Gary Leatherman
, Senior AssociateWhy did you choose Booz Allen?
I chose Booz Allen because of its reputation as a quality place to work with an entrepreneurial culture. I’ve been involved with two startups, so you could say that entrepreneurialism is part of my core DNA. The Booz Allen culture offers me the creative opportunities I was looking for.
Why have you chosen to stay at Booz Allen?
Booz Allen has exceeded my expectations in terms of the independence I have. Every day, I get to use my creativity to the fullest. Also, Ph.D.s sometimes are pigeonholed as technical people, but I’ve started and grown a business here, and I’ve also helped clients with their business challenges. I enjoy using my technical and my business experience.
What type of work do you do at Booz Allen?
I provide expertise in energy issues and technology across many different clients. Specifically, I advise on issues from the supply side and user side, including electricity generation, renewable energy, alternative fuels, and energy efficiency and management.
What excites you about your work?
Energy will be one of the key areas—not just for our nation, but for the world—over the next 10 to 20 years. What excites me is being able to advise our clients at the highest level on these issues and to help them shape their responses. Ultimately, I think we can do some good.
Do you have a mentor at Booz Allen?
Instead of a formal mentor, I have a strong network of people I rely on. Booz Allen has a unique culture, and it’s important to learn the Booz Allen way. That’s the most important advantage I get from my network—the ability to find out who to talk to and how to talk to them when I’m working across different teams.
What differentiates Booz Allen from other companies that you could work for? What makes Booz Allen special?
What makes Booz Allen a special place to work is the collegial way we interact with each other within the firm, whether it’s one team on its own or several teams working together. We focus our competitive energies externally, and that allows us to have a collegial culture internally. It can be the other way around at some companies.
How has Booz Allen helped you be ready for what’s next in your career?
Through the work I do at Booz Allen, I’m able to stay at the cutting-edge of energy issues. For instance, I regularly develop intellectual capital (IC) and present the IC as papers at conferences where we learn quickly what the marketplace reaction is to our ideas. Testing and shaping our ideas at conferences has been very helpful as Booz Allen continues to provide leadership on the next wave of energy issues.
How does the work you do help your clients be ready for what’s next? How has your work and your team’s work made an impact for your client?
Today, we’re helping our clients understand the potential impact of changes in renewable energy policy, including new carbon regulations, and how they can help meet the new administration’s goals and initiatives.
Can you talk about a time when you saw one or more of our Core Values displayed?
We were performing energy assessments for a federal organization, and we brought in two new staff members who had the highly specialized expertise we needed. What impressed me was that the new staff members immediately demonstrated an almost intuitive sense of the Booz Allen culture. They rolled up their sleeves and gave their all to get the assessments done. And other staff members pitched in, even though they weren’t directly assigned to the project. To me, this shows the Booz Allen commitment to our Core Value of teamwork.
