What 4 Colorado founders learned from serving in the military

by Elyse Kent
June 15, 2014

It’s not surprising that some of Colorado digital leaders are military veterans: Convercent CEO Patrick Quinlan, HOSTING’s CEO Art Zeile, Uvize CEO Dave Cass and Centennial Ventures co-founder Steve Halstedt attribute many of their best leadership qualities to their time in the military. Specifically, all four leaders said they learned: 1) Determination and how to overcome barriers 2) How to build an ‘A’ team 3) Strategizing skills 4) Communication 5) Accountability and how to trust others. Here are their stories:

 

Steve Halstedt, co-founder of Centennial Ventures

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Halstedt said he knew he would be drafted after engineering school, so he joined the US Army Corps of Engineers. After Basic and Advanced training, he went through Officer Candidate School and become a second lieutenant. Then the tech piece came into play when the Army selected him to teach computer programming at the Army Engineer School at Ft Belvoir, Virginia.

“There in 1970 we developed one of the first programming courses in the world using TVs in the classroom connected in real time to a minicomputer,” Halstedt said. “We would flowchart a program to solve a specific problem, code it in Basic or Fortran, have a student run it on a teletype machine connected to a minicomputer and observe the output on the six TV screens in the classroom.”

He used his skills to write large design programs for the corps, roads and airfields. Later, during his time in Vietnam, he added leadership and productive command style to the list of skills the Army taught him. As a combat engineer platoon leader, he lead a heavy equipment platoon, a construction platoon and a few dozen Vietnamese carpenters and laborers.

“The Army gave me a lot of responsibility and entrusted me with millions of dollars worth of equipment, not to mention the lives of scores of soldiers,” Halstedt said. “The experience of leading in a combat zone also has a way of maturing you beyond your years.”

Fresh out of the Army, he was rapidly promoted through various positions: “At that time knowledge of computers and experience with programming was relatively rare. I was very confident and proactive even in ambiguous situations. Given my engineering background the emphasis was always on defining the problem and seeking cooperative solutions.”

Bill Daniels at Daniels & Associates then hired Halstedt (because of his military background, something common to many of his employees). Later, Daniels became Halstedt’s venture capitalist when he and Jack Tankersley started Centennial to focus on networks of all kinds and the technology, software and infrastructure that made networks work.

“I have a great deal of respect for veterans,” Halstedt said. “I know that many have had excellent training and leadership experience. Like Bill, I believe they make great employees.”

 

David Cass, CEO of Uvize

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In a nutshell, David Cass’s career and path into digital technology was largely completely shaped by his military service. His software platform is a result of his military service. Cass spent 10 years as a Navy helicopter pilot with two deployments in the Middle East and then entered the civilian life with a bang.

Cass, who said he was always interested in startups and had his MBA, envisioned a technology company that has evolved far from what it started as. In his time in the Patriot Boot Camp and the TechStars Rising Stars program, his platform became further defined and found its niche.

Uvize became an innovative software platform that delivers online academic orientation and preparation to incoming veterans through partner universities and colleges. Uvize, which is completely free to veterans, also builds community by connecting students with their future veteran classmates, mentors, and advisers. By building skills before school starts and fostering community throughout college, Uvize helps increase the success rate of veterans.

“I think military leaders are risk managers, different than risk-takers,” Cass told a CU student. “We also have a mentality of ‘failure is not an option’. This mentality translates well into entrepreneurship. The reason I say 'risk managers' are different is because we manage risk by constantly listening to intelligence in the military. In business we constantly listen to intelligence as well (the market), and we adjust and pivot accordingly.”

Cass is currently a reservist and volunteer adviser for CU Veteran Affairs.

 

Patrick Quinlan, CEO of Convercent

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Patrick Quinlan runs a tight ship. Now in his third CEO position and on his third startup, Quinlan knows the difference between leadership and what drives results: "I don't bring emotions into decisions anymore. I focus on using the facts," said Quinlan.

Quinlan, whose father was stationed in the Army in Germany, was brought up accustomed to military life and the discipline it required. Quinlan spent three years as an airborne US Army Infantryman in Desert Storm in the ‘90s and brought back with him an expectation for accountability and a keen sense for finding the right people.

“We learned the discipline of mission and teamwork- that you have to build a solid team that you trust to accomplish your goals,” Quinlan said. “The military required that we were able to skillfully act in situations with high intensity and consequences without letting the stress alter our decision making.”

This is exactly how Quinlan has gotten through a few hiccups in the startup world. After the Army, he and co-founder Barclay Friesen worked for seven years building ServiceSelect, which failed with the economic downturn. Most recently, he had to cut the Convercent staff in half, which he noted is always the responsibility that is the most difficult part of his leadership position.

Quinlan is active in supporting the growing entrepreneurial community whenever possible and Convercent plays a vital role in building young leaders, he said. Empowering the next generation of leaders has always been something that Quinlan looks to instill via his business operations. Recently, Convercent played host to several Creative Mornings and CityBuild events, which both help to positively influence thought leaders by sharing ideas around civic and creative discussions.

 

Art Zeile, CEO, & Joel Daly, COO of HOSTING

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Immediately, an outsider can recognize HOSTING’s values mirror many of the Army’s: for one, the company’s leaders take challenges head-on and embrace change. The next apparent trait of Hosting.com’s environment is that employees communicate honestly and are straightforward. This supportive environment says to team members, “We’ve got your back and are here for you.”

This isn’t surprising, seeing that the two co-founders of HOSTING both served time in the U.S. Air Force. The two know the importance of teamwork having worked with each other for 16 years now; they’ve been creating successful digital technology companies since 1997 together.

HOSTING, the duo’s third company, is a company built on “positive accountability.” Zeile, who was once an Executive Officer to the Director for Military Communications Programs and a technical advisor to the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, knows that honesty and accountability isn’t always commonplace in the business world.

Zeile said is hellbent on maintaining integrity and passing along that trust when it comes to his employees and how they relate to the customer: “Our clients trust us to be honest and to be transparent and it shows through our customer relationships.”

When it comes to Zeile’s ‘A team,’ he notes that he always surrounds himself with talented go-getters. If leaders hire those who desire more responsibility, businesses and their employees will quickly grow. Zeile and Daly know the importance of rigorous work and deadline-driven methodology, which is seen in the seriousness of their security-hosting business model.

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