At 28, Portland State MBA candidate Lee Fisk found himself at a crossroads. His career in graphic design had derailed, and he had to decide whether to keep pursuing it or make a radical change.
A friend who had enlisted in the Army out of high school described how the service had changed his life for the better. In December 2015, Fisk was on the phone with a recruiter. The recruiter handed him a stack of paperwork, and when Fisk called back after the New Year to ask about next steps, the response was a surprised, “Oh, you were serious?” They met that week.
He went on to serve seven years in the Army as an Air Defense Officer.
A Detour That Led to Portland
Fisk’s path to Portland State began with a disaster. A pair of tornadoes and the flooding that followed destroyed his home in Texas, and a friend in Portland offered him a room. Around the same time, he was interviewing for jobs and hitting the same walls again and again: no engineering background and no MBA.
Portland State was, as he puts it, right in front of him. The university’s Bloomberg lab, which he calls a great resource for business and finance, sealed the decision. Now a second-year MBA candidate, he says the program has opened doors that would otherwise be closed.
“Being a student unlocks certain paths,” he explains. People are far more willing to talk about their company or job with a student than with a stranger on LinkedIn.
Lessons from the Army, Applied in the Classroom
The Army, Fisk says, places you on teams with people from every background and expects results regardless. He sees the same dynamic in the MBA program’s group projects, where each person brings different strengths and weaknesses.
“Figuring out what each person has to offer and getting everyone pulling in the same direction, even when we don’t agree on everything, is such a critical skill that I brought with me from the Army,” he says.
One phrase followed him through every stage of his service: “Adapt and overcome.” To him it means that conditions change and plans fall apart, but the job still has to get done. It is a mindset that fits a career that has already taken him from design to the Army to business school, and one he also carries into his work as an actor in film.
Looking Ahead
After graduation, Fisk hopes to combine his two worlds by moving from acting into the business side of film production.
What Veterans Day Means
For Fisk, Veterans Day is rooted in history. It began as Armistice Day, marking the end of World War I, and he believes the wars of the twentieth century reshaped the entire world. He considers the First Battle of the Marne the most significant battle since Marathon in ancient Greece.
He also thinks of a scene in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender Is the Night, in which a character surveying a WWI battlefield calls it “the last love battle.” The world that fought that war, Fisk reflects, was gone by the time it ended. “That’s what I think about on Veterans Day.”
Advice for Fellow Veterans
To veterans weighing a return to school, Fisk offers this: go in with a clear vision and purpose. Education is changing quickly, he says, and AI will reward people who can think critically and lead. His advice is to choose a program that builds those skills and to treat school as a place to sharpen yourself rather than simply earn a credential.