Speaker: John Mower, Emergency Management Specialist, U.S. Coast Guard
1. Introduce yourself including your name, who you work for and title or rank. You can include hometown, marital status, etc.
John Mower: Yes. Uh, good afternoon. Good morning. Wherever you're hailing in from, uh, my name is John Mauer and, uh, I'm with the US Coast Guard District 11 in Alameda, California. I'm an e emergency management specialist, uh, with a special focus on environmental programs, uh, especially related to oil spill response and preparedness. Um, originally from Santa Cruz, California. And, uh, I'm married about 23 years now with, uh, two, Children, ages 11 and 14.
2. Describe what the Yvorra Leadership Development Foundation scholarship will do for you in developing your leadership skills.
John Mower: Yes. Uh Evora Leadership Development Foundation has awarded me a scholarship that uh I plan on using to finish up my master's in public administration in disaster management uh from Metropolitan College of New York.
3. Briefly describe what your definition of leadership is.
John Mower: Yeah. So with regard to my definition of leadership, um I aspire to be a servant leader, you know, first and foremost, um I prefer to model the way um in servant leadership to others. It's not about uh uh doing everything myself or expecting everyone else around me to uh to do, do the task at hand. Um I would rather uh secondly, in addition to modeling the way, uh secondly, inspire others by sharing in the common vision for the goal at hand or the vision that uh that we're working toward. Um sometimes there's inefficiencies. So I believe a good leader challenges, the process would be the third sort of aspect of leadership. Uh So we're always looking for ways to make things more efficient as leaders. Uh fourth uh enabling others to act. So again, it's not about uh completing the task at hand because I know how best to do that. It's about enabling those around me to be able to complete those tasks at hand and sharing in the vision uh and completing the task at hand. And I think fifth um is a really important one and, and that is encouraging the heart because most of us work. Um I think best from a place of passion and the things that we care about. Uh It's one of the reasons why I've really enjoyed a, a long career with the Coast Guard, us Coast Guard, uh retired in 2019 after 28 years in a blue suit and now I work for them as a civilian. Um and it's uh truly, the mission at hand is, is truly uh a mission of the heart. Um And that makes a big difference. That's my definition of leadership.
4. Describe your experience in completing the application package.
John Mower: Yes, with, with, with regard to uh completing the application package, it was fairly simple and straightforward really. Um I uh drafted a my own letter and I reached out to uh a reference that I used um which was the uh veteran administrator for the program that I've been enrolled in at Metropolitan College of New York. And he was more than willing to, to help me with that um and provide a letter of recommendation. So, uh yeah, I encourage any anyone who's thinking about doing it to dive in, it is a fairly simple and straightforward process and um uh good luck.
