospital in San Diego, and that was, uh, you know, at least we, we could do that.

And then, then when, when she was getting treated, his ship stood up what they call a watch bill and basically someone was assigned to be at their house every day to help with the kids with their school, homework, meals, and so he could go be with his wife during chemo. Treatments.

So he goes, sir, you know, I was, of course, heartbroken when she passed, but I, I owe everything, you know, to the Navy.

And now, what they did is, uh, because my parents live in Springfield, they sent me to the recruiting office here as hardship duties so that my parents could help with my kids while I still work.

So he goes, sir, if anything, I'm more energized to serve in the Navy than ever, and I'm gonna go to 20 years and become a career recruiter.

And I thought, man, he's not hating the world, he's not feeling sorry for himself. He's energized to serve his country. He's probably an amazing example as a father to his kids.

And I just thought, wow, this guy, here he is, I'm a one-star admiral, and this 2nd class petty officer was leading up, showing me what it's like to have character.

And that's a story I tell in my book, and I meant that as really to show how others how to be and how they can influence their bosses and people above them.

Yeah, that's really awesome. I mean, it sounds like you've met a really great cast of characters over the years.

And so, going back to Noah, since our audience is probably interested in that, what types of leadership examples do you have during your time there?

One of them is our chief of staff, his name is Doctor Stu Levenbach. And I, I described him at length in the book, because he was really a wonderful leader to me.

He led Up in a lot of ways because I was so new as a political appointee and I mean a very, very naive political appointee. And he had been in the White House for 10 years at various offices.

So he knew how the game was played with respect to the budget and speaking at events and things like that. And he'd worked in both Republican and Democratic administrations.

And Stu, uh, I mean, he is, he was just my MVP in so many ways. He just taught me everything in terms of how to be the administrator, if you will, and, and an assistant secretary, undersecretary of commerce.

His leadership was really genuine cause he, he led up in such a great way, both me and Doctor Neil Jacobs, but also, he would make sure he mentored folks all the time.

He'd bring in, like, for example, NOAA has a program. Called the Knauss Fellowship, John Knauss Fellowship, and those fellows really go into great places in government.

Stu had been one, so he would, he would mentor those folks and often bring them to the White House for a tour. So he was always doing that. He was such a good leader, and you see that throughout the book.

And there's some drama too, because I'm not gonna do a spoiler here, but

yeah, don't give it all away.

He went through some challenges as well, and that comes up.

Awesome, yeah, anyone interested in leadership should definitely pick up this book, and you have been in the field, you're in the explorers club, you travel, you dive.

So we have a segment on here called #field notes. I think it was here when you were here the first time. It's the part of our show where we talk to our guests about memorable moments doing the work in the field, whether they're funny, scary, or awkward, or a combination, so we can read them on a future episode.

So anyone listening, if you'd like to share a story with us, we'd love to read it on the show. You can send it to info@environmentalprofessionalsradio.com.

And Tim, you must have tons of stories, but does anything specific come to mind?

Yes, there's a story in my book I'll share with you in an abbreviated way. I got to dive with NOAA divers. I, I love the NOAA mission and I especially love the NOAA divers and Dive Center that's in Seattle, Washington.

They, they need sort of some two different stories here. I visited that center and the cool coincidence there or connection is that my wife, when she went to Navy dive school in 1991, 1 of her classmates. Ended up becoming the NOAA Dive Center director.

And, and that's the guy who I met with at the time, Dave Kowalli, when I visited there.

But, so, going back to one of my dives with NOAA was that in Lake Huron at the Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary, which I just love this sanctuary because it's like all sanctuaries.

They have a number of, they're about protecting habitat and the environment as well as sometimes cultural resources, in this case, shipwrecks.

Shipwrecks from the 19th century that are still wooden and preserved because of the fresh water.

And, and we had this. Great day on the water. We've dived on two ships. Then I have a picture in my book of everybody on the boat with a nice lighthouse in the background on Lake Huron.

And I'm, I'm not gonna tell the details of the story, but, uh, I made a major novice mistake. But they were so supportive and respectful.

We got over that, if you will. I tell that story too, which is, it's kind of, it's kind of amusing, but also just a really neat, a neat story. And uh, all the dive stories in, in the book, I, I have a lot of fun with.

Yeah, that's great. Well, and on top of that, we like to talk to people about their hobbies. We have talked about most things. Are you still in the explorers club actively and doing stuff?

I am, I am, in fact, uh, gosh, uh,

I have you ever get out of the explorers Club? Is that like a life thing?

Oh yeah, no, you pay dues every year. You keep up with your dues, and they're not cheap.

Uh, yes, but so I'll tell you, I did, uh, so as I, I left NOAA dive story here. Actually, this is in the book too, but it's not really a spoiler.

So I met two NOAA scientists when I was there in San Diego at the Southwest Fishery Science Center. And every year, they had been going down to Guadalupe Island, Mexico, and documenting with photography and video, the white shark population down there.

And white sharks, I don't know, I'm not a biologist, but the top side of their body, there's a formal name I know, it's usually dark, and then they have a, a white kind of underbelly, and the, the line between the two on their side is It's always unique. It's like a fingerprint.

And so you can identify individuals by that as well as maybe scarring and things like that. So, they have been identifying every individual in the population for 20 years. So they have nice time series.

And when you have, when you can monitor a population of apex predators, it's a, it's a good indicator of the entire ecosystem. So really worthwhile time series.

And they were doing it. And they asked me if I could, I would go with them. And I said, oh my gosh, are you kidding?

And I called my chief of staff right away and said, you know, look into this. Of course, the lawyers at our headquarters wagged their fingers at me and said, no, no, no.

Yeah, 5 days down there in Baja diving with sharks. That's just such a boondoggle. The optics are terrible.

I was deflated and, but as soon as I left, my wife and I signed up and we did it.

I got to get what they call it with the explorers Club. They have explorers Club flags they take on expeditions like climbing Everest and going to the moon.

And so I took a flag down to that expedition and we documented all these sharks. We added some to the account. And so it was a citizen science effort.

And they like a lot of, they like to support citizen science at the club. And so that was my one flagged expedition.

But I'll tell you, these, these sharks are really amazing. I remember what happens is you go, you take a one day boat trip from Ensenada to the island, and then for 3 days you're diving in, in cages on the back and sides of the boat at different depths, sometimes at the surface and sometimes at 30 ft.

And the sharks are just doing their thing and And I remember thinking to myself, you know, 3 days in the same dive spot, I'm gonna get bored.

And no way. I tell you, now I know why adrenaline junkies like bungee jumpers do what they do, because I could not wait. Every time I got out of the water, I could not wait to go back in.

I wanted to be in the water the entire time. All Sorts of different individuals coming in around and just observing them so up close and personal.

And if any of your listeners want that report I wrote for the Explorers Club cause there's some great images, they can contact me at my website, Tim Gallaudet.com.

And that's also where they can get the book if they're interested in the book.

Perfect. Well, you took my last question, but my second to last question is, is there anything else that you would like to talk about that we didn't get to before I let you go?

Well, uh, no, thank you, Laura. Uh, it's so nice to reconnect with you and I appreciate you taking time for me.

And the only thing I'll do in terms of just emphasis of my book on leadership is that everybody has a chance to lead. And leading really is simply positively influencing others.

And that's just such a worthy and Endeavor wherever you are, you can be very junior and low in the organization and you still have a chance to lead.

And of course, if you're in charge of an organization, that's, you're in it and that's the time. But I think more professionals in our space, if they think about that and, and more deliberately rather than just waiting until all of a sudden they're in charge, then uh they'll be more effective that when, when they're called to step up at a higher level.

Absolutely, couldn't agree more. Well, thank you so much for joining us today or me. Nic is, you know, maybe lifing it right now. So he's gonna miss your shark stories.

But um thank you so much, Tim, for coming back and good luck with the book and thank you and hopefully sooner than 5 years.

Yes, no, actually you can have me back anytime. I have a lot of projects underway, by the way, we could take that offline, but I think your listeners might be interested in a few of them.

OK, awesome. Well, next time we will dive into that, but for now, focus on the book and tell people the name of it again.

Holding Fast and Heavy Seas and the subtitle is Leadership for Turbulent Times.

Awesome. Thanks, Tim.

Thanks, Laura.

That's our show. Thank you, Tim, for joining us today. Please be sure to check us out each and every Friday. Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review. Bye.

See you, everybody.