Diversity is a Strength

As Secretary, Mabus overruled the Marines and opened all ground combat (armor, artillery and infantry) jobs to women. He also pushed for and then implemented the repeal of “Don’t Ask; Don’t Tell.” The percentage of women at the Naval Academy was greatly increased and he brought NROTC back to Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and Princeton. He also opened NROTC units at Rutgers and Arizona State, the two most diverse universities in the nation.

If everyone looks the same, comes from similar backgrounds, thinks in like ways, then the military or other organization becomes predictable and a predictable military (or any other organization) is a defeatable military. The only qualify to get a job should be the ability to do the job, and gender, race, birthplace, who you love, gender identity, etc. become as irrelevant as eye color or who you root for in football.

Hard Lessons Learned in Leadership

Mabus has been fortunate to be one of the very few people to have held top level jobs at the state, national and international level.

In his first elected job, State Auditor of Mississippi, Mabus worked with the FBI in a sting operation, putting almost 15% of county officials in jail for corruption. As the youngest Governor of Mississippi in over 150 years, he passed one of the most comprehensive education acts in the nation.

While Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Mabus endured a terrorist attack. As a CEO of a public company in bankruptcy, he successfully led it out of bankruptcy in less than a year, paid all creditors in full, saved equity and raised several hundred million in new equity.

During his time as Secretary of the Navy, Mabus opened all jobs to women and built more than twice as many ships as in the preceding eight years with a smaller top line.

As Governor, Mabus oversaw a state employee workforce of 32,000 (100,000 if you count teachers). As Ambassador, he ran one of the largest US Embassies in the world. And as Secretary, was responsible for almost a million people, a $180 billion budget and global responsibilities.

Along the way, there were lessons learned, many times the hard way, in leading people, communicating, setting priorities and dealing with many diverse constituencies (Congress, the White House, the Pentagon, the press, Sailors, Marines and the American people). These are invaluable and can be passed on in an easily understood way mainly by telling stories in each situation.

Climate Change as a National Security Issue

If sea level rise isn’t arrested, the largest naval base in the world, Norfolk Virginia, will go under water in the foreseeable future. As storms, floods, and droughts get more frequent and more severe, unrest occurs in affected areas, and unrest can become chaos, and chaos can become conflict. As the Arctic melts, there will be many more opportunities for friction with states like Russia and China.

National Security from All Angles

Mabus will touch on current events (the war in Ukraine; China threat) to climate change as a national security issue. During his time as Secretary of the Navy, he took the Navy and Marines substantially off fossil fuels as a war fighting measure.

As the longest serving SecNav in 100 years, Mabus was deeply involved in nearly all national security topics and, on his watch, Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Ladin.

Other Topics Include

• Leadership lessons (main topic of my talks at Harvard Business School as an Executive Fellow)

• Geopolitical situations, especially Russia, China, South China Sea, Iran, North Korea, and US military posture/readiness War in Ukraine—military and humanitarian (on Board of World Central Kitchen which has provided over 1 million meals a day)

• American military structure and capabilities

• American political landscape