Captain Deborah D.
Hirsh, USN (Ret) is currently serving as the
Chief Human Resources Officer of the Los Angeles
Unified School District (LAUSD). This is her
first post-retirement position, which encompasses
overseeing all personnel issues for the second
largest school district in the United States.
LAUSD's 100,000 full and part time personnel
serve 750,000 largely economically disadvantaged
children, attending more than 800 schools.
Captain Hirsh, a veteran of 26 years on active
duty, began her naval career with several
varied tours early in her career in communications
and intelligence, serving on major fleet and
international staffs, as well as operational
units, before settling into what was to become
her specialty, recruiting. After a very successful
tour as the Executive Officer, and then, Commanding
Officer of Navy Recruiting District, Omaha
in 1989, she was selected to head up the Officer
Recruiting School in Pensacola, Florida. Later,
she became the Commanding Officer of Navy
Recruiting District New York, arguably the
most complex and challenging recruiting district
in the country. Under her leadership, Navy
Recruiting District New York went from last
to best in the nation in two short years.
This was followed by a tour in the Pentagon
in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of
Defense for Personnel and Readiness as the
Director of all Military Recruitment Advertising.
A television military recruitment advertising
campaign spearheaded by Captain Hirsh and
employing the Oscar-ominated Passion of
the Christ cinematographer Caleb Deschanel
won the prestigious advertising industry Effie
award in 1996.
After the Pentagon, Captain Hirsh was selected
for Major Command and served first as the
Director of Operations for the Navy Recruiting
Command, followed by Commander, Navy Recruiting
Northeast Region with eight subordinate commands.
She rounded out her rich Navy experiences
as the Chief Human Resources Officer at the
Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California
before retiring in 2002.
Relocating with her family to Los Angeles,
she has proven that a smooth transition from
military life is very doable. She has found
that the leadership skills, coupled with the
MBA she gained while serving on active duty,
are directly translatable to the civilian
sector and in great demand. In one short year
after arriving at the Los Angeles Unified
School District, she raised the quality of
the district's teaching force from 71% highly
qualified teachers to over 94% overall. Her
focus is now turning to improving the quality,
selection and training of the district's 800
plus school principals, and she is actively
pursuing initiatives that would allow transitioning
military commanding officers to serve as school
principals.
Captain Hirsh is also the proud mother of
16-year old TV and movie actress Hallee Hirsh,
who is best known as Anthony Edwards' (Top
Gun's Goose) recalcitrant daughter, Rachel,
on the hit television series ER. Hallee can
also be seen this season on CBS's JAG, in
the role of Mattie Grace, Harm's adopted daughter.
Both Hallee and her mom think this is pretty
cool considering Hallee grew up in a Navy
family.
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Since my first column submission written last year, I am amazed at how many of you are still dropping me a line either to thank me for the encouragement that my first article provided or asking for some specific advice. It has been fun hearing from you and for any small modicum of help that I may have provided, I am happy to have been of assistance. Because of your kind responses, I thought it time to write another.
Several of you who have honored me with your e-mails have asked me if I had any advice on how to turn your expertise into a consulting career. It's funny, because I am actually contemplating a third career in consulting myself. The thought of easing out of the 7:00 A.M. to 7:00 P.M, five days a week grind at some downtown office building, and into working for myself on my own terms, on my own time, and in pajamas with a latte in front of my own computer in my own home office has a great deal of appeal to me.
Have you ever noticed that just when you start thinking of making a change, something just drops in your lap and an opportunity presents itself, a door opens? It happened to me about a month ago one Monday morning sitting on a Southwest Airlines flight from Salt Lake City returning to Los Angeles. Early Monday mornings, having gotten up at 4:30 AM to make the plane, usually predisposes me not to start a conversation with the passenger sitting next to me. On this morning for some reason (Karma?), I ignored my inclination to glum silence, and before I knew it, I was engaged in a thoroughly interesting and spirited conversation with an attractive woman about my age, who was on her way to a consulting assignment in Los Angeles. Turns out she has been an independent management consultant for ten years and her business is thriving. And she works on her own terms, on her own time, and in pajamas with a latte in front of her own computer in her own home office. Wow, she is living my dream. She averages about two consulting jobs per month earning $2,000 per day for about eight days away from home. Even after expenses, she is easily clearing a six figure annual salary. Granted, she told me, she doesn't just work eight days a month. There is a lot of research and prep work which she does on her own time in pajamas in her own home office after working out in her own home gym -- you can get the visuals. She told me she was taking the next two weeks off after this assignment to do a Yoga retreat. Appealing life style, no? The opportunity she provided me that morning was the encouragement and example of her own success and the offer for me to continue to network with her for advice and possible future joint ventures. I was on my way.
The next thing I did was enroll in a "How to Become a Consultant" seminar with The Learning Annex (these guys are in most if not all of our larger cities and they have seminars on anything and everything). It was a three-hour seminar and it was a revelation. Not because it was the end all and be all of seminars, but because the "how to", the cookbook if you will, is so straightforward and certainly not rocket science. And I am going to tell you the basics right now:
First of all, you have to have some expertise in something. Expertise that somebody might want and need that could save them time and money in learning from you. One of the other seminar attendees, for example, had spent a career in food service and had opened up several restaurants for people. Imagine if you wanted to indulge your passion in food and have a go at opening up your own restaurant. Imagine the costly mistakes you might make if you did not have "expert" advice on what pitfalls to avoid. Paying an "expert" a couple thousand dollars to avoid failure within the first month of business might seem like a pretty good up front investment.
Secondly, consultants should not go knocking on doors for business -- that is not the way to generate clients. Other than answering an ad for consultants and submitting a proposal, people need to seek you out. So the next obvious question one might have is, how do I market myself so that people seek me out? And the answer is -- you establish yourself as "an expert" in your field. You have to get your name out there. You join associations, you network, you make yourself available as a speaker in your field, you write articles for trade newsletters, the Internet and magazines and you get your name in the press. You start small with a vision of getting bigger. Little press leads to bigger press. You become a "resource" for reporters in your home town newspaper in your area of expertise. You get your first small jobs that lead to bigger jobs and off you go. It starts with a dream, a vision of what you want. Sometimes that's the hardest, committing to a direction. But once you "see it," it is a matter of putting one foot in front of the other.
Obviously, there is no way to put the whole content of this seminar in this column. And I am just beginning my own journey into the world of "Infopreneurship." But what I encourage you to do is follow that dream -- whatever it may be. Take the first steps and then, surprisingly, the next steps may present themselves. You will see opportunities and you will act on them. Good luck and let me know how it works out for you. I will, in turn, keep you posted on my own progress.
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