I wish I knew what an investment baker was when I was younger.
I mean, I think for a long time I wanted to be a pilot.
That was my kinda childhood dream. I come from a single parent family.
My dad died when I was really, really young. It was me my mom, my grandma,
and my sister. The four of us. Coming out of high school I had to figure
out a way to pay for college. The Navy NROTC scholarship was a great way to do that.
So I went to Stanford and studied industrial engineering there.
Graduated in 2001, then went into the Navy, through the Navy NROTC scholarship.
Served six years in the Navy, and then did my MBA at Harvard, from 2007 to 2009.
And then started at the firm that I'm at now. Hawaii, Guam, Saipan.
I mean I had a great lifestyle when I was in the Navy.
I lived within 100 feet of the beach, I was the only black guy out there in
the water trying to surf. Looking ridiculous for sure. I think in the Navy
in the Submarine force, it's work hard, play hard. I had a top secret clearance,
you're part of a handful of people in the know as an Officer on a submarine.
You now the mission, you know it inside and out. I felt like there was really nothing
I couldn't tackle, you know, based on what I had overcome when I was in the Navy.
Some of the biggest lessons that I learned, integrity, telling the truth.
Under pressure, being as honest with people that you work with as you absolutely can be.
Those lessons I think transcend the Navy and create leaders that go off
and do huge things. I'd like to think that at some point in my life I'd be one of
those leaders who finally recalls in their Navy experience how they were able to
become that kind of a leader. I couldn't do anything I didn't find challenging.
Some client has a problem, and you've never seen it before, but you know you're
are going to solve that problem for them, and learn something new in the process.
That's my mentality anytime I face a new challenge, or I face something I don't
know how to do, where it might like scare somebody. The approach that you learn
in the Navy is embrace that challenge and learn from it, grow. You know,
it's one more thing that you can say that you conquered kinda in your life.
I'm sure I'm going to fall flat on my face a couple more times here and there.
But that said, I feel like there are no challenges I can't overcome.
There's no, you know, fall down that I'm not going to get back up from.
My name is Tyson Clark, I'm an Investment Banker.
I was a submariner as an Officer in the United States Navy.