Tim Dura of Polk Institute Foundation: 5 Lessons I Learned From My Military Experience about How To Survive And Thrive During A Time Of Crisis

Evaluate Your Response to the Crisis — Always evaluate each move you make and determine whether or not it is the wisest one. Switch options when you must. Constantly assess the threat and move forward in a positive manner. There is always a positive spin to everything. Be that person that can fall into a barrel of poo and come out smelling like a rose. Anyone can do this if they know what they are doing.

In this interview series, we are exploring the subject of dealing with crises and how to adapt and overcome them. 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 Tim Dura of Polk Institute Foundation.

Tim received two Bachelors of Science degrees from North Dakota State University. The first was in 1974 and the second in 1982. Tim Dura served as a command fighter pilot in the United States Air Force and, after 22 years of service, retired due to medical issues. He’s received two Bachelors of Science degrees from North Dakota State University. Tim is now semi-retired, doing consulting work, coaching girls’ softball and acting as the COO of the Polk Institute Foundation, based in Los Angeles, CA.

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 was born and raised in Fargo, ND. When I was six years old, the United States Air Force (USAF) put out a new recruiting video. I was mesmerized by it. The fighters were the latest in the inventory at the time and watching them fly, doing high-speed passes while listening to their new recruiting song was it for me. After that, I was dedicated to the ultimate goal of getting my wings and being a fighter pilot. There was an Air National Guard unit in Fargo, they flew fighters and I would ride my bike out to the airport, and watch them fly all day. After high school, I became an Air Force Reserve Officers Training Corps Cadet, finished at the top of my class, received a government-financed private pilots’ license and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the USAF. The rest is history

And what are you doing today? Can you share a story that exemplifies the unique work that you are doing?

I am “retired” but then type-A personalities can’t sit still for long so I serve as the Chief Operating Officer for the Polk Institute Foundation. We are a non-profit that trains future CEOs/business owners how to be leaders and provide a goal for them to be at $1 million a year gross profit at the end of year five of their operation. By the way, this two-year training program is FREE to our cohort members!

Can you tell us a bit about your military background?

After completion of pilot training, I had finished number three in my class so I managed to choose my fighter assignment and went to school to learn how to fly the F-4E Phantom II. On the way to school, I finished Fighter Lead In Training, Water Survival School and then ended up at George AFB, CA for seven months of Replacement Training Unit school and then went to my first operational squadron assignment as an aircraft commander in the 58th Tactical Fighter Squadron. It was the best assignment of my career. The flying was superb, the local area in the panhandle of Florida was outstanding and as a 24 year-old, single bachelor type, spring break there was totally awesome. Could not have had a better assignment. Then the odds caught up with me, I ended back up at George AFB, CA, this time to learn how to be a surface to air missile killer called a Wild Weasel. Then it was off to Kadena AB, Okinawa or as we called it “The Rock.” Weaseling was pretty much a dead end for pilots because once a weasel, always a weasel but the gods of military assignments smiled upon me and I was selected to fly air-to-air combat again as an F-15 Eagle pilot. My squadron was the first to convert in the Pacific Air Forces and we received brand new C-models, straight off the production line at McDonnell Douglas in Saint Louis. They even had that new car smell to them. There were no eagle assignments available when it was time to come state-side again so I became the Base Ops Officer at Duluth AFB, MN and flew the antiquated T-33A as targets for Air Defense training. Duluth closed while I was there so I interviewed with the North Dakota Air National Guard, yep, in my hometown of Fargo, ND, got back into flying the F-4 and later on transitioning to the F-16 ADF. I retired out of that aircraft after 22 years of service, in the cockpit the whole time. What a great career.

Can you share the most interesting story that you experienced during your military career? What “take away” did you learn from that story?

You are looking for just one? Geez….there are so many. My tactical call sign is “Tiny.” If you saw either of the top gun movies, you know what tac call signs are. There are way more people around the world who knew me as “Tiny” and never knew my real name. I arrived at George AFB the second time to go through Weasel School on my way to the Rock. My new Ops Officer was there for a refresher course and he came over to the weasel RTU squadron to meet his new replacements. He went down the line and I was last. I saluted smartly, shook his hand and went to let go. He kept me in the grip, pulled me a little closer and said loud enough for the whole class to hear “Tim eh….well you are “Tiny” Tim from here on out! ( Tiny Tim was the thing on late night shows then and I am 6' 3" and was running around 230 pounds then.). I have an Athletic Officer who is going to be all over you like a cheap suit!” I queried who his athletic officer was. When I found out I started to snicker. He was one of the first guys I met at AFROTC summer/boot camp between my sophomore and junior years in college. When I checked into the squadron upon my arrival on the ROCK, two guys I graduated AFROTC with at North Dakota State were there also. We adopted an Electronics Warfare Officer that graduated from The University of Minnesota at the same time we graduated NDSU and formed “Bison” flight. The Bison is NDSU’s mascot.

We are interested in fleshing out what a hero is. Did you experience or hear about a story of heroism, during your military experience? Can you share that story with us? Feel free to be as elaborate as you’d like.

I quote the late, great actor and true American icon, John “the ‘Duke’ Wayne.” “Courage is being scared to death and saddling up anyway.” Courage and heroism is a decision to do something that can get you dead even though you are frightened out of your wits in the meantime. Yes, I have seen more than several acts of true heroism and these were not taking out machine gun nests, capturing a full company of enemy soldiers or the like. The acts of heroism I witnessed were done out of pure heart for a fellow airman in trouble. Even though the pilot was putting himself and his crew in severe peril, the decision was made to help and unbelievable acts of bravery, superior feats of aviation skill and a lot of good, old fashioned putting yourself into the hand of God and going forth is what transpired. The squadron was finishing night ops when a call came into the tower that one of our guys ended up with total electrical failure and had lost one of his hydraulic systems. Most everyone had landed when tower passed the information on frequency. Immediately, one pilot in the landing roll out, cobbed the power and took off to go look for our guy. He was at a fuel state called minimum fuel which meant if he watched his fuel, he had maybe 15 minutes of gas remaining to find the stricken jet and get them both back onto the tarmac at Kadena. His backseater estimated the airplane’s present position, they found the jet on radar, initiated a rapid rendezvous, established contact with flashlights when he rejoined to close formation and led his squadron mates back to the ROCK. This was not a small feat because once you got away from the Rock, as a pilot you were looking directly into the “black hole of Calcutta” and could not see a thing. The fact that they found each other can only be determined as a miracle and to get back to the Rock before either of them flaming out and crashing into the Yellow Sea was even more miraculous.

Based on that story, how would you define what a “hero” is? Can you explain?

Someone that will put his/her life at risk intentionally to save his/her brother/sister even though fear has a grip right around one’s throat. See the Duke’s quote above for explanation. Remember, heroism is a decision to act even though everything in your being is screaming at you that if you do this, you are going to get dead.

Do you think your experience in the military helped prepare you for business or leadership? Can you explain?

Yes. The military taught me about leadership, how to treat the people working for you and even though you are goal oriented, you need to take care of your people as well as achieving the mission assigned in a timely manner with outstanding results.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?

Yes, I have had more than several outstanding mentors that were a boon to me over the years. My first real mentor was Lt. Col. Lou Schindler, one of my instructors at NDSU in the AFROTC program. This gentleman was calm, cool and unflappable no matter what kind of chaos was happening around him. He always had a pearl of wisdom for me after our talks. The one that sticks with me to this day is “Tim, you can’t get up and tap dance unless you have done your homework.” This saying is so true. You cannot get up and BS your way through life. You need to have substance, know what you’re talking about and speak from a strong base of knowledge in whatever it is you are discussing. Intelligent people can see through a BS artist almost immediately. If you are grounded in the facts and have knowledge of the subject being discussed, you will gain the respect from the audience that you deserve. Another was my first squadron commander, Lt. Col “Butch” Viccilio. He was the one that cemented into me in no uncertain terms about what Lt. Col Schindler was referring to. This gentleman knew literally everything that was going on in the squadron. You had to justify every sortie you scheduled as the squadron scheduler, who was in the front seat, who was in the back seat and why. What training squares were they filling. Were the aircrews filling those jets completing a requirement of some sort and which one was it and right on down the line. I guarantee you that you could not BS this guy about anything and if you tried, there was holy hell to pay. No one ever wanted to incur the wrath of Col. V because it got ugly very early and all you could do was hit a brace at attention, keep your mouth shut and absorb the verbal onslaught being unleashed upon you about a foot away from your face. He for some unknown reason took a liking to me which I didn’t realize until later after he got promoted and left to run the manned personnel center at Randolph AFB in San Antonio, TX. I was not a happy camper with my Wild Weasel assignment to Kadena when I received it. I spent days in the squadron trying to see if I could trade it and of course, since it was a weasel slot to the worst location in the Air Force at the time, there were no takers. It was during that time that the old Ops Officer who took over for Col. V called for me in his usual booming voice…”Dura, get your ass down to my office NOW. You have a phone call.” So, I obediently followed directions, when into his office and said “Sit down in my chair, someone wants to talk to you” and left. Talk about scared! Who would be calling me through the squadron commander? When I answered the phone, it was Col. V! He was running officer assignments and asked me about what this sh*t was that he heard with me trying to trade assignments. I told him about weasels being a dead end job and having to go to the Rock on top of it. He raised his voice and said “Lieutenant, you cease and desist this nonsense immediately. There is a reason why I hand-picked you for this assignment. I cannot tell you but all will be made clear soon enough. My goal is to be the first A-10 wing commander in Europe and I want you on my staff so don’t screw up when you get to Kadena.” All I could do is say “Sir, yes SIR and thank you Sir.” Then I hung up. After 3 days on the Rock, I went to see the Wing Director of Operations, number 2 to the Wing Commander as part of the new guy, welcome to Kadena speech we all got but, in my case, after it was over and I was getting set to leave his office he said “Captain (just got promoted)…how would you like to go to F-15 school? The storm clouds in my brain immediately parted, the sun shined brightly, my jaw dropped and looked at this full colonel with full surprise on my face and blurted … “An F-15?!?! YES SIR” He dismissed me and as I was leaving, he said “By the way, Butch Viccilio thinks very highly of you. I am sure that I will, too.” That’s when it all truly came together. Col. V knew I was going to be in the first eagle squadron in PACAF but couldn’t tell me because it hadn’t been officially announced at the time of the phone call. Col. V, wherever you are….THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart.

Ok, thank you for all that. Now let’s shift to the main focus of this interview. We would like to explore and flesh out how to survive and thrive in a crisis. How would you define a crisis?

I would define a crisis as any event that has a potentially harmful effect on those that would be affected adversely by events spawned by that crisis.

Before a crisis strikes, what should business owners and leaders think about and how should they plan?

Anyone with any experience getting caught “with their pants down” should have learned the lesson and started to contingency plan. As a leader and or business owner, you should understand where most all of the potentials for crisis lay with your business model and industry, understand how these crises can affect you adversely and start playing “What if” with yourself and your staff. Think of every possible outcome that could occur when you think “If this happens, then we will do option A. If A doesn’t work, we move to option B” and so forth. You then need to record all of these, organize them and build a contingency planning folder with all your options in them and distribute them to key staff members so they will know what to do in your absence. Then exercise the plan and see how your staffers do with you not in the picture.

There are opportunities to make the best of every situation and it’s usually based on how you frame it. In your opinion or experience, what’s the first thing people should do when they first realize they are in a crisis situation? What should they do next?

First thing, don’t panic. Always give yourself and your team time to sit back, look at potential outcomes, frame them and choose the most positive response for you.

What do you believe are the characteristics or traits needed to survive a crisis?

Enough patience to assess the threat, be able to “what if” the possible outcomes, keep a cool head and don’t jump at the first possible answer. Evaluate your possible responses, come up with your plan and stick with it using your contingency plan guidelines to keep you on the right path. LEAD by example. Show your staff that you have this and with everyone’s level-headed response, your team will weather the storm.

When you think of those traits, which person comes to mind? Can you explain why you chose that person?

General George S. Patton, USA. He was a master at analyzing enemy movements and intentions, came up with contingency plans to counter anything the Germans would do and executed his plans flawlessly without panicking. This method is what got him from a full battle 100 miles south of Bastogne and relieved the 101st Airborne Division before they were overrun. He did this in two days. No one has ever duplicated this kind response to a huge crisis in such a short time. He was a military genius.

Did you have a time in your life when you had one of your greatest setbacks, but you bounced back from it stronger than ever? Can you share that story with us?

This is a toughie. I guess I would have to look at my divorce from the first wife. Let’s just say it was a huge mess, took me to the cleaners and left me with virtually nothing. Then continued to make my life a living hell for the next five years. I won’t go into how because it’s too gruesome of a story but it involved my daughter and how my ex used her as a weapon against me. I was dragged to court eight times and falsely arrested for not paying child support when it was deducted automatically from my paycheck. The woman would not stop. My lawyer was horrible so I switched three times and the last one was the best move I ever made. At the next hearing, he stopped the nonsense and made it perfectly clear that if she kept on, he would execute the contingency plan he and I came up with and her lawyer and this judge would have big trouble on their hands. The bluff worked and that was the end of the misery. My daughter graduated high school and moved to where I was located for college and things have been great ever since.

Here is the main question of our discussion. Crises not only have the potential to jeopardize and infiltrate your work, but they also threaten your emotional stability and relationships. Based on your military experience, what are 5 steps that someone can take to survive and thrive in these situations? Please share a story or an example for each.

Stop — Quit letting the crisis control you by just stopping to react to it. That gets you nowhere.

Analyze the Situation — Cut to the chase. What is the real root cause of what is going on? The obvious is never the right answer.

Regain Control — Get your team together or individually get out your crisis management plans, find the one that covers the current crisis, and understand why this current issue is now a crisis.

Take Proper Action — Execute your plan with the option that looks the most promising first, evaluate and continue down the path of least resistance to get out from under the crisis at hand.

Evaluate Your Response to the Crisis — Always evaluate each move you make and determine whether or not it is the wisest one. Switch options when you must. Constantly assess the threat and move forward in a positive manner. There is always a positive spin to everything. Be that person that can fall into a barrel of poo and come out smelling like a rose. Anyone can do this if they know what they are doing.

Ok. We are nearly done. You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

A return to common sense. We are a divided country and becoming more so by the day. If people would just use the common sense they were born with, there would no longer be emphasis on all the weird stuff the “wokesters” are coming up with. Transgenderism would not be an issue. We would educate our kids instead of indoctrinating them. The movement to drive a wedge between the parents and their children by our so called educators would stop because the indoctrinators would be culled out and real teachers would be put back into the classrooms. People with common sense don’t care about color, ethnicity, sexual orientation and the like. Our founding fathers were enlightened, brilliant men who left us with a great road map in the Constitution to follow. Ben Franklin told us, writing the document was tough enough, keeping true to it will be even tougher. He was so right.

We are blessed that some very prominent leaders read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them :-)

There are so many I can think of….some like-minded, some-opposite minded but still possess common sense values where common ground could be struck. There are a lot more that I would love to meet…just out of curiosity to see what makes them tick and whether or not they really had a brain.

If I need to pick just one, right now at this point in time it would be…Victor Davis Hanson from Stanford.

How can our readers find you online?

I am on LinkedIn listed with the Polk Institute Foundation. I am also there with my own LinkedIn account timdura178@gmail.com. I can be emailed at tdura@polkinstitute.org.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.