Janine Davidson of Metropolitan State University: “How To Survive And Thrive During A Time Of Crisis; 5 Lessons I Learned From My Military Experience”
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“Don’t hide the truth. Let people know what you know and how you are making decisions.” — Janine Davidson
In this interview series, we are exploring the subject of dealing with crisis and how to adapt and overcome. The context of this series is the physical and financial fallout that resulted from the COVID 19 pandemic. Crisis management is one characteristic that many successful leaders share in common, and in many cases it is the most important trait necessary to survive and thrive in today’s complex market.
I had the pleasure of interviewing Janine Davidson.
Janine Davidson is a Commissioner of the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service and the President of Metropolitan State University. Dr. Davidson has over three decades of academic and public service, including serving as the 32nd undersecretary of the United States Navy. She was a faculty member at George Mason University and the senior fellow for defense policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. She began her career as an Air Force officer and cargo pilot and was the first woman to fly the Air Force’s tactical C-130.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood “backstory”?
I am a Navy brat, as my father was a Navy Supply Corps Officer. He made Admiral when I was in pilot training for the Air Force and he retired as a 2-star admiral. As a result, we moved around a lot. My entire family is from California, but most of my childhood was spent in Northern Virginia, with two years in Virginia Beach when my dad was on the USS Nimitz (during the Iran hostage crisis in ’79).
