Family First Mindset
NATHAN TIERNEY
First and foremost, I am a husband and father. My wife Leeza and children Indra and Sebastian give me purpose and brighten my life with their smiles and kindness. It is important that I’m present to be part of those moments – to live a life of significance is to be engaged with your family. The values we impart in our children shape the future of our society. If my children live by Tierney values each day no weapon forged against them will prevail because their character will be unstoppable. They will know who they are, what they stand for and oppose because values serve as a guide for your decisions throughout life. No one can take values away, only you can.
No book can magically give you a strong moral character. Nor solve the world’s problems. Sometimes, you just need to fail so miserably or lose someone of such personal value to your life in order to wake the hell up and choose to take a different path. I can only give you a few tools for your proverbial toolkit to be successful. The choice and your effort along that path are entirely up to you.
I’m also a retired Army Warrant Officer and former Chief Operating Officer of a software development and analytics company. I began my career as a U.S. Navy Rescue Swimmer, and was awarded our nation’s highest peacetime award for Heroism for an at-sea rescue. Twice nominated for White House Fellowship, I was fortunate to serve as an Apache helicopter pilot before joining the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment Night Stalkers, where my military career culminated in leading the technological development, and implementation of a $250 million change management program for over 29,000 personnel to create a Common Operating Picture and shift the organization towards a knowledge-centric culture.
Since 2015, I’ve dedicated my professional life to my fellow servicemembers and have served in a variety of roles across U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, such as a Senior Advisor, a Director in both Veterans Health Administration (VHA) and the Office of Information Technology (OIT). Presently, I serve as the Deputy Chief Information Officer and Chief People Officer.
In 2017, based on my son’s medical journey, I authored the book, “Value Management in Healthcare: How to Establish a Value Management Office to Support Value-Based Outcomes in Healthcare”. The book presents a ‘how-to’ guide to implementing value-based management in a healthcare organization. Bottom line, its designed to help organizations GSD and the principles can be applied to other industries.
At age 12, my first job was drawing comics for the local newspaper. Carried that forward to my time in the military where I also drew comics as a way of laughing at the times and dealing with stress. So, at the urging of some buddies, I published two comic books and wrote a third for children with Type I diabetes. Titled “Bash the Brave”, my son Sebastian who was diagnosed at age 4 years-old helped to create it and it is something I look forward to sharing in the future.
Things in motion tend to stay in motion, so keep pressing and never give up. Your life is not about what you have done, but rather about what you are doing. Don’t get stuck in yesterday.
