JMU Federal Dukes Spotlight: David Grant
Profile by Rachel Abella, a rising senior of James Madison University. She is a Management major with a concentration in Innovation and Entrepreneurship and a minor in Global Supply Chain Management.
4 Things I Learned from David Grant
David Grant graduated from JMU in 1983 with a major in Political Science and Government. In 2018, after 20+ years working for the federal government, he and his long-time acquaintance, Gregg Giddens, partnered to start their own consulting firm. At their core, Potomac Ridge Consulting helps agencies meet their mission by connecting them with innovative products and services from the private sector. With a handful of alumni, Dave helped start the JMU Federal Dukes to connect with other alumni working for the federal government and Dukes interested in the field. Apart from that, he is also on the Advisory Board of the Global Supply Chain Management minor at JMU. In my interview with David, I learned four things that are very helpful to students like me who are just about to get ready to start a career.
“It’s easier to look for a job from a job”
Like many of us, when David graduated from JMU, he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do. All he was sure of was that he didn’t want to work for the federal government like his dad did. He applied to a bunch of jobs, but still nothing. About a month after graduation, his father got him a job as a GS3 Clerk Typist. He was hesitant to accept the job because he thought he should have been offered a higher position as a college graduate. His father told him, “accept the job for now, but it shouldn’t stop you from looking for a job.” According to David, employers love to see individuals consistently looking to expand themselves. His dad also taught him that working for the federal government is like getting a seat in a football stadium. Even if you’re in the cheap seats right now, you’re inside the stadium. It allows you to look around in ways sitting outside may be hard to do. Anything you want to do, it’s available in the federal government. You just have to find it.
“You’ll figure out what you really want to do (and don’t want to do) along the way.”
A year after, David still continued applying for internships and got offered 4 different jobs. He accepted the one at CECOM, which involved procurement, acquisition and supply chain, and entailed more interface with the corporate world. Working for CECOM was one of the best decisions he’s ever made in his career. They had an outstanding reputation for acquisition and provided great training, support and opportunities. On top of that, he worked for a lot of great bosses. In the four years at CECOM, he had twenty-two different bosses working with different assignments. Those four years made him realize the things he wanted to do, the kind of people he wanted to work for and the kind of boss he wanted to be.
“Even when you’re the smartest person in the world, it wouldn’t matter unless you have interpersonal and communication skills.”
According to David, as you grow in your career, you’ll be working with all kinds of people on different kinds of projects. You’ll realize your individual skill set will not matter as much as your ability to work well within your team, work well with others and communicate efficiently with people.
“Always accept challenging jobs. Turn down easy promotions.”
After working for CECOM, David accepted a job from the IRS. Even though other agencies offered him a higher-grade position, he accepted the IRS job. He believes the mission and work is more important than promotion and money. This job was incredibly challenging for David because he was the leading contractor of the largest mainframe consolidation program in federal government history. At that time he thought to himself, “I’m gonna learn a lot and if I’m successful, I’ll get promoted.” He’d rather get challenged in a job to grow and get better than get easy promotions. It may have taken him a while to get promoted, but he never regretted it because he ended up getting promoted to an executive in IRS at 38.
