Interviewer: Good morning Chief Farrin, thank you for your time being here today. I’m just going to get right started and get right into asking you the first question for the interview. What leadership positions or community roles have you held in the state of Maine?
CCMSgt (ret) Brad Farrin: Oh, there’s been a few, I was a First Sergeant up at the 101st Air Refueling Wing up in Bangor, Maine, I was also the Command Chief there.
I was a Human Resource Advisor for the state of Maine Air National Guard, as well as the state Command Chief which is the senior enlisted position for the Maine Air National Guard.
I was a captain on the Norridgewock volunteer fire department and have also served two terms in the Maine House of Representatives and my second term in the Maine Senate where I represent the majority of Somerset County. I work for a large family-owned business Milton Cat where I manage all the properties in real-estate in six states in New England so various roles and in different capacities.
Interviewer: This is great you have had a lot of leadership experience. Through these leadership roles: What valuable knowledge and skills have you learned as a leader that you could educate others with that you’d like to share, as part of this interview?
CCMSgt (ret) Brad Farrin: Yeah, you know, Erika I think one of the important things is that some of it comes with time and exposure, but you know that a lot of it seems like old cliches but as you develop and mature into some of the leadership positions, you know that there are some basic rules I believe in is you’ve got to surround yourself with good people and empower them. Give people the chance on your team to fail to provide them some top cover because we all make mistakes, I make mistakes.
And people you know most people will learn from those mistakes as long as you’re given a chance to kind of deal with and do the hot wash afterwards and talk about what would you do different in that communication piece. I mean, you still have to hold people accountable, and that’s fine, but especially in this day and age with the technology and stuff really listening, and you have to remind yourself I still have to ground myself from time to time and because as a leader sometimes you have a preconceived notion of what the outcome should be. And I see a lot of people ask for input, when they’re really not asking for input, they’re waiting to tell you what they want the outcome to be, and people can see through that.
People are pretty intuitive, and I think you’ve got to listen a lot in those situations and sometimes that’s hard to do, but I think that’s an important piece, is listening to the folks that you are leading and mentoring. Mentoring is as much a part of leadership as anything is.
Interviewer: I completely agree, you need to listen to your people in order to see what you can do with anything that you want to assist them with or work with them at.
You kind of answered the second question going right into it. What does leadership mean to you?
So that was the third question I have, did you, did you have anything else you wanted to add? If not, I’m just going to jump right to the next.
CCMSgt (ret.) Brad Farrin: I would just expound on that a little bit to me, other than you know, deal with leadership, dealing with, you know, the task at hand or the goals at hand is a good leader, I believe, is the mentoring piece right you should be looking for, who’s coming up behind you, especially in the military roles where we have, you know, very distinct times that you stay in those leadership positions.
I had the opportunity to go from First Sergeant to the Human Resource Advisor to the Command Chief, and each step of those along the way. You know, you should be looking behind you, about who you bring in and mentoring to fill those roles because you’re not going to be there forever.
Interviewer: That’s true. People move around quickly.
CCMSgt (ret.) Brad Farrin: Absolutely.
Interviewer: People move around, people move different jobs all the time. When did you realize that you wanted to be a leader in your organization?
CCMSgt (ret.) Brad Farrin: Wow, the first real leadership position I had was a First Sergeant at the 101st Air Refueling Wing when I was in Civil Engineering. Um, back in the day working in site development with your dad and they posted an opening for the first time they were going to have a Wing First Sergeant position.
And I looked around and I saw that there was some folks in front of me that were going to be there for a long time and I had no training, I had no real motivation, other than I knew that I wanted to do something different and I applied for the job and one person you talk about leadership there was a leader who really wasn’t a leader, and they made a comment to me and said you wouldn’t stand the chance applying for that position, the Wing Commander selects that position. And that was the motivation I had someone told me I couldn’t do something.
I applied for the position, and I can still remember General Boobar was the Wing Commander at the time, and I was a tech-sergeant in CE, and it was my first interview with a full bird Colonel, and he selected me and that was kind of the start of it, so I guess.
I don’t know if I was driven to it or, driven by it or what but that was, it was the challenge, you know when someone said you couldn’t do something that was, what kind of drove me to do it.
Interviewer: That is absolutely, that is really a challenge you know you give somebody to try to tell you can’t do something you know a lot of times some people you don’t like to say that would like to hear people say that because you know it’s true, you know somebody tells you, you can’t do something but it’s a little bit more motivation than what you know some people want to actually admit at different times.
CCMSgt (ret.) Brad Farrin: Yeah.
Interviewer: Yeah. Well, that’s good, that’s great! You know as a tech-sergeant go out there and, do that. That’s awesome. Yeah.
Has your knowledge and experience helped you? I know you’ve answered this a little bit already but: How has your knowledge and experiences helped you lead others in the state of Maine?
CCMSgt (ret.) Brad Farrin: So, I will tell you right now, Erika I look back. So as the senator now I serve on two committees.
I serve on the Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee, as well as the Transportation Committee and politics are different in the military.
Right. I mean, I’m in the military side, you know we follow orders and, and we go through and the political side, even in this climate we’re in now. Um, compromise is not a dirty word. And because of my background in the military piece, I can have conversations with my counterparts on the other side of the aisle or in the other chamber and because of life experiences and what I’ve done on the military side, gives you some validity and you try not to take advantage of that but there’s so many of our politicians in Augusta now that have no idea of the role of the guard, you start talking about title 10 and title 32 and the different status and everything else is that I’m able to use that experience I had in the legislature now to help you know I think to help the causes of our veterans, and in those leadership roles that I played in the military, really helped me out serving in the State Senate.
Interviewer: That’s always good news to have, you know, more voices out there for Maine, Maine veterans, you know, and this in the state of Maine, that’s great!
What are the most effective leadership skills that you applied, while leading others in your organizations?
I know you just briefly mentioned those with your, the roles that you’ve been in, but are there some, you know, more than others that you would recommend, and then:
What is something that you’d want others to be aware of, while leading them?
CCMSgt (ret.) Brad Farrin: So, I like I really hope that the teams that I have working for me because again, between the citizen legislature piece and having a full-time job. I’m even going back to the fire department piece of it is.
I hope that the people that I lead have, have faith, and trust and know that you know the integrity piece is always that they know I don’t have ulterior motives. I’m not trying to better myself at their expense. And so, to do that, I really, I really tried to do the team building thing.
I mentioned, you know when we first started about giving people the opportunity to succeed, you know, to give them chances to give them tasks. And one of the things that, you know, I still struggle with.
Sometimes I move so fast that I don’t always give the best directions on the task and be able to sit back and read your people you know when you, when you give somebody that task and, and you kind of get the eyes glazed over-look. I have to take a deep breath and say, I didn’t explain that very well. And let’s go through this again. So, I think patience, you know, is an important piece of that.
Interviewer: Absolutely. Yep, patience is a real good one. And that’s a good, that’s a great example I like that because you know it you know things are moving so fast, so fast and quickly and sometimes you realize that and you know sometimes people are, they’ll sit
back and they’ll look at you and then you can just explain it again and then you move on and sometimes it takes a couple times to do it, and you want to make sure that you’re on the same page with everybody that you’re working with.
And that’s a great thing to be able to do but also to recognize it and see it at the same time is a good thing. And this leads into another question I didn’t have listed, but it’s kind of along the same lines, it says:
What leadership traits would you apply while leading others in your organization?
Is there anything that you’d recommend or stuff that sticks out in your head as a good trait?
CCMSgt (ret) Brad Farrin: Yeah, you know, hit upon the patience piece a little bit being a good listener, I think is a trait that that’s very important. I think the confidence piece is that people, I truly believe this I don’t care what status that you’re at whether you’re newly in the military or you are in a supervisor’s role or you’re into one of the more senior positions.
Everybody wants a leader that they can look up to, you know, I can tell you as a First Sergeant I wanted a good Squadron command is somebody that I knew was leading us in the right direction and as a Command Chief I wanted the Wing Commander to be that leader and I think we all look for that at different levels.
If you’re a student, you hope your professor is a good leader and steering you in the right direction if you’re an employee you hope that your employer has that and no matter what level you’re at I think we’re always looking ahead for those for the leadership piece, and I think that part of that comes from the confidence that leaders project. So, I think that that’s a valuable trait to have as well.
Interviewer: Yeah, that is a huge one, confidence.
Has there been a leader that has inspired you to where you are today?
CCMSgt (ret.) Brad Farrin: Oh, I’ve been very very fortunate you know I mentioned on the first. When we first started this about mentoring, I would not have been in the leadership positions that I’ve been in if it wasn’t for numerous mentors. Are you looking for specific examples?
Interviewer: It is just more or less somebody that has you know, inspired you in different ways, somebody that you might look up to or that has maybe helped you along the way. So, a mentor is a great example, or just somebody that is maybe a good mentor that other people look up to.
CCMSgt (ret.) Brad Farrin: I’m going to, give you two different scenarios right because I think we’re or three different scenarios. I just talked about that looking, looking ahead, even if when you’re in a leadership position so currently today, right as in my seventh term in the legislature, and I’m a registered Republican representative in Somerset County. One of my biggest mentors today is, Senator Bill Diamond, a Democrat from Windham. Bill Diamond is a former Secretary of State, multi-term person in both the House and the Senate. Bills ah, he’s a statesman, and how he conducts himself, and how he treats others, and everything else, I learn from Bill Diamond. Just about every interaction I have with him. I’m 57 years old served in a number of things and I can still be mentored and still learn from folks and that is challenging and exciting that’s you know that’s awesome.
On the military side I was really fortunate going up through to work with some great, I always look to enlisted leaders, I mean, because you kind of you had the officer ranks that you didn’t have the same amount of interactions with and a former Chief who was the Command Chief for the Air National Guard, Chris Muncy took me under my wing when I got back from Djibouti in 2009, and said, Chief wants you to come to teach the Chief Executive Course in DC and I did that eight weeks a year so that was for all of the new chiefs in the Air National Guard and I got to go down there because Chris Muncy saw something he developed it and I still stay in touch with Chris to this day and, and he’s one of the reasons why I had military career that I did.
So yeah, those are a couple folks off the top that, and there are so many others because there have been people that have touched different pieces of my life. And I’ve learned a little something from everybody not there wasn’t just always one great leader that had this one great trait it was different pieces from different leaders, and I think that’s the biggest takeaway.
Interviewer: Now that’s great. Now that’s a good example and, you know, just it makes you they, the more you read about it makes you a well-rounded person, the more people that you interact with. And no, thank you for sharing that I appreciate you sharing those experiences and the people that you’ve worked with. I’m just going to jump right to the next one in. It says, what developed your and you have kind of already answered this is:
What developed a relationship with this leader and how has it impacted you on developing your leadership skills and abilities?
CCMSgt (ret.) Brad Farrin: I try to pass along those things I learned from those folks, you know, and just try to pass them down right isn’t that what we only have these leadership positions for so long.
And if you had a great mentor or a great leader, and we talked about this earlier is, you try to, you know, get a lot of cliches and leadership, but because the true right there, they’re proven is you want to leave things better than the way that you found them. The way that you do that is to mentor those folks and pass those traits along, so hopefully that’s what I’m doing as well.
Interviewer: Absolutely, you definitely want to leave things better. That’s a good example, I like that. Yep. Have you inspired; this leads right into question 11 this one was kind of a spontaneous question that got added in recommended by my advisor.
Have you inspired others, while leading them in your organization? How did you recognize this and what did you do in that situation to continue to inspire that person further?
CCMSgt (ret.) Brad Farrin: So that to me I would say is a little egotistical to answer that to say that you did, you know, I like to think yes, and I really turn you know what a small family the Maine Air National Guard is right?
And having served in those leadership roles like we were just talking about when you’re involved in the Junior Enlisted Council, and down through even though I’ve been retired. Sit down.
I know it’s been hard for me to even believe I’ve been retired now for eight years right. I still get emails from people that are now just becoming Chiefs. I stay in touch with the new Command Chiefs. Um, I get invited out to the wing once in a while to talk to airmen.
Um, and some of those folks that are getting into those leadership roles I had send me text messages and say thanks Chief if it wasn’t for you, you know, I wouldn’t have had the confidence to do this. And that makes me feel so humble and so appreciative to still have that contact after eight years away from the wing and some of those folks are still going up. So, I think I have, and I am very humbled when I get those messages from folks.
Interviewer: Yeah, definitely, definitely have then.
This leads right into question number 12.
Do you have any advice on how to best lead others moving into the 21st century?
CCMSgt (ret.) Brad Farrin: Yeah, you know it’s a little bit of advice and it’s a little bit of a cautionary tale right is that I’ve seen both at work and dealing with the legislature and I’m not hundred percent sure how the military is doing it right now I read a couple articles.
But, you know, the Zoom technology, the effects of the pandemic and the technology piece. I see a lot of folks that are losing some of those interpersonal skills. And one of the things that we used to teach at the at the Command Chief course was, you know, conflict resolution. Conflict doesn’t always have to be bad.
I mean sometimes conflict brings out compromise and good ideas. and as folks that are tied up behind screens and keyboards, I see some keyboard warriors who are very, very brave behind the screen and, not having that personal interaction to really read body language and hand gestures and, how and emotions how things are feeling. So, it’s a little bit of my advice is a little bit of a balance is embracing the technology, because it’s going to be a lot more productive.
And you don’t have to put so many miles in your body, traveling or doing things and you can interact with folks on a regular basis, but don’t lose touch of those personal relationships, because that’s really where the mentoring gets done.
I really feel that you lose a lot with the personal interaction, especially when you’re trying to lead people and get to a goal. Um. So, it’s a cautionary tale, embrace, but be wary.
Interviewer: Do you this just leads us into the, into the final question, I just, it’s kind of along the same lines, but it’s just: Do you have any recommendations you’d like to leave for future leaders of Maine?
CCMSgt (ret.) Brad Farrin: You know, we are, we are blessed in the state of Maine with the natural resources that we have and in the work ethic of people that we have, um, but we’re also hamstrung a little bit sometimes when we have some closed-minded thinking. And, um, you know, as things are going, and our population is aging and some of the other things we have to welcome we have to share what we have with folks and it’s okay if people are a little bit different than we are.
And they don’t think exactly the way that we do take time to get to know people and don’t think that you have all the answers. Because once you sit down, you know I like to say that use the analogy right if people sometimes just walk away from the discussion because they don’t want to hear what’s going on and if you don’t have a seat at the table, then you’re on the menu.
Have a seat at the table, talk try to make things better for folks, and don’t have that closed mind, open your mind up and you’d be amazed at some of the opportunities and what other folks can bring to the table.
Interviewer: Now that’s a great example, I like that. I liked all the examples you know; I appreciate your time with sharing your leadership experience and your skills and what you’ve done in the state of Maine. And what you’ve done, you know, for the guard and being in the guard, I really appreciate you being part of this interview.