A call to serve. A desire to be on a better path in life. An interest in a job filled with travel, adventure, and training. There are many reasons people, often in their late teens or early twenties, join the U.S. Armed Forces. Whether they commit to serving in active duty or the Reserves, for two or 20 years, there are lessons learned that last a lifetime.

In 2016, Ed Skoviak joined Red Wing Shoe Company as an enterprise architect on our Business Technology team (what we call our IT department). But his path to Red Wing Shoes began way before that. He grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and when he was 13-years-old, his family moved to the West Coast. “My life has always been kind of nomadic,” he recalls. As a young man, Skoviak enlisted in the U.S. Navy as an electronics technician and traveled the world.

He took several deployments, stopping in ports in Japan, Korea, Singapore, Guam, Kenya, and the Philippines, as well as Hawaii, San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle. After honorably serving his country for 11 years and working in IT for more than three decades, he found his way back home to Minnesota.

The following year, in 2017, Jodi Dahler, joined Red Wing Shoes as a senior business systems analyst, also on the Business Technology team. Raised in Maplewood, Minnesota, Dahler recalls that, “After high school, I was trying to figure out my next steps in life. I ended up joining the Minnesota Air National Guard.” Nine days after graduation, she left for basic training in Texas and then to Mississippi for technical training. “A big reason why I joined was to help pay for college.”

Dahler attended college at the University of Wisconsin, River Falls, and received her degree in computer science. “During college, the National Guard was my one-weekend-a-month and summer job. I’d get orders to be there, and enjoyed the work and people.” While technology has always been an interest of hers, it was the military where she “learned how the chain of command works and how to work with others on a team. Just like any job, you have to work with people you've never met; you may or may not get along. But you learn how to work well together … because your job is dependent on it.”

One of the newest members of the Business Technology team is Scott Myers, director of information security, based in Austin, Texas. In 2021, Myers joined the team full-time after first working as a contractor during the aftermath of a cybersecurity attack on the company in 2020. “Some companies come together really well. Some companies end up pointing fingers at each other when things don’t go right,” remarks Myers. “The Red Wing team came together in a really hard time. It was just ‘let’s get the boots on the ground.’ Let’s do what we have to do to get through this.”

The cyberattack was a tough time in Red Wing Shoes’ recent history. He could tell people were under stress and pressure. Myers was well-prepared to serve the people and company because of his previous career as a U.S. Naval officer, specifically as a surface warfare officer and a cryptologic officer.

“The Navy throws you into leadership positions when you're 22 or 23 years old that you're totally unprepared for,” remarks Myers. “You get tossed in the deep end and all of a sudden you learn how to be a leader, and in very stressful situations. It’s a great experience for everything else you're going to face in life.”

For the Love of Serving and Learning

Today, under the leadership of Dennis Keane, chief information officer and U.S. Air Force veteran, these professionals are making an impact in Business Technology (BT). At a high level, BT is responsible for information security, infrastructure (the systems, hardware, servers, laptops, desktops, and network equipment), enterprise architecture, business systems analysts, databases, and application development. “In BT, we always have new things coming in, so there’s always room for learning something new,” notes Dahler.

Collectively, the teams work with a tech stack ranging from custom-built, internal software to Microsoft’s cloud platform, Azure. There are master systems running on Linux and people working with C#, Python, and R. “One of the perks of my job is that I get to play around with stuff. I get to look at it and understand how it works. Red Wing lets me satisfy my curiosity and it makes me happy,” shares Skoviak.

There are a number of other employees working in BT who have served in the military, too.

“Red Wing is very supportive of their veterans,” Dahler affirms. “The ‘thank you for your service’ is genuine and they hire a lot of veterans.” Though each veteran’s experiences are different and each brings their own unique perspectives, there is agreement that work is all about the people. “Red Wing puts people first,” says Skoviak. “We know that people make the shoes, people sell the shoes, and it’s people who maintain the systems that make all that possible.”

Being in the military is about service; service to our country, service to others. Working at Red Wing Shoes is about taking care of people.

“If you take care of people, they will always want to do a good job. It's not about micromanaging and telling others what to do,” says Myers. “Our job is to set up the situation for people to be able to do a good job ... making sure they have what they need, whether it's training, the right tools, or the time. It’s understanding how to serve people and working together to achieve the end result.”

As members of our Business Technology team, Skoviak, Dahler, and Myers help deliver on the company’s purpose to be a great company that makes a difference in people’s lives. The respective military experiences, including exceptional teamwork, leadership, and grace under pressure, benefit our company, our customers, and the entire Red Wing Shoe family.

“When you serve the country, you get to travel and see how things are in other countries,” reflects Myers. “Some are nice and some are not. It really makes you appreciate how good we have it here. Red Wing Shoes is an iconic company with such a long history. When you think about America, it’s the type of company that makes you proud. It’s one of those good American companies, and we’re trying to maintain that American-made history and culture.”

Three Veterans Working on Our Technology Team