Growing up in Cedar Falls, Iowa, Liz Callahan never imagined that she would one day fly a Black Hawk helicopter over the broad plains and reedy marshes of Iraq. Yet, after graduating from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 2003, she soon found herself piloting the $14 million aircraft, as a captain in the medical service corps. It was a job that tested her like no other. “Day in and day out, we saved lives,” she says flatly.
After her military service, she landed a job as program manager of a DaVita Inc. healthcare clinic in Atlanta and also helped to launch Rooster 14, a baking company that sells “scoop cookies” via the Internet and at local markets in Atlanta. Callahan took the GMAT in February of 2009 and applied in the third and fourth rounds to five top schools: Yale, Chicago, Columbia, Duke, and Berkeley. Lured by Berkeley’s strengths in entrepreneurship and health care, as well as its Northern California locale, she opted for the Haas School of Business and entered the full-time MBA program in late August of 2009. She expects to return to Rooster 14 after getting her degree.
Her story:
One of the big draws of Haas is that the school is very open about what it’s about. It’s not merely about a test score or a GPA. Haas really wants to make sure it’s the right school for you as an individual. We are a student-driven school, and the administration wants to know what students think and listens to what students have to say.
The five adjectives that describe the Haas School? We’re transparent, forward thinking, trusting, engaging, and unique. It’s a very welcoming environment and it pulls you in. We’re competitive on the outside, but collaborative on the inside. We’re here to work together as a team.
The place really lives up to its four cultural principles: To question the status quo; to produce MBAs with confidence but no attitude; to pick people who are students always and don’t think they’ve learned everything, and to reach beyond ourselves, putting larger interests above our own. Those four pillars aren’t anything new to Berkeley. They are spot on. We want to use who we are to get to better places. To be at the business school at Berkeley is unique in itself. As the president of our MBA Association, I had the chance to meet with the student presidents of the top 50 schools in the world and my impression is that Berkeley is not a cookie cutter business school.
If I could change one thing about the school, it would be to get more space. There’s a constant need for group study rooms. There’s just very limited space here.
The best advice I ever received came from my father and at a very young age. The words, “Don’t force it, Elizabeth,” were said to me more than once during my childhood. He usually shared this with me when I was jamming a cassette tape in the wrong way or trying to ‘help’ my little sister brush her hair. While these words started as a basic way to help me learn that pushing a square peg into a round hole might break something, they evolved into much more. I often find myself thinking about this phrase when faced with a difficult situation, whether it was during my deployment to Iraq, working on a project for class, or making a decision for my cookie company. These words help me decide whether a little extra pushing might do more damage than good. In fact, the right course of action may be to slow down and take another look at the situation before executing. His voice often echoes in my head at just the right moment when it comes to making decisions.
The greatest challenge I ever faced occurred while I was serving in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. It came eight months into my deployment as a medical evacuation helicopter pilot and team leader. One of our unit’s aircraft crashed, and we lost two remarkable young men. The crew came from another remote location, but our entire unit felt the loss. These men were extremely close to several members of my team, including me. My unit arranged a memorial service. But the location of the service was over an hour’s flight away. Obviously, my entire team wanted to attend – as did I, but we could not leave while charged with our medical evacuation mission. Medical evacuation is an essential aspect of any war, but in Iraq where civilians are sometimes caught in the middle, our lifesaving role is not limited to U.S. soldiers. I took a good look at my 17-member team and knew that they needed me to lead them through this terrible ordeal.
However, my job as team leader required me to not only hold myself together but hold together my crew as well. We all needed to recover from the incident and mourn, and as the leader I saw our effectiveness limited if we were not able to appropriately grieve. It became apparent that I had to find a way to get my team to the services, yet I also knew that it was my responsibility to ensure the medical evacuation mission remained covered. I approached the Marines who were also located at my site. Although they did not have the same aircraft, they did have the expertise needed to perform medical evacuations. In explaining the situation, they understood the necessity of their assistance. We spent a great deal of time planning the hand over, training on all of the required skills, and the transfer went very smoothly while my team attended the services. It was the most challenging time I have had as a leader. I had to put my troops first at a time when I wanted someone else to shoulder the responsibility. Although it was an extremely difficult situation, it was also one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. Being able to appropriately honor our lost crew was essential to my team’s morale and performance. I saw firsthand the detrimental effects of the other teams that did not return for the memorial. My team, however, came even closer together, and I showed my soldiers that they had a leader they could count on.
An event that changed my life? While at West Point, I blew my knee out on an obstacle course. What the doctor initially diagnosed as a sprained ligament, turned out to be the most defining event of my life thus far. Further testing showed that my knee experienced much more than a sprain; I had a completely torn ACL and a great deal of other internal damage. While the immediate impact seemed life changing, this was my first surgery, I was still a freshman with limited privileges (e.g. if outdoors, I could not ask a classmate to assist me while I was crutching around), and my softball season was prematurely over. I remained determined to complete my military training as though my knee operated at 100%. This meant I went to airborne school and parachuted out of planes. I earned a badge that, among many other requirements, necessitated a 12-mile road march with a 40-pound rucksack on my back, and I fought for a medical waiver to qualify for helicopter flight training. I continually pushed myself and that continually pushed my repaired knee.
While deployed to Iraq, my constant pushing caught up with me. On a routine pre-flight, I twisted my knee just so and heard the dreadful pop. This twist occurred in February and by August I could hardly walk. My crew would drive me to the aircraft for missions, and every step on the gravel paths of Iraq sent pain through my body. As soon as my leg began locking, I had to ‘ground’ myself from flying. Luckily, this occurred at the end of the deployment, and I came back to the states for evaluation. The evaluations, physical therapy, and exploratory surgery follow-up lasted for over a year. The doctors could not figure out how to get my knee back in flying shape. And finally, the Army determined that my knee was not able to withstand the expectations of my position.
My knee decided that it was time to join Corporate America. I continued to work in healthcare administration, but I still had issues with my knee. I struggled with standing for long periods of time, I was not able to run, and even walking created a challenge for me. Finally, a West Point connection put me in touch with the surgeons for the Atlanta Falcons Football team. I decided that if there was hope for any sort of recovery, they could offer it.
My visit to their practice led to surgery in the spring of 2009, and my knee decided that being out of work on recovery was the perfect time to apply to business school. I worked on my essays first thing in the morning and only took my pain pills when I completed my writing for the day. The undertaking was rough, but I jump started my MBA process and attended school a year earlier than I initially planned. Although my knee is far from 100%, it is getting me through business school just fine.
My health and my family are the two things I am most grateful for. Without those, I would not be where I am or the person I am today. However, I think it is more insightful to reach beyond those amazingly important aspects. I am grateful for my opportunities to travel. I have traveled to 19 countries and six of those were visits during my time at Haas (two for school). Traveling keeps me humble, thankful, and inspired. Each country, culture, and experience provides me a wealth of knowledge as well as curiosity that I have not found from any other source. I’m also thankful for my dog, Reese. Throughout my five years in the Army, I lived in three different states, and I moved to a fourth when I left the service. My move out to California for business school signified the longest period of geographic stability (two whole years) since college. The only constant in my life during this time has been my dog. He greets me every morning and evening with excitement; he always seems ready for whatever adventure I throw his way. Reese reminds me that no matter what comes my way, there are constants in my life on which I can always count.
Other “My Story” features:
From a Hollywood Talent Agency to Chicago’s Booth School of Business
From Deloitte Consulting to Harvard
From an Army Ranger in Iraq to Harvard
Read the full article: My Story: From West Point to Berkeley
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