When I joined Veracity in 2013 I did so to the great surprise of my former colleagues. Why leave a great job at a well-established organization to join a small start-up, they asked. Some suggested that I might be “changing canoes in the middle of the rapids.” I’d like to share my thinking on why I jumped on this opportunity called Veracity.
I had already spent one very satisfying career in the US Navy, from 1978 (the first year women were assigned to duty aboard Navy ships) to 2000. My career path allowed me to develop deep expertise in Aviation Maintenance management and readiness reporting. By the time I retired from the Navy, this highly focused view of a critical defense area showed me that any room for complacency was no longer acceptable.
For the first 13 years of my second (civilian) career, I was a senior readiness specialist and project manager at the Center for Naval Analyses. There I contributed to research and analyses for a wide range of Navy maintenance, logistics, training, and readiness issues. This academic approach complemented my hands-on Navy career, allowing me to see with full clarity the need to apply specific skill sets in new and targeted ways.
And this is where Veracity comes in. I saw that it was time for companies with the workable ideas, the successful prototypes, and the credible voices to come forward. Veracity is skilled, experienced, small (read low overhead), agile, and passionate. The company offers a much-needed approach to forecasting, a commitment to customer ownership of the software tools they have paid for, and an agnostic approach to technology platforms. Bingo, as they say.
To expand a bit, I see Veracity’s approach to forecasting as the difference between accounting and budgeting. If you’ve ever tracked your family’s finances, or you’ve ever tried to lose weight, you quickly realize anyone can account for expenditures. It’s easy to track money spent or calories consumed. The trick is to budget for the future. Tomorrow, or next year, or 5 years from now, we can spend this, consume that, conserve here, or splurge there. Leaders need decision support when connecting accounting’s “past” with budgeting’s “future.” Veracity’s special strength is in revealing how to turn the certainty of the past into tomorrow’s most likely and profitable outcomes.
“Veracity’s special strength is in revealing how to turn the certainty of the past into tomorrow’s most likely and profitable outcomes.”
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Rebecca Kirk is Veracity Forecasting Group Deputy Leader. She is expert in all aspects of maintenance and logistics processes for naval aviation. She is relied upon to supplement Veracity’s technical efforts with her unique understanding of Department of Defense policies, procedures, and organizational interplay. In a career that spans her initial service as a junior Navy Airman to her commissioning as a Limited Duty Officer, Rebecca has acquired more than 35 years of progressive DoD-related experience.