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A mechanic from Wyoming walks into a recruiter’s office and walks out on a path that leads to P-3 flight engineer, deployments over Bahrain and Diego Garcia, Chief in Hawaii, instructor in Jacksonville, test and research at Pax River, and ultimately the command seat in Guam during one of the toughest stretches the Navy’s seen. That arc belongs to retired Master Chief Mike Marler, and it’s a masterclass in choosing hard roads, learning fast, and owning outcomes when the plan explodes at lunchtime.
We start with the family decision to join at 22, studying through A School with a spouse and kids at home, and advancing early by sheer preparation. Mike breaks down the brutal, brilliant FE pipeline—aircrew school, SERE in winter, and a 10‑month systems marathon that only counts when you can translate book knowledge into touches, switches, and calm decisions at altitude. He shares the thrill and gravity of surveillance flights and how instructor duty forged his voice and standards.
Then we turn to leadership in the deep end: rate conversions that slowed promotions, Pax River’s test world where you learn to speak engineer and operator in the same sentence, and the pivot to the Command Program. In Guam, he inherits a mission that never sleeps—embarked security teams, Mark VI patrol boats, and a PERS tempo that punishes families. His approach is simple and rare: “You’ll never hear no from me. You’ll get the true cost.” We unpack extreme ownership expressed as extreme communication—listening to second classes, reframing asks to higher, counting ROM as deployed time, and protecting the force by telling the truth up and down.
Finally, we go full circle to CNATT in Pensacola, leading a training enterprise that graduates tens of thousands each year, and talk about the identity shift after retirement. Mike’s lessons land for sailors, parents, and managers alike: meet people where they are, win in the environment you have (not the one you wish you had), and don’t confuse a failure with being a failure. Perseverance over performance theater; clarity over comfort.
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