So tell me a little bit about what you did before you got to the military and then how you got here…

I went to New Mexico Military Institute my last year of high school. My father went there and thought it’d be a good opportunity. I thought I was going to go to West Point. I thought I was going to go to the United States Military Academy.

After two years in military school, I decided I did not want to do that, but I wanted to go to school on the East Coast. I had a cousin who was a surface warship officer in the Navy stationed in Norfolk, and he’s like, “You’ve got to see William and Mary. The campus is beautiful.” By then there, too, it was like 63% female. “There’s more women than men,” he said, “but it’s a beautiful campus. You really need to come see this campus.” And I went there, and he said, “Their team is competitive in Division 1 Double A football,” which is FCS.

I went there, fell in love with the campus, and I knew I did not want to go to a military school. And then I played football for a couple years. I was not good. I sat on the bench. But I did have teammates who were Mike Tomlin and Sean McDermott, both NFL coaches now. Tomlin’s with the Steelers; McDermott’s with the Bills.

I got that great experience, and I got injured, and that’s when I stopped playing. And I thought, “I don’t just want to go to law school. I want to do something else.” And I saw this thing on Army Rangers and being starved and sleep deprived, and I thought about how hard I had worked to play football… to get enough sleep, to eat enough food, to try to get big. And I thought, “This would be a real challenge.” I got excited. I did an ROTC summer camp after my junior year. I earned the highest scholarship. I don’t know if it paid everything, but I earned the highest scholarship. And two years later I was an infantry officer and went to Bosnia in ’99. We were bombing Kosovo and I thought, “This is it. This is where it’s all gonna happen.” And it didn’t. It was still a peacekeeping mission. So I got out and went to law school, but I stayed in the Guard because they gave me tuition assistance.

So then I’m having a good time in the Guard, thinking, “Okay, this is a great experience. But being a lawyer and in the Guard, it’s too much. So I am going to get out.” So I told my commander, “Hey, I think I’ve had enough. I think I need to resign my commission. I’ve fulfilled my obligations.” He said, “Not so fast. You’re gonna command your company in Iraq.” So I went to Iraq as a company commander, as a new lawyer, but I was not in a JAG position. So it was kind of a nice break from the practice of law, if you can imagine. My dad’s trying to show me how to run the firm. I’m trying to learn how to be a lawyer. It’s a lot of stress. And so I deployed. And I had a four-month-old daughter at the time. So with the deployment, the train-up, that was about a total of 18 months.

Then I came back, and my dad was trying to wind down the firm. We decided to try to build it back up, and that’s exactly what we did. And then eventually I took over the firm, and I really liked helping veterans.

I think that I probably learned quite a bit from the Nebraska National Guard, learning how to lead remotely. We have lawyers in eight different states right now. Back then when I was a battalion commander, I had a full-time staff and I couldn’t be there. So it really taught me how to make the best use of my time when I’m boots on the ground, but then also how to lead when you can’t be boots on the ground.

So I’m a huge fan of the Guard and Reserve because they taught me a lot about leadership. So many great commanders taught me things … And this is what I’m trying to share with veterans. You already know how to lead. You want to run a business; you know how to do it. If you want to run something in your community, you know how to do it, you already know. And I didn’t believe that initially. It took me a while, and then I started seeing the patterns. I realized, yeah, leadership is leadership. And a lot of the things I was experiencing, it was like, well, yeah, now there’s real people. I have to pay in money involved in the course. There’s not that sliding scale where you get paid no matter what, based on your retirement grade and your rank.

But I learned quite a bit. And when I got to about 40 years old, I had reached the point in my military career where I thought, “I’m gonna retire. I’ve got 20 years in battalion command. This is it, I’m done.” And then I started growing the law firm, and then I started hiring veterans because I missed being around veterans. So that’s my story.

Your growth and trajectory has been really impressive. And 60 years…amazing. Do you have advice for people for sustaining and growing their companies or starting their companies?

Yeah, just embrace the suck. It’s gonna be bad. Like, bad things are gonna happen, and you’re gonna fail again and again and again. But you have to be willing to take the beatings. You can’t be afraid to fail. And you get to decide when it’s over. Right? And it’s not over until you say it’s over. I’ve known people who have gone bankrupt and come back. People go through some horrific things, right? Have been stolen from, have been pushed out by competitors. But they come back. And I think being a veteran, you know, “Hey, you screwed up.” You had to do push-ups. And it’s like, okay, don’t take it personally. Being yelled at, don’t take it personally. It’s the same thing. You just don’t take it personally.

Listen to the market. The market will tell you what it wants. You can’t dictate what the market wants. So listen and don’t take anything personally, and you’ll be fine.

People already asked you this, but I’d like to know because we’re probably putting this on the Papillion website. There are so many different things about Papillion. How did you pick Papillion and this location?

Offutt Air Force Base, veteran community, rapidly growing community. Those are the three things. And the people are nice. I love the mindset, I love the positivity. So many positive attitudes here, and yeah, just a veteran-friendly community, and usually veteran-friendly and business-friendly go hand-in-hand. I’ve noticed that. Right?

We were here a little bit, and we fell in love with the people here. We always joke it wasn’t the weather.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But the people here were amazing, so we wanted this to be home.

Absolutely, absolutely.

What type of law do you help people with?

Nationally, we do veterans’ disability appeals. If a veteran has not got the right rating or has been denied or something happens, we help them get the correct rating, all the benefits that they earned. Our goal is to get the veterans all the benefits they earned.

And then when people are injured in a car accident or a truck accident and the insurance companies aren’t paying, then we get involved and we hold the insurance companies accountable.

Other types of law? Those are your two primary.

We have others. But I’ll tell you what I’m sticking to. You asked me about the lessons I’ve learned. Be really good at a couple things and don’t do too much stuff.

Always good advice for people to focus. And then for having this big event, what were your thoughts?

They weren’t my thoughts. They were Bob, my CMO’s, thoughts. I’ve learned to delegate. As a leader, I have a vision of where I want to go, and then I just hire the best people I can and I let them run.

Thank you.

Thank you for all you do.

Berry Law
12 Olson Dr., Suite 105
Papillion, NE 68046
(402) 903-6444