My First Blog Post! #Transitioning

This is my first blog post!!!! Yay!!! I’m an official blogger!!! Anyways, with that out of the way let the blogging begin. They say when you start a blog you should write about something you know. There are many things that I feel I know about, but I want to do is help people not make mistakes I made or teach people the ideals or ideas that people thought me to be a better person. So, with my first blog post I’m going to write about my experiences transitioning from the military into civilian life, which in my opinion was successful, and how I went about it.

A little history about myself, I joined the Navy in 2001, the actual day I enlisted was 9/11/2001 (I know crazy right!). Like most people who join the Navy I was looking to see the world and pick up job skills that prior to the navy included gym membership salesmen, grocery checker, and all-world rec league basketball player. All those skills together didn’t add up to a prosperous career. So, I ended signing up to be a Machinist Mate (auxiliary) onboard submarines, in civilian terms that pretty much means I signed up to be a mechanic on submarines. Went through boot camp and after sub-school I got orders to the USS Norfolk SSN-714 and served on her where I was fortunate enough to be part of some pretty cool things. While I was on the Norfolk I was part of changing out the nuclear reactor, I did a patrol on a boomer submarine, 2 deployments to the middle east, and participated in numerous NATO missions.

While on my last deployment, I had 8 months left on my contract, seven of which was going to be sea which left me with one month to plan my transition into civilian life, and I was ninety-nine percent sure I was not going to re-enlist. So, I used that deployment to prepare my resume by trying figure out how to translate my job into civilian terms. What I did was go to some of the officers on my boat (thanks David Augustin) and ask them how to reword or rewrite my resume. Mr. Augustin would give me some good pointers, like instead of using 2^nd class Petty Officer as a title use Maintenance Supervisor because essentially that’s what I was. Every time he would give me changes to make I’d make them and I’d bring my resume back again I would make the second and third changes until one day he said, “Rodriguez, I think this resume is solid.” When we would hit different ports, I would send online applications and would set up phone interviews for the next port visit and when I ultimately got out I had five job interviews (in person) back home in the Bay Area and ended up with four job offers. I ended accepting a position as a stationary engineer at a hospital in the Bay Area where I ensured safe operations of plant-related systems including boilers, HVAC, electrical/mechanical equipment and emergency generators, very similar to what I did in the navy and I’m still a stationary engineer eleven years later.

That was 2006, but today it’s a lot easier. there are a lot of resources available to help veterans with their resume such as https://themilitarywallet.com/translate-military-experience-to-civilian-terms/, which helps you take military terms and references into terms recruiters look for which in turn helps you put your resume together. Another good site is https://www.taonline.com/mosdot. What TAOnline does is take your NEC or MOS, if you want to continue what you did in the civilian world, and shows you what jobs/careers you would be most suited for. I tried it myself, I entered my NEC, 4230/31 SSN/SSBN Auxiliary Equipment Operator/Technician, and ironically one of the first jobs that popped up was Stationary Engineers. From those careers TAOnline allows you to search current openings and apply to those job openings.

There is so much more that could be said and elaborated on, but I wanted to give a brief overview of my transition and what I did to make it successful. I approached it like anything else I was trained to do… prepare for the worse and hope for the best. It was one of those moments in life that you’ll be second guessing yourself and I compare it to when I enlisted into the military. You have no idea what to expect but if you give it your all and let the chips fall where the lay, you should be successful.

With all that said, I welcome all feedback, comments, and recommendations on my blog. If it helped you, if it didn’t apply and if that’s the case please share your point of view so I can share your point of view and that might could help someone and if you have any constructive criticism positive, negative, or other I’m open to anything and everything you have to say… Look forward to hearing from you!!!