We Can All Win: Don’t Self-Select Out of Your Next Mission

In this episode, Kathleen and Rachel chat with Air Force veteran Jacki Davenport, a 20+ year intelligence and special operations professional who refused to take no for an answer from the very beginning. Jacki shares her journey from recruiter office moments to tight-knit special missions units, cyber operations, and eventually, the private sector. Along the way, she gets honest about the cost of high-tempo deployments, the identity whiplash of going reservist, and the power of a network that believes “we can all win.” Her story is a reminder not to self-select out, and to use your non-negotiables to steer your next chapter instead of settling for whatever comes first.

Chapters

• 02:18 – Jacki’s Path to the Military 
• 04:05 – Saying Yes to the Unknown
• 09:14 – Humanity Catching Up & Choosing the Reserve Path
• 10:35 – Redefining Identity and Impact
• 11:40 – Standing Up an Offensive Cyber Unit
• 13:25 – From Intel Targeting Officer to Chief & Mama Bear
• 15:01 – “We Can All Win”: How Jacki’s Network Carried Her Transition
• 16:33 – Starting at the Bottom Again: New Acronyms, New Language, Same Grit
• 19:35 – Building Intelligent Systems in the Private Sector
• 22:24 – Don’t Self‑Select Out & Know Your Non‑Negotiables
• 23:40 – It’s Okay to Ask for Help: Using Your Network Without Shame

Key Takeaways

• Prepare for Identity Whiplash: Going from a fast‑paced, small special mission unit to the reserves was Jacki’s first real separation struggle. Recognizing and naming identity shifts early can help you avoid making rushed decisions to return to what’s comfortable.
• Don’t Self‑Select Out of Opportunities: If you can say yes, say yes. You can always course-correct later, but you can’t win if you never step up to the plate.
• Your Network Really Can Be the Difference: The right people can open doors you didn’t even know existed when it’s time to transition. Jacki reminds us: you are not burdening your network by asking for help; you are finally using it for what it was built for.
• Let Your Non‑Negotiables Guide Your Next Role: Go into your civilian job search (and interviews) clear on what you will and won’t accept. Those guardrails will help you quickly rule out misaligned roles.
• Be Humble Enough to Start at the Bottom Again: By the time Jacki retired, she was at the top of the food chain in uniform—but in the private sector, she had to be the person writing down acronyms and Googling them after meetings. Her advice: accept that your rank and past titles don’t automatically transfer. What does transfer is how you bring value, learn fast, ask questions, and build credibility all over again.
• Impact Can Shift from Mission to People—and That’s Okay: In uniform, impact meant operational results and mission success. As a chief and later in industry, Jacki’s impact became about developing people, protecting her team’s mental health, and reducing human cost through better systems. Accepting that your definition of service can evolve is key to feeling fulfilled after the military.

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Transcript

Jacki Davenport 00:00
I was a reservist for about a year and a half. I would say that is probably my first struggle, and definitely was the hardest one for separating, because I left this super tight-knit community that was very fast paced. I went to become a reservist, and I was like, okay, what do I do with my hands? This doesn’t seem like the same thing. So I really struggled with that a little bit. But that was really the first hit of, oh man, I’m not this person anymore. I’m this other person now, and how do I rectify that with myself?

Kathleen Smith 00:37
Welcome to Exit Buddy: Veteran Stories to Guide You. This podcast shines a light on real struggles and triumphs of veterans navigating life after the military.

Rachel Bozeman 00:47
In each episode, we dive into heartfelt stories of resilience, setbacks, a little humor, and growth as veterans transition and find new purpose in civilian life. And here for the journey, we’re your hosts. I’m Rachel.

Kathleen Smith 01:02
And I’m Kathleen. If you’re looking for inspiration, practical advice, or just a reminder that you’re not alone in your transition, Exit Buddy is here to help you thrive beyond the uniform. Enjoy today’s story from our next honorary exit buddy.

Hello, everyone. This is Kathleen with just a little bit of a cold cough going on. So if you don’t recognize me, that’s why. And always my co-host, my co-pilot, and someone who I cannot get through the day without, is Rachel. Rachel, how are you doing today?

Rachel Bozeman 01:31
I am doing fantastic, and hopefully not nearly as sniffly.

Kathleen Smith 01:35
Well, I would like to welcome to the studio our new guest that we’re so excited to have because she’s part of a network of veterans that we have been having a great time talking to. So I’m well excited to welcome Jacki Davenport, an Air Force veteran who spent over 20 years in intelligence and special operations before transitioning into the private sector. Jacki, thanks so much for joining us in the studio.

Jacki Davenport 02:01
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me.

Rachel Bozeman 02:03
Wonderful. Well, Jacki, I think an important part to start the conversation is at the very beginning. So let’s go back in time, maybe 20 years or so, and talk about what prompted you to join the Air Force, and how did you end up in intelligence.

Jacki Davenport 02:18
I’m from East Texas, pretty far out in the country, and it was beautiful, and it was gorgeous. I had an amazing childhood, but then I decided at one point that I needed to change, and I was ready for a challenge. So I decided I was going to check out the military, and I walked into the recruiter’s office.

I walked into the Marine Corps office, because what you’ll notice about me, probably throughout this conversation, is I don’t take no for an answer well, and if I’m going to do something, I’m going to just go big. So my conversation with the Marine Corps was pretty short when I realized that he was just trying to identify faults in me that were very obviously related to the fact that I was a young woman. I walked out pretty aggravated, and so then was kind of questioning what I might do instead.

And then about a week and a half later, I’m in the fall of my senior year, came to AP class. So I’m sitting in the class, and the Air Force ROTC recruiter comes in with the local staff sergeant and they’re talking about recruiting for ROTC. It never really crossed my mind that I should talk to the ROTC recruiter, because they were looking for data scientists, engineers, right? It’s the Air Force. So really technical degree sets.

And so instead, when offered the chance to ask a question, I ask very pointedly, so are you just talking to the men in the room? Are you talking to everyone? To which the poor lieutenant and the staff sergeant were like, we can talk afterwards. And I said, okay, sure. So I do have a conversation with this staff sergeant who was a crew chief doing his recruiting tour as a way, probably, to get off the flight line for a bit. And he said, why did you ask that question? And I said, well, and I told him my Marine Corps recruiting story. And he was like, well, that sounds really short-sighted, and you should come into my office and talk to me.

So I did. And I said, hey, look, I love working with my hands. I like working on cars. I am a huge tomboy. I’ve been rebuilding cars with my buddy. I want to work on airplanes if I join the Air Force. His response was, now, I’m not signing you up for that. And I said, oh, okay, so here we are again, right? We’re in the same spot, just a different conversation. And I said, well, why not? And he said, well, I looked at your ASVAB score, and I think you should do this other thing instead. And I said, okay, well, what is it? So he reads me the vague blurb of an intel analyst. I don’t even know if it was the career that I ended up in, to be perfectly honest, but it was some sort of flavor of intelligence analyst. And I said, okay, well, what does that mean? And he was like, I don’t know, but it sounds really cool. And so he was really an honest broker. And I was like, it does sound really cool. So yeah, that was it.

Then that was in December. I joined the delayed enlistment program, got cleared through MEPS, did all that stuff on the weekends, and then graduated high school on Memorial Day weekend, and I was in boot camp on June the first.

Kathleen Smith 05:54
I understand once you heard this sort of nebulous description of your career that you ended up having eight and a half years as part of a special missions unit. So let’s talk about what you ended up doing, where you ended up living, and it sounded like you built your own community.

Jacki Davenport 06:14
Absolutely. I mean, I was so lucky to have the experience that I have, even though you’ll hear me all the time like there’s no such thing as luck, right? The Seneca quote of opportunity meets preparedness. But I did have a stroke of that too. I ended up, through my first couple of assignments, of being able to just say yes all the time. I didn’t have a lot of restrictions. I didn’t have children yet, so hey, Hawaii, first assignment, I’ll go. Hey, do you want to go to Germany? You got to go to Korea to get to Germany. Okay. You got to go to these deployments in Kosovo. You got to go to Japan. And I’m like, this sounds great. This is exactly why I joined the military, which is why I never got out at that first four years. And I kept re-enlisting. My mom’s joke was, every time you say you’re gonna get out and then you don’t. And I’m like, well, yeah, but there’s always something else that I felt like I could do.

And that’s really where the special mission unit came up. Someone called me after a deployment to Iraq, and they said, hey, we want you to come and work for us. And I was like, I don’t know who you are. And they’re like, well, can you just come and screen? And I’m like, sure. So I go through a couple of paperwork steps before I make it to the in-person screening. And it was weird and it was intense. I had run across some flavors of people like this before, so I had a very ubiquitous notion of what it might be. But I was also like, hey, this is going to be cool. Sounds cool. I don’t know. Let’s do it. And that’s really what happened.

So I make it out of the selection. There’s three of us out of like 35 that get selected. A very small unit, a very tight-knit community. We were all sort of in the same age, sort of mid-level NCO range, and because of the way that they screened, we also had the same frame of mind, how we approached problems, how we thought, those different soft skill pieces of your personality. It was awesome. Some of my very good friends that I now work with in the private sector were in this community. So it’s really great. And we did build a really close-knit family. But it was crazy. It was hey, on a satellite phone in the middle of Kabul, like, hey sir, do you want me to stay or go? I have three shirts. And he was like, nah, just stay. We’ll send you some stuff. And so it ended up being a very challenging time, but also a really rewarding one too, just because of the impact that we were able to make in such a small team over those short deployments. And we had a lot of latitude. Our leadership really trusted us, and that was very evident in the way that we operated on a day-to-day basis.

Kathleen Smith 09:14
I understand you did something sort of interesting. You were a reservist, and then you went into active duty to be part of a cyber unit. And we talk about cyber security now, cyber hacker, all those things. I spent 10 years in the community, and I still have my joys and my scars. But why did you go back to a cyber unit in active duty after being a reservist?

Jacki Davenport 09:41
Yeah. So I think that starts with why I became a reservist, to be perfectly honest. I spent the better part of eight years. I would say I probably spent about half of that time deployed. Humanity catches up with you and you’re kind of like, wait, am I going to be the cool aunt for the rest of my life? Or am I actually going to have kids and maybe I should meet someone instead of deploying every four months for four months.

So I felt like I just needed to take a knee for a little bit. There was definitely some mental health stuff wrapped up in there as well. We started getting numb to some of the humanity aspects of what was going on down there. So I decided to take a knee and I was like, okay, I’m just gonna go reservist again. I kind of jumped into that blindly. I didn’t know when I became a reservist that I could come back on active duty. I didn’t even know that was an option.

I was a reservist for about a year and a half. I would say that is probably my first struggle, and definitely was the hardest one for separating, because I left this super tight-knit community that was very fast paced, and we had a real, tangible impact that you could feel. And I went to become a reservist, and I was like, okay, what do I do with my hands? This doesn’t seem like the same thing. So I really struggled with that a little bit. And thankfully, my husband, who I married in this reserve life, was understanding of that, because I was probably the meanest to him out of everyone, to be honest. But that was really the first hit of, oh man, I’m not this person anymore. I’m this other person now, and how do I rectify that with myself?

So I decided I wasn’t going to go back to active duty until I had figured that out. And right around that time, opportunity comes up. I’m now prepared to do it. They’re like, hey, we’re standing up this offensive cyber unit in the reserve, and it’s in San Antonio, and we lived in Texas. And I was like, ooh, San Antonio is better than where we live now. And I kind of looked at my husband, I’m like, he’s still in active duty. Can you get to San Antonio? And he’s like, yeah, I think so. And so I’m like, all right, I’m doing it. And so we ended up moving to San Antonio, and I went back on active duty.

And it was great, because building things is hard, but it’s so rewarding. And so I found myself in that place several times with different mission sets. But we got to build this entire unit, and I was running operations, and it was really great. And then they said, oh, hey, you’re really promotable. And I was like, what? Because again, this is the girl that was like, oh, that’s cool. I’ll do four years and get out. And here I am with the opportunity to be an E-9 like a chief in the Air Force. And I’m like, whoa, that’s okay. Well, we’ll see what happens. And then I got promoted. And so I was like, well, I guess I’m staying to do this gig. And it was great. It was one of the best jobs I’ve ever had. Again, there was so much impact, but it was just it wasn’t mission impact anymore. It was people impact. And it just resonated so differently, because by then I had little people that I had helped create.

And so it was kind of crazy, right? Because I’m like, okay, I’m this mama bear now, instead of this intel targeting officer, which I used to be. And so it was a really nice split in the way that it all came together. But then again, my own humans provided a jumping off point in that moment of reflection for me as well. When I decided to retire, I was chosen to continue on and be promoted to a level of responsibility, but I really didn’t have to sit back and say, okay, am I prepared every single day to either let all my airmen down or let my kids down? And I wasn’t really prepared to make that decision, and I didn’t want to be in that space. And so I retired 100% on my own terms at the time that I wanted to, and I think that made a big difference for the transition coming out.

Rachel Bozeman 14:25
Well, I have to tell you, it’s a different type of intel officer when you have little people in your house, isn’t it? It’s a totally different transition.

Jacki Davenport 14:33
Oh, yeah. Like, I am no longer running technical targeting operations. I am running pure influence, like human intelligence operations around here.

Rachel Bozeman 14:45
Love it. You mentioned that retirement word and kind of that transition, so let’s tap into that just a little bit. Was there anything that you would attribute to the success of that transition, any type of people or network, or anything that you would say was paramount in really making that transition successful?

Jacki Davenport 15:01
Yeah, absolutely. My network is the reason that I transitioned successfully, 100%, because I thought that I had done a lot of prep, and turns out, I didn’t. So they were absolutely… and it wasn’t just the people that I was stationed with in one assignment. It was multiple folks across deployments and assignments. And I think that just speaks to the quality of people that I had the pleasure of working with. But also we had this mantra of, we can all win. And so as soon as I put my obligatory “I hit the button a year out” social media post up, I got phone calls from numerous folks in my network who were like, yes, you’re actually getting out finally. We want to hire you. You should do this, you should do that. And I was like, oh, well, I didn’t expect this. But you guys are the best, because I also have no plan. Turns out. So absolutely, Rachel, it was 100% my friends are the reason that I was successful through and through.

Rachel Bozeman 16:12
So I know again, we kind of jumped about your “why not, let’s give it a shot” kind of gal out there. But there is a level of mental preparedness that has to go into this, because it is a big transition, knowing what the day might look like to what in the heck am I supposed to do now? So tell me a little bit about that mental prep that went into the transition.

Jacki Davenport 16:33
You know, it’s funny, because I had already realized when I hit my special operations assignment, and we didn’t wear uniforms, that nobody really cared what your rank was, what position you had. They really just cared about the value that you brought to the team. And then I realized when I became a reservist initially that no one cared about anything that you had done before. So those things were already apparent to me.

And then what I think I really sat down and did was, hey, I don’t know what any of these jobs really mean. Do you really know what a project manager means? I had no idea what revenue generating meant, because we just don’t do that in uniform. So I just had to sit back and be really humble and remember that it didn’t matter where I started. I was going to have to start at the bottom. I was going to have to get my reps and sets in. I was going to have to establish my own credibility. Maybe a little bit based off of how I operated in the military, maybe even a few things about what I did, but really it was going to be about how do I bring value in this different way. And being prepared to go from the person at the top of the food chain to the person who has to write down acronyms in every meeting and go look them up afterwards. And be willing to learn that, and be willing to say, look, I have to be the one that says all my questions might sound dumb, but I have 20 of them. So who wants to answer them for me?

But I think if you can’t humble yourself to that level, then you don’t get to do the new best thing. And if you can’t be in the trenches again, doing the work, then you don’t learn all of those tiny idiosyncrasies that we did learn in the military because we were in the trenches, because everybody started at the bottom. So yeah, it definitely was a mindset shift. But again, I think I was prepared for that, because it had happened to me several times now, not on this scale, because I spoke an entirely different language. So I kind of had to learn that too. But yeah, I think the mindset was really critical in definitely starting out.

Kathleen Smith 18:56
So you changed your mindset. You learned that acronyms don’t transfer from the military to industry, because I know I find that always interesting is that we all have acronyms, and they’re the same acronyms in different communities, but they mean different things, and that can always bite you in the behind. So talk to us about your current role and what drew you to that. And so many people are out there thinking about their transition, how they’re going to be looking at their new opportunity. What drew you to this opportunity, and how did you navigate that for yourself?

Jacki Davenport 19:35
Yeah, this again came from the network at a nonprofit happy hour for a special forces intelligence nonprofit. And over a beer, man, I think I’m looking for something. Wait, are you really? You should come here. You remember that thing you did that one time? We’re trying to do that, except better.

So I was like, oh, okay. I had learned enough about business to where I felt like I could make good decisions as the director of a project as we’re standing it up. And really the mission set was and is it’s an extremely innovative group of people. It’s an entire culture that’s focused on advancing intelligent systems so that they can operate in environments that continuously evolve. And it’s bringing all those things. And it’s not just a piece of hardware or a piece of data, it is how do we take all these things and continuously scale them and bring them together with technology, autonomy, AI, machine learning, and how do we make that trusted for the end user, so they can reduce human cost in the end game and then effectively execute their mission.

And I think so, I work at Fulcrum Autonomy, because it does that. It sits at that intersection of all of those things combined with real world impact at the end state. And these are big problems. They are not easy. They are complex. They’re dynamic. You need big, hairy, audacious, strategic thinking and very small, detailed execution simultaneously. And it’s hard, and it’s going to continue being hard, but I firmly believe that there is nothing worth doing that isn’t hard to do. And so I am excited. That’s what drew me here. Could we build something that we could have used? That would have made our jobs easier. We could have slept more than three hours a night. We could have been in a better space. We could have protected our mental health a little bit more and reduced that burnout time. And something that we could trust and put our name on. And so that’s huge. And so it still feels like I’m working for the same folks that I used to work for as a chief, but now I get to move faster, and I have a lot more resources at my disposal.

Rachel Bozeman 22:07
I love it. So gonna ask for some parting knowledge here. Jacki, is there any other advice that you would give to our listeners who are transitioning? Maybe they’re at that one year or six month mark. But any just good, solid, good old Texas advice that can help them in that transition.

Jacki Davenport 22:24
Two things. One is a mantra for me, which I’m sure Kathleen you’ve picked up on a little bit, which is don’t self-select out of anything. If you can say yes, say yes. You can always leave later. This is the corporate space. You can be loyal, but do not be loyal to a fault and find the next thing that’s good for you.

I think the other piece, which kind of drove my transition, especially into my first job, was I had no idea what I wanted to do, but I knew what I didn’t want to do. And most of those constraints and guardrails were wrapped around preserving that life balance, which is hard to preserve when you’re in uniform, but it’s not when you’re in the private sector. And so that’s what I started with. Hey, I want to be remote, because my husband’s going to start flying all the time because it’s his turn. I want to be flexible, because I have little humans, and I want to spend time with them. I want to be able to learn. I need somewhere where I can grow. I don’t want to be stagnant. Whatever your five or six things are, you need to go into any interview knowing what your no-go’s are. So as soon as one or two of them are hit, you can say, you know what, this probably isn’t for me. Because you want to be in a place, even if you’re only there for a couple of years, where you’re not miserable every day for a couple of years, and you’re learning something, and you’re feeling like you’re progressing. Because you already know you started at the bottom again. So you can keep going.

So I think those are two big ones for me. But I will say lastly, and I will push this to the veteran community hard, because I am of this mentality as well: it is okay to ask for help. It is okay to hit up your old friends, your colleagues, your network, and say, hey, how would you word this on a resume? Or what are you doing in this job? What does it look like? Do you think I would like it? I think you have to use that network, and you can’t be ashamed, embarrassed, or feel like you shouldn’t be asking, because we’ve all been through it, and we know what it takes, and we know how hard it can be. And so those are people that you have cultivated around you for a reason, and who are not going to say no to you, and hopefully also believe that we can all win.

Kathleen Smith 25:00
Win. Jackie, amazing, amazing advice. Thank you so much. I so appreciate you making the time to join us today, and I am so grateful to our mutual friend Jamie Freeman, who introduced me to you and made sure that all of the superstars in her network can join us on the show. Thanks again for joining us.

Jacki Davenport 25:18
Yeah, it was a pleasure. Thanks, ladies.

Kathleen Smith 25:21
I really appreciated Jackie’s perspective of just charging ahead. She didn’t take no for an answer. But I think the one thing that I loved, and hope I’m not going to steal yours, Rachel.

Rachel Bozeman 25:35
You’re just rude and hateful like that.

Kathleen Smith 25:36
I know I do that, I do that. But not working. I mean, it’s back to, she had a network. She worked on it. She’s leaned on it. She leaned on it several times. I think that that is sort of a very dominant theme that we’ve heard through many conversations. How about you?

Rachel Bozeman 25:55
No, I think that was a fantastic one, and only partly of what I was going to say, Kathleen. But something else that really resonated that I think Jackie shared was kind of listening to your own Jiminy Cricket, if you will. I love that she recognized that she got to a point where humanity started to become not what she needed it to be, and she realized she needed something different, and took that moment to prioritize her own self, her own mental health, and do the right thing so that there was a longer game to play. And I just think that’s a beautiful reminder, because oftentimes we can just get wrapped in that moment and think I’ve got to just keep doing this, and I’ll just suck it up buttercup. But realizing it’s okay to prioritize yourself and your wants and your needs, I thought was just such great advice.

So if you loved listening to Jackie, and you’ve loved hearing all of these different stories, we would love for you to go out there and follow for more episodes. Be sure to subscribe to our LinkedIn newsletter, and you’ll find all the links in the show notes. So until next time, bye-bye, Exit Buddy. Bye-bye.