Scott Schimmel (00:00)
All right, everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Vector Accelerator Podcast. I'm Scott Schimmel. I'm here with my brand new friend, Natalie. Natalie, first of all, would you pronounce your last name? Because it's awfully similar to mine. Yes.
Natalie (00:12)
It's Schibell. A little bit.
Scott Schimmel (00:14)
The Schimmel Schibell podcast coming at
you. Natalie, I could never do justice to your eclectic career background. I was reading about you and you're like the Forrest Gump of 2025. Would you just kind of give us a little snapshot of where you've been and who you are?
Natalie (00:35)
Sure, I'll try to keep it concise. But I'm Natalie Schabel, originally from central New Jersey, West Long Branch. anyone out there is from New Jersey, it's exit 105 on the Parkway. I grew up in West Long Branch, eventually joined the Navy at 28 through the Health Services Collegiate Program, which is a really neat... Yep, 28. Yep.
Scott Schimmel (00:37)
You
Nice.
Wait, what? 28?
Natalie (01:02)
I was in grad school at New York Medical College and I learned of a program called the Health Services Collegiate Program and it allows you to go to school full-time while enlisting in the Navy, but of course you're not quite serving yet. You're going to school and you get a full salary, a BAH and all that and then when you graduate you immediately go to Officer Development School. You go to your first tour and off you go. So I took advantage of that opportunity. I was at New York Medical College.
I was able to really focus on my studies, graduated from honors, became an environmental health officer, which is an officer in the medical service corps, reported to my first duty station, which was Subbase New London out of Groton, Connecticut. I know for all you Navy folk out there, rotten groton, but rotten groton for me was a diamond in the rough. I got a really neat tour as an EHO. I got to experience everything from toxicology, preventive medicine, industrial hygiene.
There are about 93 facilities, 32,000 base members that were visiting. So I had complete ⁓ oversight of eight preventive medicine programs, ⁓ monitoring health and wellness and public safety and public health all across the base. So it was really a phenomenal tour. I learned a lot and ⁓ then joined the reserve once my active duty tour was up. ⁓ That was an interesting.
Scott Schimmel (02:21)
God.
Natalie (02:30)
⁓ experience. I had a lot of difficulty transitioning and getting a full-time civilian job. I remained in the reserve, was an assistant officer in charge, and eventually recalled myself back to active duty as a what's called a Canvasier recruiter. So I was assigned to a division at that time was Navy Recruiting District New York, now called Navy Talent Acquisition Empire State. I was a division officer of recruiting.
out of a station in Woodbridge, New Jersey. Did really well with that. ⁓ Became Recruiter of the Year, Diversity Recruiter of the Year. Got the recruiting bug. It took me over and I loved every minute of it. ⁓ At the end of my tour, two-year tour, once again went out and tried to transition. I was really hyped. I thought I was gonna get a recruiting job. Not so. Struggled again. Recalled myself back to active duty.
Scott Schimmel (03:15)
Okay.
You ⁓
Natalie (03:25)
But was more invited to go to Commander Navy Recruiting Command for a really exciting billet in N314, which is for medical programs. So making sure that we were making our goals for the medical community and Medical Service Corps. Did that for two years. At the end of it was appointed Regional Officer Programs Officer of the Navy Recruiting Command's newest region, Region 3. So I ran recruiting operations. Once again, got out, was super pumped.
Did not get a job again. yeah, very true. Then a funny thing happened, not so funny, but a pandemic. As you know, my background's public health, infectious disease. So all of sudden, Scott, a door opened. The world needed public health professionals. And at that time I had orders to Guam actually, in the Navy Reserve, because I had transitioned back into the reserve. And at the same time I got,
Scott Schimmel (03:57)
Come on.
Yes. Yes.
Natalie (04:24)
a job offer to work for the Centers for Disease Control, ⁓ DFWED, Foodborne and Waterborne Diseases on the National Wastewater Surveillance System, which was a $90 billion data surveillance project mitigating COVID-19 with sewage. So I was all over it. That was tremendous opportunity. I learned a lot and learned a lot about contracting as well. I was appointed a contracting officer representative.
was on the COVID response team answering all really neat COVID questions with epidemiologists and scientists there. ⁓ But then ⁓ at the end of it, I was offered a full-time job with the CDC, but more as a contracting officer, which I didn't quite want to go into that track. ⁓ And at that time, I also was trying to get some other jobs and still get into the corporate world. A friend of mine introduced me to FourBlocks.
which is a nonprofit. And through 4Block, I finally got my door to open for the corporate world. And it was an opportunity at Forrester to be a senior analyst. So I did that, ⁓ was promoted within 10 months to VP Research Director of the Healthcare Vertical, probably in the most exciting time in healthcare history to be studying emerging technologies and consulting with clients. ⁓
was an amazing opportunity that really increased my skills tenfold. Experience with the media, with Fortune 500, 100 companies and CEOs and talking data and technology all day every day. Then was poached to a company where I became a product marketer. was a VP of Market Strategy, Intelligence and Insights at a care management company. And then from there,
was scooped up again to work for a real world evidence company, back to public health a little bit, get to go back to my familiar friends in healthcare and epidemiology, which is where I am today. Back in 2020, however, when I was first transitioning from, well, my first transition really was 2015, but 2020 was my last active duty tour. That's when I found Admission to Commission, a 501 C3 nonprofit.
dedicated to helping individuals transition into the military from the civilian sector and then on their way out back into the civilian sector. So that's my forced gump. I was not, ⁓ maybe I should have to be more concise, but. ⁓
Scott Schimmel (06:54)
that's awesome. That is wild. Were you reading that the whole time? Like how did you do that?
No, no, I'm bet tonight you're going to go to bed. You're going be like falling asleep
and you're like, I forgot that whole other career that I had. I forgot to tell him about.
Natalie (07:11)
⁓ there are others in there. Did a lot of things. ⁓ Between that time, which I didn't cover, I was a midshipman at George Washington University, went through the whole ROTC program just about, got to my first class year halfway through, and discovered that I wanted to possibly become an explosive ordinance disposal officer. Got through all the screening and
Scott Schimmel (07:13)
That is wild.
Natalie (07:41)
did some my own research and a career pivot and said, you know what, maybe this isn't exactly what I thought it was. And because I was a college programmer and volunteered ROTC, I know it sounds crazy. I did this stuff for fun. ⁓ I was able to not ultimately, you know, commission. And I didn't have any money to pay back or anything. Again, this was, didn't take a scholarship. was, I was new to it. Did it my sophomore, junior and half of my senior year.
and had the idea of joining the Coast Guard as an officer doing search and rescue. But somehow I was declared colorblind and there went that. So, you know, there was another pivot. It was like, oh my goodness, what do I do now? I ended up going to acting school. I went to culinary school and I did. It was not lost, but I'll say finding myself, finding what I love to do.
Scott Schimmel (08:14)
No.
Are you serious?
Yeah.
Natalie (08:41)
And during all of this, found my way back to the Navy. I still wanted to serve, but in the Medical Service Corps, which I did not know existed. ⁓ Nobody told me about it when I was a first-class midshipman. The officers were like, you know, we hate to see you go, but you know, good luck to you. Instead of saying, hey, midshipman, did you know there's an entire field out there of Navy medicine professionals and you could be one.
Scott Schimmel (09:03)
Right. Right.
You could be one.
Natalie (09:10)
Medical Service Corps, have 30 or so different specialties. Everything from podiatry to, you know, environmental health to psychology, physician assistant. And it took me six years to find that out myself and to be lucky enough to get one of the coveted scholarships. My only thing I would change about the Navy is not joining sooner, but hey, I was off cooking and doing horse gump things.
Scott Schimmel (09:37)
You
Natalie (09:39)
⁓ And it created the foundation to what I do today to help others on their path to give them the information the resources that they need so that you know They're not wondering ⁓ you know what I want to be when I grow up How do I get there and what are the gaps that I need to fill?
Scott Schimmel (09:52)
Here we go. Yeah.
Well, what a intro segue to the Vector podcast. mean, totally makes sense why you're here. As you were talking about these kind of pursuits you did in your self-expiration, I was just thinking like most people when they're feeling lost or trying to find out what to do, like they use YouTube. Like you actually just go and enroll to things. You like sign up and then.
and spent like multiple years there. ⁓ This is going to sound super pretentious. Perhaps this morning I was reading existential psychology and there's the pretentious part. That's a setup. I was reading a particular model about a meaningful life and the first of four pillars this particular author was talking about was a sense of coherence that your life, like looking backwards and looking forwards has a thread. It has a coherent.
Natalie (10:44)
Mm.
Scott Schimmel (10:50)
sense of like an arc to it. And I think you just shared a little bit about that. But I would be curious to hear more about where do you see coherence in all those various things. And I will stop, I'll stop joking about all these different things, because there's a lot of richness and depth there. So what do you see is like the thread?
Natalie (11:08)
Yeah, every step, every turn, there were things that created that foundation to what I do today. And I wouldn't be a quarter of the person I am today if I hadn't done these things, if I hadn't been rejected, if people hadn't said no to me more than once. And to what I am today, market strategist, consultant, it was solving problems and figuring things out from day one, you know, way, way, way back.
you know, as a brand new environmental health officer, you're on a base, the sole environmental health officer for all these individuals. And, you you learn what you learn in school, but it is nowhere near what is expected of you when you take on a role that large. you you sit and you learn and you figure out problems and challenges. You learn to be resourceful. You learn to rely on your sailors and your chiefs and learn the craft.
Learn the regulations, ⁓ local, state, federal. And what you're really doing is you're learning to be a researcher. You're pouring yourself into all these different regulations and guidance manuals and SOPs on all these different echelons from local to the Navy, of course, and BU Med has their own protocols from a federal perspective when you're dealing with toxicology and contaminants.
Scott Schimmel (12:20)
Yeah.
Natalie (12:33)
And you're becoming a scientist in many ways and a researcher, not maybe in the traditional sense in a laboratory, although we certainly did work with the lab, but you're learning how to deduce and conclude. You're of course learning how to be a leader, ⁓ not just to you at the clinic, but face-wide because your decisions, your ability to inspect.
to adhere those standards determines whether or not a submarine leaves on deployment. It determines whether or not a restaurant on bases is closed down. ⁓ So to have that magnitude of responsibility was quite powerful.
right out of out of school and that's something that I will cherish for the rest of my life when you kind of walk through those clinic doors and you say to yourself am I capable of this? I ready? You know, tag your it. You look left you look left right and there is no one else. They say what do you think lieutenant? And I had a little nickname Lieutenant Brockovich because I was finding all these little things and ⁓
Scott Schimmel (13:17)
Yeah. Yeah.
Natalie (13:32)
It was just an ocean of things to look into and you would go right to the base CEO or right to the CEO of Meekle Health Clinic New England and they were relying on your expertise and your advice. So it was on you to be ready and to collect all the information that you possibly could to make a decision that would literally affect tens of thousands. so I took that with me ⁓ as I went out into the corporate world and
even when I was on Subbase New London, I was writing for the base paper, the Dolphin. So there laid the groundwork of marketing. When I took a recruiting tour,
Scott Schimmel (14:09)
Yeah.
Natalie (14:11)
that furthered marketing. You're learning about lead generation. You're learning about social media marketing. You're learning at bottom of the funnel, top of the funnel, ⁓ what it is to sell the sales cycle. You're selling the Navy. You're selling yourself, really. You're selling a brand. That's marketing. Every little bit was marketing, prospecting, being out in the field, going to high schools, colleges, public speaking, talking to...
Scott Schimmel (14:18)
Ha
Yeah. Yeah.
Natalie (14:33)
You know future recruits or people that were going to buy your products out in the corporate world gaining their trust Guiding them mentoring them onboarding them, know Navy recruiter does like 16 different jobs Whereas you go into the civilian sector and there's you're a sorcerer or you're an on-boarder. You're a manpower analyst You got to be at all in the Navy. So it was a crash course in business really
Scott Schimmel (14:49)
Yeah, you do one thing. Yeah. Yeah.
Natalie (14:57)
And then when I got to the CDC, I learned what it was to go through the trademark process. We were branding the National Waste Water Severnment System logo and working on the webpages. And there again was marketing, was demand gen, it was product marketing as well. And so I learned all these little things on the way of what it was to market a product, to write, to generate content, to deduce and conclude, to do research.
So when I became a healthcare analyst, all those facets were inside me. I just didn't know it yet. And they come to life, they come to fruition once you're actually on the job on a daily basis and you're pulling from that experience.
Scott Schimmel (15:41)
One of the threads I'm hearing also as you share those different circumstances and responsibilities is like the word consequential comes to mind. Everything you're doing is like had a lot of consequences to it. Responsibility, weight, authority, power, and from a, from, from jump, how do you, one, do you see that? Two, do you, what do you do with that as you now consult and shape others?
Natalie (15:53)
Absolutely.
Yeah, I think it's, you ⁓
following a process, right? Nothing's done overnight. You really have to think something through and all the different steps that it takes. For example, I'm a product marketer. You just produce a product, right? You've got to do the research, all the research that goes behind it. So I'm an AT &T right now, real world evidence company. You've got to go look into ⁓ segmenting the market. What's data analytics? What's real world data? What's real world evidence? Who are our competitors? What are they producing? What are the key differentiators?
What's
the value of the market if you do a market segmentation, TAM analysis? What's the actual percentage of the market that you can actually go out and get because you have the tools and the resource and the manpower at your company to go execute that? And so everything has a process. Nothing's made overnight. And to be that meticulous, those are the things that you pick up in all these different jobs. I'll remember as an EHO on
Scott Schimmel (17:01)
Yeah.
Natalie (17:11)
in the clinic, I was a controlled substance inventory board officer. So I was in the pharmacy counting pills and people might be like, ⁓ you what a tedious job. Yes, it was tedious, but it actually taught you how the pharmacy was run. ⁓ It taught you about controlled substances and all the different things that go into, you know, running a pharmacy.
And you have to take those experiences with you, whether it's product marketing, whether it's running a marketing team and all the different types of marketing, is to really have a plan and think each and every little thing through because it's a domino effect. If there's one thing that's not lined up properly, you haven't researched it, you're going to start to see holes in your plan. And I think that's the big takeaway from all this.
Scott Schimmel (18:00)
Tell me more about mission to commission, particularly the part that stuck out to me was we talked about like the pre-transition, the transition ⁓ into the service. What do you mean by that?
Natalie (18:12)
Yeah, so we have a philosophy where you can help the transition to the civilian sector from day one where you raise your right hand. And a lot of people, including myself, you walk into a recruiting office and a job seems really cool. Obviously, if you're taking the ASVAB and you're enlisting, there's less control over what type of job that you go into. You become an officer, there's a little bit more control, but
You know, oftentimes you're like, well, that sounds cool. Yeah, I'd like to do that. But nobody sits you down and says, well, here's the equivalent. Once you do transition out into the civilian sector, here's what you are most likely going to be proficient at. These are the gaps in the skills that you're going to have to fill. Here's the education that you're going to have to get, whether it's a master's, whether it's, you know, these PMP, the different certifications, IT certifications.
Newsflash, you know, this job might be gone in the next five, 10 years. Newsflash, this might have an extremely high turnover rate. Nobody tells you those things. So you walk in a bit blind, not knowing what to expect. And I wanted to change that. I wanted to fix the issue with veterans not being gainfully employed and unemployment by starting from day one and educating them.
on what they need to do. A job might sound really cool and that's great, go do it, go serve your country, but know along the way what you need to do to prepare once, so when that time comes when you get out, and it could come prematurely, you could get hurt, something else could happen, now all of a sudden you're five years getting out earlier than what you thought, you gotta be ready. So we take a full cycle approach to an entire career versus what am I doing in this moment.
Scott Schimmel (20:02)
That's awesome.
Yes. Yeah. What am I doing next week? How do I get a job now? You had a post the other day on LinkedIn just a days ago, maybe this weekend that stuck out to me, grabbed me the seven myths of veteran transition. And I thought if you'd be open to it, we can go through some of those. And I just love to get your reaction here. First one, he said, ⁓ veterans have it easy when job hunting.
Natalie (20:21)
Sure.
I'm living life proof. Now, some have it easier than others. My path is rather unique, but hey, you're an engineer, if you're a Navy nuke, I love you my nukes, they tend to have an easier time, not to say that that's an easy transition, but they're very high in demand.
Scott Schimmel (20:35)
Yeah.
But.
Natalie (20:52)
If you have a job like preventive medicine technician or environmental health officer, it can be a lot harder because there's not 100 % equivalent in the civilian sector. And that's what you have to be prepared for.
Scott Schimmel (21:08)
Yeah. Okay. Myth number two, veterans only belong in government or security jobs.
Natalie (21:14)
That's a huge misnomer. ⁓ We can use our skills and our accountability, resourcefulness in every single job out there, in every sector.
Scott Schimmel (21:25)
How about this one? Military leadership automatically transfers to the civilian world. I've heard that quite a bit. Like they're leaders in the military. They must be then leaders in the rest of the life.
Natalie (21:37)
Yes, and that's a good one. And that is a hugely controversial topic, always is. And I've fielded these questions myself a number of times from on job interviews, from ⁓ hiring managers, where they think that you're coming out of the military, people are going to obey you because they have to abide by orders. And it's easier in the military. And it's actually the opposite.
Scott Schimmel (21:59)
Yeah. ⁓
Natalie (22:06)
You have to gain the trust of your people. You've got to get in the trenches with them. Respect goes both ways. And NCOs are quite good at that, right? Because they've been serving for a number of years. They learn to be that midway between top brass and your newly enlisted members. And they cultivate and grow them. Good officers do that too. Obviously, when you're fresh out of school, you're not as seasoned. But
really good officers, at least the one that I always aspired to be, always took an interest in my people, always sat with them, mentored them, ⁓ rolled up my sleeves with them, was on my hands and knees looking at whatever had to be looked at and really understanding what their jobs were. And it goes both ways. And it's also like that in the civilian sector where, you know, people respond to trust, not to title. And there's debates on both sides. ⁓ Yes, ultimately, you know,
Scott Schimmel (22:40)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Natalie (23:03)
you have to say, yes sir, no sir, yes ma'am, ⁓ or I'll find out ma'am. But, you know, there's a difference between obeying orders and inspiring people to do their best work. And that's certainly not something that's determined by rank, it's determined by aptitude and the type of leader that you are. And so I wanna squash that misnomer out there for any hiring manager in the corporate world.
Scott Schimmel (23:06)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Natalie (23:28)
that just because someone's coming out as, know, could be an NCO, could be an, you know, an O7, the type of leader they are is the presence that they command is how they are with their people. Are they transformational? And that's what's most important.
Scott Schimmel (23:34)
Yeah.
I ran into a friend of mine who's a retired Marine and he was talking about in the first year of his job after the Marines, he got pulled into HR a couple times because the people under him would report how aggressive he was. That was like their language. And he's like, Scott, was, I was giving them like four out of 10. I would just tell them you're not doing your job right. He's like, I really, he's like, really took me a while to figure out like how to adjust my, my tone and my leadership style outside the military.
Natalie (24:13)
Yeah, that I can see that, ⁓ you know, it's a different world and especially with the different generations. I don't want to get too controversial, but each generation has a different way of learning. And so if you come out, you know, kicking and screaming, that's the wrong way to go. And that's like that in any job in any company.
Scott Schimmel (24:22)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, let's not get canceled by the dessert.
Yeah. Yeah.
Natalie (24:40)
I always like to join a company, sit back, take it in, observe, right? You've got your radars on, you who knows what they're talking about? Who doesn't? Who do you want to emulate? ⁓ do that first, become, become an expert at that company's processes, determine what's not working, what is working. And then gradually, little by little, you start transforming things, not right away. I learned that, you know, as, as a new officer.
Scott Schimmel (25:04)
Yeah.
Natalie (25:07)
you know, coming in and knowing, hey, you only know what you know. you know, coming out with your textbook knowledge and not practical experience, there's a lot to learn, so much to learn. And so you have to have that level of humility. You could have, you know, commanded a thousand people, thousands of people. But at the end of the day, the people at that job still know more about that workflow than you do until, you you get up to speed.
Scott Schimmel (25:23)
Mm.
Right. Yeah.
All right. Another myth. The military prepares you for everything. Now, you might actually be the one that says, no, that he really did. I had so many roles, so many different perspectives. I got it. But what would you say to that?
Natalie (25:44)
They didn't prepare me to transition to the civilian world, that's for sure. But it sure taught me a lot. And I think it teaches you the most about yourself, right? What you're capable of. You're put into these huge responsibilities in dollars and of course in human lives. And nothing can really replace that in my opinion. And so it teaches you how to adapt and navigate and be a problem solver.
Scott Schimmel (25:47)
That's right.
Yeah. Yeah.
Natalie (26:13)
and be a better human altogether. But it certainly doesn't teach you how to negotiate salaries. It doesn't teach you how to make money. We're in the business of spending money in DOD and government service, not in, ⁓ well, we save a lot of money sometimes, but not in generating revenue. ⁓
Scott Schimmel (26:20)
Right.
Yeah, great point.
Yeah. Yeah.
Natalie (26:38)
know, mergers and acquisitions. You there's a lot of gaps there that you simply don't get. ⁓
Scott Schimmel (26:41)
Yeah.
All right, last one. Veteran is your identity forever.
Natalie (26:50)
There's a little truth to that. I think there's a little part of you that, least me, that I will always proudly take with me as a veteran, but it's certainly not all of you. And you've got to keep the memories and hold them close to your heart, but also move on and learn to adapt, learn new things. ⁓
certainly find your tribe once you get out because it's incredibly comforting especially when you're going out to these unfamiliar environments and you know that aren't steeped in tradition and brotherhood and camaraderie but you've got to learn to be diversified in and learn to have different talents and different interests because that's what makes you ultimately a better leader a better human and a better employee.
Scott Schimmel (27:13)
Yeah.
Yeah.
So what's your, kind of wrapping this up, what is your, I would say, if I would say it's like your big dream, but like what do you hope looks different five to 10 years from now for veteran transition?
Natalie (27:48)
I hope that's a great question. What I'm trying to build right now, I hope that it's a much bigger part of the transition. You know, a place where people can go and get all the resources that they could possibly need in a transparent way, in a way that they can do autonomously and, you know, self-discover whatever they want to learn, whether it's about a career path, you know, the salary that it makes, the skills that they need. ⁓
how to fix their resume, do all those things independently on their own time, at their own pace. We don't really have anything like that right now that isn't a full comprehensive holistic approach to a transition. And even any non-profit or company that's attempted to do it, it's far too late. You wanna be doing that when you're searching for a career in the military and then throughout.
Scott Schimmel (28:38)
Yeah.
Natalie (28:44)
your military service so you can prepare and then once again when you're transitioning out into the civilian sector.
Scott Schimmel (28:47)
Yeah.
Yeah, that's awesome. So tell us how we can connect with you and stay connected.
Natalie (28:56)
Sure, ⁓ anyone, any background is invited to reach out to me natalie.chevelle at mission to commission. That's T-O, commission.org. And I will get back to you, ⁓ probably no more than 48 hours. I've never not responded to anyone.
Scott Schimmel (29:12)
I it. I believe it.
Natalie, thanks so much for being on the show and we look forward to, well, hold on to coattails and seeing where you go next.
Natalie (29:22)
Thanks so much for having me. It's been a pleasure.
