“Military Makeover: Operation Career” is a TV series that shares stories of military veterans who have successfully transitioned to civilian life by finding meaningful and rewarding career opportunities. Three KARL STORZ employees are featured in the latest episode.
For its humble beginnings. Over 75 years ago, Carl Stores has remained a family owned business while becoming a global leader in minimally invasive surgery technology with an impressive past and a brilliant future ahead. They offer transitioning veterans exceptional career opportunities. Right now. Carl Stores is a family owned company that employs 8800 people in more than 40 countries worldwide. Carl Storess, Endoscopy America has 1600 employees working either remotely or near one of their main offices in California, Texas and Massachusetts, whether it's ear, nose and throat, anesthesiology, pediatrics or urology. Their cutting edge 3d and four K visualization solutions provide surgeons with pristine image quality so they can make the best decisions for their patients. Our fully integrated rooms and portable visualization solutions actually help capture data in real time and share it across different care sites whether you're in the hospital outside the hospital so that you can actually take care of the patient through that whole continue. We don't stop there. Our field service technicians and our service teams are available 24 hours to help our surgeons and our care providers care for their patients and make the best decision for their patients. I'm very excited about what we do here at car stores and what the future holds for us. My name is Dewan De Lari. I'm the manager of logistics and distribution here at car stores. I've worked with car stores for a year. I'm also retired us army. I retired as a master sergeant after 26 years. I'm Amy Jeans. I've worked for Carl Stores for two years now. I am a customer success manager for the West Coast, uh for or one with Carl Stores. I was in the army prior to this and was in the army for five years. Active duty. Got out as a army captain. My name is Matt Hopper. I've been with Carl Stewart since 1995 28 years as either an account executive in sales or my current role in the last six years as a VH, a corporate accounts manager for the west area of the country. I served in the US Navy for five years at the rank of a petty officer. Hm. Three. So my job, I'm here at cross stores. I am a logistics and distribution manager. We do production in this facility and my customers are hospitals around the United States. I joined the military. I love being on a team, the camaraderie and I also need a purpose. I needed something to live or die for and I've no better place than the US military. I needed it more than that. Needed me any adventure. I like the adventure, jumping out of planes, shooting guns, visiting other countries on assignment. So, I went to the military academy when I was 18. Right out. Right, right out of high school. It was interesting. It wasn't a path that I had always dreamed about. Many people that go to military academies either have some sort of influence, they've dreamed about it. It's their goal. Um, I just kind of happened to stumble upon it. I knew I wanted to do something more and I wasn't gonna find that if I just went to a no college, my passion for military medicine started when I was 20 years old, when I went into the Navy and decided to take the path of what they offered for medicine. It opened a world that I had never been exposed to. If you think about the care that they're providing, whether it be to active duty or retired veterans, it's incredibly important to have passion behind that because those are the men and women who are basically allowing us to live the lives that we live. Carl studs looks for values of leadership skills, collaboration, that commitment to the patient, to the surgeon, to the physician. Those are the values that every veteran stands for. So that's what actually makes it a very, very positive mesh for them to come and work with us and they're part of a team very much and they're driven to get something done to get over the barrier to drive the result. And, and so we, we really like that drive and focus, I think being deployed in combat operations so far away from family. Emotionally, that was the most difficult part, especially being a female deployed in an environment where you're with NATO, the ratio of male to female is completely different. So, emotionally, that was a little difficult for my boyfriend at the time who's now my husband to, you know, understand and to trust that everything was good in our relationship. When I joined the army, I entered as my M OS or military occupational skill was a 68 Juliet which is a medical logistics technician. One of my assignments uh I was frequently in Iraq and Afghanistan in the army. If I failed to uh do my job, what is at stake is potentially at the extreme form of someone's life. I was at a small base camp called Camp Span and I was the base defense operations officer in charge. And that included 24 hours operation of all security forces, inbound and outbound traffic. If I didn't do my job leading base defense operations, we'd have a vulnerability within the perimeters. It would be easy for the enemy to find a way in and attack us from outside. The importance of a corpsman in the field in battle is it's basically the platoons or the units only advocate for health care. If a marine takes a bullet. The corpsman is the one who's gonna save him or her. If you don't know your job in general in the military, people can die because in the military, you're so used to having selfless service. Um, you're so used to serving others. You're so used to the main mission that everybody in your unit is focused on doing that. When you transition to the civilian world, you forget to think about yourself where we are looking out and trying to understand as they come into the civilian world. What are they looking for? How is that transition being for them, understanding, creating more opportunities for them, getting them more access to education, if they need to, getting them more access to other skills that they might need to build upon as they transition into it. Former service members of all branches that I've seen who are thriving striving beyond the military, they were planning well, before they transition, I think the best advice I could give a veteran transitioning out of the military into the business world today is to be high educated on the various processes to do that. Carl Sturt started an employee resource group this year known as Brave, the acronym, business resource Advocates for veterans employees. So we are not only looking out for our own within the organization, but we're now casting a wider net out into the employment field to try to find veterans to come into the organization. These men and women have exceptional leadership skills. They have exceptional teamwork, they have exceptional. I, I mean, just grit and grace to help us drive our business. I can't think of any other place. I uh rather be since in the year that I've been here. I don't see myself going anywhere else. I see my second re retirement from here in Carl Stores. I would tell a vet interest who transitioned from the military looking for employment that Carl Stores is a great opportunity, a great uh company to work for. But the diversity quality and inclusion, that was a big thing for me. And Carl Sts is a, a champion of that. We have core values of, for example, courage, respect, integrity, self reflection, and continuous improvement. I think all these things are things that you have in the military as well. It's a logical step for a military person seeking a civilian career to come in and plug in here at Karl stores. I absolutely love what I do for Carl Stores. And I think if you ask me what I would want to be or what I would want to do with Carl's stores for the next five years, I would be completely happy doing exactly what I'm doing. Now, if you were a veteran looking to work at Carl's stores, the first thing I would say to you is you have found a home.
