This weekend, I had the unique opportunity to travel to Atlanta, GA to present a project from my summer internship (AIAD) at Boston Scientific to the Close the Gap (CTG) steering committee meeting. The audience consisted of the steering committee (17 physicians and hospital administrators in the field of cardiology), BSC sales reps, regional managers, all way up to several VPs and Senior VPs, in addition to the CTG team and a few of their partners. I really enjoyed being able to present my project to those who not only work on the strategy of CTG but also on the tactics and then implementation of both. I was honored to be invited to present and then observe the discussion and the planning taking place. This opportunity allowed me to see the application of my work, as well as to identify some of the gaps and disparities of my project, and identify some future work that can be done.

On top of all of this, Chevy Cleaves (USAFA ’85, BSC VP for Global Diversity and Inclusion, and the man who brought me to Atlanta), taught me an important military application to this event and my work. The theorist doesn’t need to have all the answers. He gets us beyond where we were before and makes us think in a way we have previously not thought. In the future, we can search for the real application with the answers. The Army has theory, strategy, tactics, implementation (and more). Not all of that is done by the same person. And that’s perfectly fine. Different people have different skill sets and different experiences. The Army takes advantage of this fact, and that’s how it operates. I believe this diversity and specialization is of the things that makes the US Army so great.