Scott Schimmel (00:01)
All right, Rich, good to see you, good to meet you. Thanks for being on the show. We'd love to start off just like where in the world you are and who the hell you are.
Richard Comitz (00:00)
Yeah, that's great.
All right, I'll try to do that shortly. Rich Comitz, I'm the Chief Operating Officer at American Corporate Partners. I am currently located in New York City at our headquarters. about me, I was in the Army for 23 years. So after that,
I transitioned into higher ed for a few years and came here about three and a half years ago to be a senior leader in the company and try to help more veterans and military spouses.
Scott Schimmel (00:46)
sweet. I was just on a call with someone yesterday in Los Angeles, and they're working on veteran affairs. And he was saying that in LA, the kind of collective concept of a veteran has shifted over the recent years to really think about people who are homeless or traumatized. And I was, I guess, surprised to hear that a little bit, because in my mind, that's maybe what
the story maybe used to be like post Vietnam and I'm, that's a setup. I'm just curious, you're in New York City, another obvious hub of culture in our country. What's the vibe of the perspective about veterans there?
Richard Comitz (01:27)
Yeah, I mean, think it's twofold in that there are a lot of people concerned about the extreme end, if you will, that you were talking about kind of in California of helping those people that are homeless, maybe dependent on some sort of drug. Or, you you also have people that are
having mental issues, so whether it be PTS or anxiety or something like that. And so there's a lot of people trying to figure those things out. Those are hard problems and they are the most extreme, The failure there is catastrophic.
Whereas like with us, we're working on helping, and I'd say that's a smaller segment, right, thankfully, but it's impactful. We're working with the other segment, which are those that just wanna provide for themselves and their family and have a good career and be a valuable member of society. So I think that in New York City, we definitely have people that are focused on those,
the fringe things, as I mentioned, the more immediate problems, if you will. But because we have so much industry here and so many different companies, they see the value of veterans and they're looking to find ways to get them integrated into their companies more and more. So that's a very positive view that I think, you know, maybe 10, 15 years ago, the thought was like, we don't want to worry employee veterans.
Scott Schimmel (02:41)
Yeah.
Richard Comitz (03:09)
because they come with too much baggage, right? And I don't think that's the case anymore as far as the thought process out there. I don't know that I was ever the major case of a veteran anyway, but I think that the attitude has changed a little bit.
Scott Schimmel (03:11)
Sure. Yeah.
That's good. I'd really be curious about your transition, which sounds like a handful of years ago, five, 10 years ago.
Richard Comitz (03:33)
Yeah, so
I retired in 2019. Yeah, so I spent 23 years in the Army and towards the end of my career, I was teaching at West Point. So I did not know what else I could do in the civilian world. So I figured, well, it's easier for me to, instead of really explore that unknown world, to go into, try to go into higher ed.
Scott Schimmel (03:44)
cool.
Richard Comitz (03:58)
So and and I did you know enjoy what I was doing in higher ed I wanted to be in Kind of more administration in higher ed rather than just teaching which was what I was doing at West Point But I'll tell you I had a very hard time kind of convincing hiring managers if you will that
what to think about my 23 years of military service, even though I had say about nine years worth of teaching experience at the college level that didn't equate to, you know, being a dean or a provost where they have 25 years of straight academic experience. So I applied to a lot of jobs when I was getting out. you know, there's a lot of people that I don't know if they're just doing it to be nice or they're
like you should have no problem getting a job or everybody should want, you know, a lieutenant colonel with a PhD with 23 years of service. And I felt like I applied to hundreds of jobs and wasn't getting many interviews and was really kind of confused as to what I was doing wrong. And that's the only thing, I mean, I have to look at myself, right? And I don't want to blame other people, but I was not.
Scott Schimmel (05:02)
Wow.
Richard Comitz (05:17)
convincing them, the hiring managers, that...
what I learned in the military would bring value to their organization. Now, I think I was trying to, but I don't know that either I didn't do it right or they just didn't want to, you know, it is easy, right? When you're going through applications and you're looking for a certain stereotypical person with certain experiences to when you come across one that's not in that same vein, you're like, I'm just gonna put that aside because I don't want to put too much mental energy in it. So I like to think that was kind of me as well, but who knows?
Scott Schimmel (05:38)
Sure. Yeah.
Richard Comitz (05:51)
make my way into higher ed, a little bit lower than I wanted to. But within a few months, I end up absorbing another person's job, right? Because I showed that I had the capability of doing that. And as I mentioned, it was 2019. by February, March of 2020, we were in COVID. And I was in a meeting with a lot of people about big accreditation.
Scott Schimmel (06:10)
Yeah.
Richard Comitz (06:21)
that we have going on.
And I, we were talking about COVID and what we're going to do. I said, someone really needs to pay attention to this like full time. And they said, okay, army guy, that'll be you. So, so it actually was really beneficial or fortunate for me because I kind of had free reign to do whatever I needed to do to get the university back to the in-person offering classes. Because if you think about it, why would someone pay for an in-person
Scott Schimmel (06:28)
huh.
God.
Richard Comitz (06:53)
experience when they're being at home. can they might as well just go to a community college or whatever else. So that was my task and I did a lot of different things to make that happen you know through reorganizing spaces to vaccination and testing sites working with the state and all that stuff and all that seemed that we got to a point where we got back
Scott Schimmel (06:54)
Yeah. Yeah.
Read it. Read it.
Richard Comitz (07:18)
to having in-person classes and dealing with the little outbreaks here and there. And seemed to do pretty well. At that point, the chief operating officer and the president kind of said, all right, well, you're going to work for me now full time. So I didn't move my other jobs, but I picked up the job of go do what we need to get done as far as wherever their problems were, spending a little extra time figuring out what the problem is.
Scott Schimmel (07:32)
really? Okay.
Okay, like a fixer.
Richard Comitz (07:48)
loosening it up and getting the project moving along. So worked on
building renovations, worked on building buildings, space allocation, still working on accrediting new programs and things like that. So I was one of the few people that could speak academic language and operational language. So I was kind of that go-between. I also worked in admissions for a while. I worked in HR for a while. yeah, I got a wide breadth of experience basically because I had the reputation of being able to get things done.
Scott Schimmel (08:23)
What
of that do you attribute to your unique personality? And what do you attribute to your experience in the army that enabled you to be that kind of jack of all trades, throw me into the fire?
Richard Comitz (08:36)
Yeah, I I think my time in the military, even starting from West Point, right? That whole experience shaped my life in a way that I can't even fathom what it would be otherwise because the experiences of something simple as discipline and time management that I learned at West Point, I'm not sure I would have learned elsewhere.
And then obviously I carried that into the Army. The idea of having to get the mission done was always, you know, there wasn't like, no, we can't do this, right? In the military, you always had to figure it out. And so you had to be resourceful. You had to be thinking through problem solving and all that stuff. You had to be collaborative. And so those things I learned in the military, and I think they served me really well in the civilian world.
that role particularly. I work with people all the time, can build teams, can look at things, problem solve and just really, and I think other thing is kind of being resilient and not getting flustered too much, You waste a lot of time and effort getting frustrated and mad or whatever when you just like, let's just figure it out. Let's move it on.
Scott Schimmel (09:49)
Yeah.
As you were going back, as you were applying to all those jobs and speaking of being flustered, can you remember a moment or multiple moments where you did get flustered?
Richard Comitz (10:02)
Yeah,
for sure. that application process, mean, you really go through a lot mentally, I think, when like kind of the maybe I'm not good enough type of thing. Maybe I'm applying for jobs that are out of my league and things like that. So I definitely had that time. know, everybody and everybody's different, but I...
I was hoping to like walk, know, hang up my uniform on Friday and start Monday in a new job. And I didn't. I had like about two months where I was unemployed, if you will. And that was really...
uh, nerve wracking to me because yeah, in concept, idea of like sleep into whatever time you want to go work out, maybe apply to a few jobs, whatever, spend time with the family. That all sounds great, but like I was in the back of my mind, always thinking like, what are we going to do if I don't find a job? And, and you know, our lifestyle was of the point and I have four kids, uh, you know, all that were in high school area that I'm like, you know, college is coming up. So I.
Scott Schimmel (10:57)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Richard Comitz (11:08)
I couldn't just like say well just you know put stickers on people in Walmart or something. I had to find a job and a substantial job that was paying you know for our lifestyle.
Scott Schimmel (11:12)
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, you're making me feel anxious right now.
I'm in your shoes.
Richard Comitz (11:25)
Yeah, well, and I listen, I don't think I'm unlike anyone else, right? I mean, when when you don't know that world and you know, you're not getting the good feedback. That's why I like ACP so much. Right. I'll go back to plugging us a little bit more later. But but the idea of, you know, having a mentor that's kind of helping you walk through that journey is is so helpful because you're getting that feedback from someone that that can give you that.
Scott Schimmel (11:40)
Yeah, please.
Richard Comitz (11:52)
you the reality check, but then also like give you ideas on where to flex and where to move to. and, and I didn't take advantage of that stuff as much as I should have. And so I felt like I was doing it kind of alone. Uh, and, and then, you know, oftentimes you don't get any feedback from you apply to a job and you're like, two months later, am I still being considered or did they move on? Like, you don't know any of that. So that was new to me as well. Right. Like I would have much rather got rejected than, than, than think that like, am
Scott Schimmel (11:55)
Yeah. Yeah.
Right, no clue, yeah. Crickets. Totally.
Richard Comitz (12:22)
Am
I still in the hunt for this or not? So those type of things were all pretty anxiety driven. like I said, I don't think I was different from most people that are transitioning. mean, there are people that are very fortunate that, you know, for whatever their background is or whatever their desire to move on to the next, they kind of, they do have that easy glide path. But I would say it's probably more like 90 % of the people don't have that easy glide path, right? So they have that, you know, those same,
Scott Schimmel (12:31)
Yeah.
Richard Comitz (12:52)
emotions that I feel.
Scott Schimmel (12:53)
What did you, what do you feel like you did well during that?
Richard Comitz (12:58)
I mean, I think that I did well and expanding my
you know, my focus, I think I was a little narrow in the beginning. I started expanding and then also, you know, I did take to heart this kind of idea of like changing your resume or cover letter. Like, you know, I'd say for the first few, I was like, I got a good resume. I got a good cover letter. I'm just going to basically change one or two things and move on. And then I really started like reading the job description and really, you know, trying to use the same words and all that stuff. So I did evolve.
Scott Schimmel (13:31)
Hmm. Yeah. Yeah.
Richard Comitz (13:36)
to that and the other thing that I I did good, I wish I did even better is it started the network talking to people whether it be on LinkedIn or going to areas in which I You know one college I was hoping to work for they had some sort of You know kind of I think it was more like a fundraiser event, but I went there
And I talk to faculty members and all that stuff, just trying to be able to have some people that might be able to talk for me later or at least get some perspective.
Scott Schimmel (14:10)
Obviously you had a bizarre experience in higher ed, at least civilian higher ed with COVID and your role. What did you learn about either the industry or about yourself that then caused you to transition to something else?
Richard Comitz (14:27)
Yeah, I mean, I think that what I learned about the industry, so my prior experience was teaching at West Point, right? West Point is kind of like utopian society when it comes to the academic situation, you know, as an instructor or a faculty member or, you know,
someone on the staff, your job is to go in and educate, train, and inspire, you know, the next generation of officers. And that's what you did. Whereas in the civilian world, there's, there's, that part of it is a lot smaller. And
Scott Schimmel (15:04)
Huh,
yeah.
Richard Comitz (15:06)
and finding ways to further your department, your university, fundraising, bringing more students in. I felt like it was more financially driven, which I should have known, but I felt that a lot. We were making decisions for money more than any other.
Scott Schimmel (15:20)
Yeah.
Richard Comitz (15:29)
reason, like not the better of another student. And I'm not trying to bash the organization I was with, like that's what, that was what kept coming up to my mind is like, and maybe if I was in charge, right, that we would have failed because I would have been too utopian, right? I'm like, whatever you need, you know, whatever. And so I could have, I could have been wrong in my thought process, but I kept seeing the idea that money was, was driving everything.
Scott Schimmel (15:35)
Yeah, yeah, that's the reality.
Right. Right.
Yeah. Yeah.
Richard Comitz (15:58)
And so that part was the part that was a little bit not shocking to me, but a more a reality check for me. And so that and then, you know, the amount of things I was doing, I was learning a lot, but then I was like, again, I don't want to say anything negative about the organization, but I felt like I was kind of getting taken advantage of at some point of like, you know, okay, taking one person's one other person's job, that's fine. But now what I'm doing,
Scott Schimmel (16:04)
Yeah, like disenchanting kind of like.
Yeah
Yeah.
Right.
Richard Comitz (16:28)
five or six other people's jobs that, you know, all were getting paid as much as I was, like, and not getting much of the salary bump for it. I was kind of like, maybe I can do this somewhere else.
Scott Schimmel (16:30)
Yeah, I had this image.
Yes.
I was getting this image when you were sharing that as you took over someone else's role. It's like Pac-Man, you swallowed something else up, but then something bigger than you came around and said, no, I'm gonna get you.
Richard Comitz (16:41)
and you want to review for it and sometimes want to say, okay, so I that's question.
Well, yeah, it just keeps coming and there's a lot of things that had to get done. And of course, because I'm like kind of can do attitude and know, mission and discipline, I'm like, I'm going to figure out how to make it happen. But it was getting stressful because it was almost impossible to make everything happen with the resources that I had. And, you know, I wanted to do better. So.
Scott Schimmel (17:12)
I also picture, I know this is betraying my ignorance, but I
imagine the student experience at West Point, I just imagine rows of engaged students sitting there at attention ready to listen and learn, which is not the experience in the typical classroom.
Richard Comitz (17:24)
Yeah, yeah, I They
really were.
amazing young Americans that I was working with. And oftentimes the discussion before class and after class that was about the army or just being an 18 or 21 year old young individual and the choices that they had ahead of them.
was just as rewarding to me than teaching the chemistry. So that part was pretty amazing. And I did also teach at night at a local college. And you're right, the experience was, I felt different. Now, when COVID happened, it got even really bad. But I did feel like people were kind of just wanting to come check the block and the little...
Scott Schimmel (17:56)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Richard Comitz (18:20)
I always would say, and this is again kind of utopian thought, I wish that I didn't have to test people in college. I wish they just came, wanted to learn the subject, took advantage of the fact that I knew the subject and we had a conversation and we can leave, right? And that's it. But instead, you have to have tests and quizzes and all that stuff. And then the students take the shortcut of like, what do I need to know to pass the test or quiz? And then now you're not learning the material,
Scott Schimmel (18:26)
Yeah. Yeah.
Right.
Yep. Yep. Yep.
Richard Comitz (18:49)
just trying to find the shortcuts and I just saw that happening a lot more because people were just trying to like this is just another class I need to check the block on so let's just figure out how to get through it.
Scott Schimmel (19:00)
What
then led you to leave Higher Ed? Was it like a sense of, I gotta move on from here? Or was there like an invitation into ACP?
Richard Comitz (19:20)
I felt that in my mind, the reason why I wasn't getting those jobs that I thought I should have gotten was because I didn't have the civilian college experience. And then I was like, okay, now I have two or so years, yeah, about two years of college level experience. And I can say that I did a lot of things on my resume in a civilian college. So I thought that I would be seen more valuable by other universities or something like that. Now, again, I expanded my
a little bit to other opportunities and that's where I came across ACP. So I just got lucky, came across ACP when I read the kind of the job description, I was pretty excited about the opportunity and you know just went through the process and just turned out they were kind of looking for someone that like me, right? Someone that knew the military community that kind of been through that transition and so it worked out.
Scott Schimmel (20:11)
Hmm.
There are so many
veteran service organizations, like thousands, but I can't think of one besides ACP that doesn't have something in its name to indicate that it's serving military, serving veterans. So I'm saying that again, as a dummy, like tell me about American corporate partners.
Richard Comitz (20:19)
certain sort of dimensions like thousands. But I can't think of, know, the size of it being that doesn't have something that's in it, indicated that it's certain relatives or relatives. So I'm saying that again, it's a dummy. Like, tell me what I'm doing.
Yeah, so it is interesting that this one thing we keep, we like to use ACP now too, more so because we're more than just corporate as far as you know. So the name, you know, it started a lot many years ago and it's too late to change it now, I guess. So bottom line is what we're doing is providing, so we work with a lot of corporate partners, but we also have, so about 65 % of our mentors come from corporate partners and then the other 35 % are
Scott Schimmel (20:45)
Okay. What's in a name?
Richard Comitz (21:07)
are not corporate. So they could be academics, doctors, lawyers, real estate agents, federal servants, any of those. And so the goal for us is to have a big pool of mentors so that when someone comes to us and says, I'm looking to get into this field or industry, we have a mentor that can talk to them about that. So what we do at ACP is we pair transitioning service members,
Scott Schimmel (21:12)
OK. Yeah.
Yeah. Nice.
Richard Comitz (21:37)
veterans and military spouses with mentors to help them get ready for their next career. So that's the perfect sitting scenario you have. You want to learn about IT, why not learn about what it's like to be in the IT world from someone in IBM or.
Scott Schimmel (21:42)
Yeah. Awesome.
Richard Comitz (21:53)
you know, actually doing it in some other company. And they could talk about, hey, this is what you learned in the military, and that sounds like this in the civilian world, and help you translate those skills, where you should emphasize, where you maybe de-emphasize what you did in the military, and how to translate that. And then, you know, just going through that process, looking at job descriptions, looking at job titles, looking at organizations. Because I'll tell you, when I left the military, I was pretty ignorant to the
Scott Schimmel (22:16)
Yeah.
Richard Comitz (22:23)
outside world. If you asked me if I wanted to work for Campbell's Soup, I would say, no, I don't want to put soup in cans. But I now know a company like Campbell's, like many other companies, has logistics and project managers and finance and marketing and HR. mean, almost anything you can say you want to do, they have. And that's the same for a lot of corporations. And so I would have turned away or not applied the jobs.
Scott Schimmel (22:30)
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah. Yeah. Right.
Richard Comitz (22:52)
solely because I didn't know what they did or how I would fit into that picture, right? Or that building that's down the road, who's in that building and what they do, right? You could be like, want to live in this city and not even know that whatever company has a huge presence there and you can work for them in some capacity.
Scott Schimmel (22:54)
Yeah.
What's your particular, I mean, this kind of sounds like a corny question. What's your passion
in the midst of this work? What do you enjoy the most? What's your thing in the midst of what you do?
Richard Comitz (23:26)
Yeah, I just love
helping people right I mean connecting people getting people to move forward We get to hear good news stories all the time from people where they're like, you know my mentor, you know helped me get a job or you know, I was going down the wrong road I got got involved with you guys and now
You know, I'm on the right track to finding a good job and all that stuff So hearing those good news stories finding ways to help more people. I think that's one of those things that You know, you don't have to sell anything in that way, right? I I don't have a problem Fundraising for us because all I'm doing is telling people this is the amazing work we're doing if you want to help us You know, you should if you don't then you know move on But you know in in the grand scheme of things
Scott Schimmel (24:11)
Right. Don't.
Richard Comitz (24:17)
That's the way I feel like helping more people, seeing people being successful is what I think we all should be doing in some capacity.
Scott Schimmel (24:30)
Yeah, well, kind of in wrapping up, if you could go back to 2019, maybe 2018, Rich, and have a conversation about, know, that Rich, no clue what the next six, seven years was gonna be like. What advice would you give and what would you maybe encourage that part of you back then?
Richard Comitz (24:54)
Yeah, and I do this a lot with current people, right? But I definitely would have benefited before. One, I would have started earlier doing my research and what I wanted to do. Two, I would have used more organizations like ACP. There's a lot of them out there that are really good. But...
Scott Schimmel (25:03)
Okay. Yeah.
Richard Comitz (25:16)
to help me do things like discover what I wanna do, what else I could do, what other jobs I might wanna do. And then also the other thing that I wish I would have done more of is networking. And I think networking, not necessarily just to help me get a job, but to help me understand the landscape I was about to get into. So those are the things.
Scott Schimmel (25:22)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. And it's such a
obviously it's such a daunting thing that comes with a lot of emotion for some people even even kind of philosophical issues with being someone that's needy or I don't know just not not feeling comfortable doing that. think again back to the point of organizations like ACP like the structure that can help somebody get over get past or get through their
Richard Comitz (25:56)
Yeah.
Scott Schimmel (26:06)
I don't know the discomfort from doing networking. It's not sleazy, it's not weird, it's like normal in that world. And so to start that early obviously makes sense. And to come in with the posture as well, like not just learning and listening, but how can I help you? Like that reciprocal, I'm really here to help if I can. I think that goes a long way for sure.
Richard Comitz (26:13)
Yeah.
Yeah, and that's where I'm happy to be in that position now where when I talk to people, that's the last thing I usually end with is like, you know, if I can ever be of any assistance, you know, don't hesitate to reach out to me.
Scott Schimmel (26:38)
Yeah. Yeah.
Well, Rich, thanks for jumping on this. It's good to get to know you and we'll make sure in the show notes to connect to ACP and probably is LinkedIn the easiest way to connect with you?
Richard Comitz (26:51)
Yeah, yeah, that's
great. Yeah, LinkedIn again, touched me. But yeah, for sure. We can always use more mentors or if it's a veteran out there that or military spouse that would like to get a mentor, it's free. So we definitely can use more mentors and get the word out about who we are and what we're doing to help more people. Thanks again.
Scott Schimmel (27:09)
That's awesome. Thanks, Rich.
