Chip Stilwell
It’s easy for Chip Stilwell, a former Navy fighter pilot, to pinpoint how being a part of the military has shaped his life and his career as a project management consultant.
Stilwell, who jokes that he should be retired by now, spends his time coaching others company leaders on how to be the most effective project managers they can be. He worries less about hurting feelings and much more about getting results.
“I’m a fighter pilot so I’ve got the fighter pilot mentality,” Stilwell said. “That means I’m not in it for the time, I’m in for the win. I’m pretty brash but as I’ve gotten older I’m able to tailor and temper that.
“To me it’s all about leadership, leadership skills and how you guide your troops and leaders to do what they need to do and grow and learn to become better people.”
Since his 24-year military career ended in 1994, Stilwell has owned his own software and project consulting business and during the last seven years has worked primarily as a project management consultant for several companies, including oil and gas giant Cameron.
“That military mindset of ‘I can do it. I can get it done. I’ve just got to get the right people doing the right task and we understand what it is and move forward with it,’” said Stilwell, who is currently consulting for Tri-Point. “It’s not rocket science. It’s something else. It’s practical. It’s let’s take the quickest approach and meet the objective.
“We are going to get some small victories but we’ve also got to watch out for the ambushes from those sneak attacks. That made me, number one, successful and number two, I didn’t really care about comments or problems or people’s issue or things like that. We dealt with those along the way.”
When Stilwell left the Navy in 1994, he and his partner launched Stilwell & Associates, which was a software and consulting business. The company primarily hired veterans, which included himself and his partner. He sold the software portion of the business to two men, who are also veterans.
“There are tie-ins and go back to it all of time,” Stilwell said. “There are all kinds of great lessons and great stories to tell about your time, learnings and what you did and you have to relate them to the people who are non-military.”
Additionally, Stilwell has helped with organizing veteran community events, including a home makeover for Vietnam Veterans. He has also organized a Flags for the Fallen where 88 employees came out on a Saturday to lay 1000 flags for fallen service members during a Memorial Day weekend.
While working as a fighter pilot, Stilwell says he never got shot at, never was involved in any ways, although he does admit to chasing Russia all over the world.
But during his career, he worked as an instructor and adversary pilot at Top Gun, also known as the Naval Fighter Weapons School. He flew F14s and A4s.
Stilwell received the Meritorious Service Medal and the Navy Commendation Medal.
“I had a good career,” he said. “I basically got to the point in my Navy career that leadership was more important than who you knew. Leadership was more important than flying airplanes and flying airplanes was something I liked to do. I managed to be able to change some process and change some things that the Navy did as far as their safety procedures and make impact on sailors’ lives and lead a bunch of great troops.”