Building a Legacy: Brandy Durham Turns Passion for Tackling National Problems to Career Path in Data, AI

Welcome to Humble Beginnings, a podcast where we uncover the unconventional, more relatable, path to success. In this show, we'll share the stories before the C-suite, board memberships and appointments. The story is of various upbringing, first jobs, career pivots, educational uncertainties, and more. This is the place to hear about their lives from the Gulf Khan executives themselves. We hope you enjoy. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Humble Beginnings. I'm your host, Amanda Zieta, and our guest today is Brandi Durham, Vice President of Manteg's Data and AI Practice. Thank you for being here today, Brandi. Thank you, Amanda. I'm really pleased to talk about myself and about my start in Data. Awesome. We'll definitely appreciate it. So, Brandi, we'd love to start by asking about your parents. I know it's obviously a very big part about how you grew up. I understand that you grew up in South Texas to a long line of carpenters on your dad's side and the mother who began working with her young. So, show us a bit about who they are and what they did. Thank you so much for asking that. My parents are such an important part of who I am as a person. My work ethic, the kinds of things I'm really excited to do. I work even though neither of them obviously worked in Data and AI. They didn't work in government contracting. My dad's side of the family can actually be traced back to Durham, England, back in the 1700s, building ships. So, my family has always been involved with building things, whether it be ships or once they came to the United States, buildings, resorts, different things like that. And it's really been, it was interesting to watch my parents work really hard for everything that they had. Both of my parents actually left high school without graduating. My dad was able to get his GEDDs through the United States Air Force, served during the Vietnam War and the Air Force, and really instilled in all of his kids. I'm one of four. All of his kids, the discipline and the focus and doing the right thing for the country and yourself. My mom left school before graduating as well, was able to get a GED and started working when she was 12 years old. Wow. So, really a long history of apprenticeship and focus on making sure that you're busy and that you are doing something meaningful and productive with your time and your life. And watching my parents do that, culminating in them, opening up their own business, their own construction business, and running that and building different resorts, buildings, etc. across the United States was really something inspiring to me. Watching people come from really nothing and to being able to own a small business and deliver for their clients was something really inspiring for me. I worked for them during the summers growing up, so I learned a lot about estimating how much work it would take in order to do a particular task. I learned about supporting your clients and your customers and making sure that you're focused on their needs first, which really helps you continue to grow your own business because they trust you and they know that you're really focused on their well-being and the types of things that you need to do in order for them to be successful. And also focusing on your employees, your team members, your partners, those folks that you kind of go to battle with every day in order to accomplish whatever your client or customer is looking to accomplish as well. Awesome. Something I've kind of gathered from these interviews and also personal experiences. I feel like everyone who's had parents that have had their own business, we just kind of grow up in that business and are embedded in that business and that kind of work ethic culture. So that's really interesting that you mentioned that. How else did their careers and the way that they grew up impact to you as a young kid and a young adult? Did you move around a lot or how was that for you? Well it's a good thing that I'm not shy and maybe I'm not shy because of this, but yes, my parents were project managers of different construction projects and so we would move to support the projects that they were working on. So I moved probably every year, every year and a half growing up, which meant I was constantly being thrust into new environments, meeting new people, finding new hobbies, determining how I would sit in amongst my peers, etc. in different parts of the United States, mostly in Texas, but also in Colorado and some other places across the United States as well. So I think that exposure to different cultures, to different people, to different environments was really an important part of me growing up. I think that because I wasn't kind of ever comfortable always moving and learning and meeting new people, it's given me the ability to be open to new things, to be open to new people, to be open to new ways of solving problems. And I think that that is really special. As a child, of course, I didn't think it was special. I thought it was really challenging and I just really wanted to stay at one school with my friends. Once we moved back to San Antonio, my mom was the project manager for Six Flags, Fiesta, Texas, and my dad was the project manager for the Alamo Dam. Back in the early 90s. And so I was able to stay in San Antonio through the end of middle school and through high school, which was really nice to be able to stay in one place for that period of time. By then, I felt like I had kind of learned the lessons of moving and meeting and being open to new experiences. And so that really gave me, oh gosh, just the way to approach new people and new experiences. Yeah, definitely. I can imagine it teaches you a lot about adaptability at such a young age, which is, I'm sure, a great skill to have later in life. So Randy, what kind of student were you in high school? What subjects do you excel in extra curriculars, were you involved in, things like that? Yes, oh my gosh, I was very, very busy in high school. I was working for my parents construction company. I also was teaching Taekwondo to local kids. My parents had a second business. My mom and I both got our black belts in Taekwondo together. Wow. And so in the evenings after work, my mom, after she did her J job at the construction company, I do her night job, which was teaching Taekwondo and self-defense to our local community, which was a really amazing experience for me as well. A lot of discipline, knowing how to take care of myself, but also self-confidence and being aware of my surroundings and how to take care of and empower other people to take care of themselves as well. So that was a big part of my life. I was also really involved in our speech and debate club at school and in our dance team. I was the captain of our school dance team, my senior year, which was a really fun experience participating in school spirit and being kind of an ambassador of the school. It was a great, great fun time for me. In Texas, of course, football is huge. So a lot of participation with the football team and football games and traveling across the state to perform. So I really enjoyed that. As far as classes are concerned, it's a really great question and people I think will be surprised by my answer. So I really enjoyed history and English and geography and classes about how people can engage with one another and the things that they can create as part of that. I laughed because I worked in D-D-N-A-I, which is largely math based at this point. And I will say math was not my favorite subject in high school. And the main reason for that was it was taught in such a way that was so separate from the types of problems you can solve with it. And I've always really been interested in solving problems and how can you get to the kernel of the issue and how can you then build out a plan and go and tackle that issue and then make it not an issue anymore. And I found that in my experience, the classes that let me think through those sorts of things were more in history and in English and some of those analysis type classes rather than in math. It wasn't until I got to graduate school that math and statistics and all of those sorts of things became really relevant to me because they were applied, right? It was all about how you take these things and apply them to solving problems. And it was like a whole new world opened up for me when I had that experience in graduate school. Interesting. I loved how you said that that math was the way it was taught in school, wasn't that a way it wasn't applied to the problems that you'd be solving in your life, which is so true, but I've never thought about it like that. So what career path did you think you wanted to go into after high school into college and this differ than, you know, from what your parents maybe had in mind for you? Well, I thought since I was four years old that I was going to be an attorney. Wow. I really enjoy public speaking. I really enjoy again problem solving, putting together a case, being very systematic and methodical. I took a bunch of aptitude tests when I was in school and they were like, "Oh, you make a good attorney." And I was like, "Yes, I would. That'd be great." The type of law I was going to practice was international corporate law with a focus on mergers and acquisitions. I had already identified a law school. I had identified a practice in Houston, Texas that I plan to join. And I met with a couple of attorneys and I said, "You know, tell me a little bit about your life." I was really excited about it and I found that there was a lot of dissatisfaction in that job and with the folks that I talked to. And the more I learned about the day-to-day of that job, the more I figured out the core of who I am is about solving problems, driving outcomes, making things better. And I found that at least for that type of law that really wasn't going to be my job. And so with that, I took a step back and I thought, "Okay, well, I really enjoy solving problems and political science was my major in undergraduate." And I thought, "Okay, well, maybe I can think a little bit about graduate school. Like, I could be a professor or I could work at a think tank or I could take some of these new skills and I could apply them in a way that could make the country the world a better place." I mean, it's pretty optimistic and maybe a little naive. But I've always really focused on what can I do to make the world a better place? What can I do to make things more efficient, more effective to help people accomplish things to solve the problems that we're dealing with? And so I applied to graduate school instead. Awesome. Where do you think that interest or that passion came from? Oh, problem solving? Oh gosh. I think it's just part of who I was raised to be. I mean, my parents as builders, right? That's all about putting together something from nothing. And what I've always been interested in is how can you create something that doesn't exist? And I think watching that happen over the course of my childhood years, my formative years, working in that environment for my parents, I saw, I mean, them literally working with a team of other people, multidisciplinary people with lots of different kinds of skills and experience create something of value from nothing. And for me, that's always been something. How can I create something new? And how can I make something better? And being able to take my own skills and surround myself by really amazing people who've got different skills, different strengths, different interests than me, and understanding that there's such value in bringing that together and solving problems or building something that has just been, I think, what I was exposed to as a child and as a result is something I just get really excited about. Awesome. All right. So you decided to attend, as you mentioned, grad school, instead of law school. Talk to us about that new goal and how it transitioned you into your PhD program at Texas A&M. Yeah. Well, I mean, remember that I, both of my parents left high school early. And so it wasn't even really clear to us what that meant going into a PhD program. My parents were really excited about it. They were so supportive of my goals and really, really excited, especially my mom about what I could potentially do, what doors I could open, what things I could make better by having this additional education. And I think that the goals for me as a person changed as a result of that. I thought, OK, well, I'll be a professor at a research one university, right? I'll be able to learn and share and enable other people to do great things. And so I had thought a lot about becoming a professor. I thought a lot about perhaps working in a think tank. And those things for me were exciting because I could see after my experience teaching TechWondo for so many years, even when I was younger, I really loved it. And I felt like there was an opportunity for me to do something similar in another area that I really loved, political science and statistics and solving problems with a applied data and helping others do that. And the research nature of a lot of political science professor jobs would allow me to both teach but also kind of solve problems and publish papers in order to do that. So I was really excited about that. Awesome. I understand that during this time, the attacks on September 11th occurred and this was an extremely defining moment for you, of course. So how did this impact you and the decisions that you made shortly after, especially considering your connections to the military and its service? Oh, yes. What a great question. And I get emotional about this even now. I was in graduate school at the time. I had changed my focus to what we had just disguised. And I was in a lecture at Texas A&M when the planes hit the World Trade Center. And for me, it was clear that I needed to do something more direct, more direct to help the country, to help the world and really get back to my roots of wanting to solve problems, really, really hard problems, probably the hardest problems that exist in partnership with people that in the military and other places across the government, that really was something that came back to the forefront for me. I didn't mention this, but not only was my dad in the military, but my sister, I've got nieces and nephews who have been in the Coast Guard, both of my grandfather's, one was in the Army, one was in the Air Force, my grandmother was in the Royal Canadian Air Force. And so I come from a long line of military, very focused on supporting our nation, folks. And I took a kind of side step and I thought, well, maybe I'll join the military. There's some medical things that prohibit that. And so I said, you know, I have to find a way, I have to find a way to kind of carry on the family business of joining the military or doing things to kind of support folks that are putting their life on the line every single day. And so as part of that, I actually left my PhD program early. I wrote some chapters of my dissertation, I had taken my final exams, and I had to call and break it to my parents that I was leaving my PhD program and I was going to go to Washington DC and I was going to become part of the fight. And so of course they really wanted me to finish my PhD. So I took a master's degree early exit from the program and stood and I immediately got involved. And anyway, I could, my first job was actually with the Drug Enforcement Administration, which I know a lot of folks would say, well, what does that have to do with terrorism? A lot actually. And the Drug Enforcement Administration is some of our kind of frontline people dealing with some of the funding associated with terrorism through drug cartels. And I just felt like it was not only like a yearning, but a need. I had to be part of this fight. I had to bring whatever I could to making things better. And it meant a really big change in both my present at the time, leaving a program that I was involved in and had spent multiple years kind of working through and changing my future as well. Like how can I go be a part of this and really help solve problems? How did you progress in within DEA academically and professionally after you joined? So I was a contractor at the Drug Enforcement Administration for about a year and a half. And during that time, I was really, really lucky to have an amazing government boss and mentor. He's still my mentor all these years later. I was really lucky to have that experience because I was very green coming out of graduate school. I thought all data was clean and it was all sent to you all packaged up nicely. I didn't realize kind of what I was getting into. And so I was really in a situation where I learned a lot on the job, which I think is so important. There are so many things academically and reading books and listening to podcasts and reading articles. And I had done all those things, not podcasts back then because that was a really thing. But all of the other stuff I had done so much academic training that I think I was surprised by what the real life stuff looked like. And I think, you know, as folks that are more junior are coming into these career fields and supporting the mission, understanding that we need to upskill them and be patient with them. They may have some amazing ideas from their academic experiences, but on the job is so important and really interacting with the data and learning about what needs to take place in order to support the folks like out in front is really necessary. So I spent about a year and a half there before I was recruited to move to the East Coast and support a different client here on the East Coast that had far more data. I was really excited about it. I had never lived on the East Coast. So I was able to move to Maryland at that time and support a couple of clients in Maryland in Washington, D.C. that most people would feel are a lot closer to the fight than the Drug Enforcement Administration. But what an amazing way to start my career. And I'm really thankful to my government, a supervisor and mentor. Awesome. Yeah, so tell, let's continue with your career progression. Tell us how your roles and responsibilities, organizations, changed after that. So in the next role, it was really interesting. I was asked to be a team lead and I thought, well, that's pretty crazy. I've only got a few years of experience. And, but I'm really excited, right? I really want to help do the best thing possible. So most of the folks on the team that I was leading were far more experienced than I was. But they were very, very technically focused. And one of the things that that company asked of me was, how do you feel about going to the meetings with the client, understanding sort of what they're dealing with, helping the stakeholders understand what our team is building and translating that a bit. Because there was some concern that the team was building something quite technical and that the client was not technical at all. And so was there a way that I could use some of those skills I learned in graduate school at Texas A&M? Obviously, Texas A&M is home to the George Bush School of Government. So a lot of diplomats and folks working in government come out of that program and they said, is there anything that you learned there that you could bring to the table to help us here be successful in this project? So I spent some time doing that and it was a great experience. Being able to work with a technical team, highly technical PhD, computer scientist, and we didn't call them data scientists at the time, but data scientists. And being able to help the client understand what we could actually do for them using these techniques, using these methodologies to really get to a place where we could solve a really big challenge that they were dealing with. And so from there, I kind of realized that the thing I'm most good at is identifying, wow, what is the actual problem? And helping clients do that as well and then working with our technical teams to identify, okay, how do we fix this? How do we get to a place that we at least make some progress for them? And I think being open to new experiences has led me to emerging technologies, right? Being open to saying, let's try that new thing. Using the scientific method, using experimentation has really kind of put me in a position where I'm open to new experiences, but I'm also open to new ways of solving problems that made me persisted for years. Awesome. Yeah, I want to get to how you ultimately ended up at ManTech, but I understand there was a moment in your career when you transitioned from data to, as you mentioned, data and AI at IBM and really focusing on emerging technologies and kind of moving with the pace of technology. So what was the site for you career wise to this open new door as an opportunity? Oh, so many. Yeah, I love this question because my background in data engineering is really, I was very, very focused on the data. And by the way, I continue to be very focused on the data because we find that using emerging technologies, using AI, using those sorts of things really is highly dependent on the quality and the type and all different things about your data. And so in this situation, IBM had just played the Watson, had just played the Jeopardy game with Watson. And I remember watching that in shock, just I could not even conceive of what I had just watched on TV. And I had left IBM actually to go to another company. I'd been at IBM for a couple of years. I left IBM to go to another company. And two days later, I got a phone call from IBM saying, what's it going to take? You're going to have to come back to IBM. And I said, well, why would I do that? Because I had no idea that IBM was going to be doing some work with the government with their Watson capability. And so I had some conversations with IBM. And one of my amazing mentors was still at IBM, again, still in mentor to this day. We exchanged emails earlier today. And they said, why don't you come back here? And you can learn on the job and through our amazing IBM research facility about AI. You can learn about it. We'll make sure that you have all the upskilling and all of the things that you need. But we really need your knowledge of the data and the problems and the challenges. So come back to IBM and let's do this. And so I moved then from data to data and AI. And I've never looked back. It's been such a fantastic experience. I love being on the edge of what's new. Obviously, AI has been around for a long time. But I love the fact that it's constantly evolving and that I get to be right in the middle of that. Awesome. So what eventually took you to Mantec? Oh, gosh. I knew a bunch of folks at Mantec from previous roles. I've mostly spent my career at technology companies. If folks are looking at my LinkedIn or my bio here, you'll see a long-centred IBM instance at Microsoft and Amazon Web Services. Oh, fantastic, amazing companies with fantastic offerings dedicated to achieving client missions as well. But what I found is that I really wanted to be in a space where, regardless of what my company offered from a technology point of view, I could bring any of these things to the fight. In a client conversation, if they needed something from IBM, I could bring that. And they needed something from Oracle. I could bring that. And they needed something from Amazon. I could bring that. And everything from Microsoft and Google. And I could partner with these technology firms to bring all of the best in class to my clients. And I found that by coming to Mantec, there was an appetite for building out a data and many eye practice with focus on client outcomes rather than doing something that wasn't necessarily focused on outcomes. And so I felt like culturally the problem solving, the focus on outcomes, the focus on getting things to actually support missions, the focus on being a trusted advisor to clients, all of those things were such shared values for me that I was excited about coming and joining some folks I'd worked with before to build something new. Obviously building something from nothing is something I'm really passionate about. Mantec has done AI for a number of years, but now we're codifying it into a practice. And it's been an incredible experience working with the Mantec board of directors, our executive leadership team, our sector presidents and division managers, literally everybody in the company marching in the same direction to help support our clients. Awesome. It's something I just want to touch on before we move forward. I love to ask if there were any moments during your career when you felt stuck, perhaps how to take a step back or move in a different direction and how you handled those seasons of life if they came about. So that's happened to me twice so far. I anticipate that in any career it happens more than twice. So I assume it'll happen again at some point, but the first thing that happened was actually when I had my daughter in 2009. I was quite ill when I was pregnant with her. She was premature and so my priorities have always been on work and having a child who had some extra needs when she was young was definitely shocking to me. And I had to take a moment and really gather my thoughts and understanding of what I could be at work while I also needed to be super, super present in my home life, taking care of my young child who was dealing with some different medical issues at the time. She's all fine now, she's 16 now. But at that point in time I worked with my mentors, I worked with my managers, I had some amazing support systems across the company. And I was able to really continue to do a great job, but I realized at that point in time as a really ambitious person who's looking always to be able to increase my scope and what can I do more. I realized at that point in time. I needed to do my job, I needed to do it well. I needed to bring excellence every day to my job, but it wasn't going to be about increasing scope. It wasn't going to be about having a bigger team. It wasn't going to be about what else can I do for you today. It was going to be about doing my job as well as I possibly could while still understanding that I had another priority that I needed to be able to focus on. And I do think having an amazing leadership team, having an amazing set of mentors that help you see that for yourself, to where you don't feel sidelined, you're an active participant in making that decision, is such an important part for anybody who might feel like there's a season of life, as you mentioned, that might slow down your forward progress. I think that's really important. The other time that happened was a really unique situation, although I think probably a lot of folks have dealt with this, where I was very good at my job. And I know that that sounds self-important, but I was very good at my job. And it wasn't clear how my leadership team was going to replace me doing that job if I took another job. And I realized that as I could continue to do more, I could continue to expand the scope, I could bring excellence to the job every day, but what I hadn't been doing was mentoring and growing people in order for me to be able to move to a new role. We never want to put the clients' mission at risk. And since I hadn't been taking ownership of ensuring that there were other people who had the skills and experiences and had done things in order to support these client missions, I was kind of stuck doing that role until that realization was made clear to me. And that's when I really started mentoring, coaching, sponsoring, and getting into a place where other folks were getting some of the benefits of the lessons that I learned, from the really hard way, some through mentoring conversations myself, but it was a great eye-opening experience to realize that it isn't all about you. It's also about giving back and making sure that there are people coming up behind you that can continue to support the mission. Well, I really appreciate you sharing those moments, especially ones that are more personal to us. I think it's so important for people to hear that these life moments can happen, and they often do, as you said, to many of us. Just being able to hear it from other leaders in the community is so important and how you managed it and dealt with it and moved forward. So thank you for sharing those with us. Thank you. Yeah. So as you talked a lot about mentorship, having mentors and being one yourself, your career path is so unique and eclectic. You've had various different roles in different industries, all relatively related, but I'm just curious if there were mentors or peers that were influential to you, helped you navigate these various roles in that are part of your growth that you want to share. Sure. I mean, I feel like I've been so lucky in that area. There have always been people, men and women that have put themselves out there to help me become better, a better human, but also better at my job. And I just think it's such an important part of what we all do, that I think being open to that and also being open to the coaching from peers. I think that's the other thing that I would mention that's really important. I've had a lot of relationships with folks more senior than me and mentoring and coaching relationships, and that's been great. But I also really think that coaching and mentoring from your peers and learning from your peers, but also from folks more junior than you. I will say last year was my first really large intern class here at Niantek. We had 20 interns associated with data and AI. And I feel like as much as I was able to contribute to their growth, they were able to contribute to mine. Like there were so many things and so many ideas that they were bringing to the table that hadn't thought of. And I think it's just so important to be open to listening and learning, regardless of where it's coming from. And so I just think it's, we have a unique opportunity right now, especially working in GulfCon, we're all very focused on the same kinds of things. And there are people coming up behind us that have amazing ideas that are different than ours. And we can learn from them too. Awesome. Before we close, I want to make sure our listeners can truly understand the passion and the importance that you, the importance that you pay at Niantek and also that your role in data and AI at Niantek. So is there anything you want to include about the work you're doing, the importance of it, perhaps as a leader in this field, what it means to you to kind of spearhead these efforts? Well, I really appreciate the faith that Niantek and Niantek's leadership team and our Board of Directors at Carleau Group have put into myself and our data and AI practice. We're very focused on solving client problems using an established methodology and focused on getting them to an outcome that's really using emerging technology or existing technology. We want to solve the problem for them using investments that they've made. And we want to get our clients to a place where we are seeing in front of our adversaries or we are being able to get that bad guy or do whatever we need to do in order to allocate appropriate funding to different parts of the country that may need funding. I mean, there's so many different unique mission spaces across the US government that I'm also really thankful that Niantek is so focused on those things, right? We've got great sectors. We've got a federal civilian sector, a department of defense sector and a new intelligence community sector. Full of such amazing people who every day come to work focused on the mission. And that helps me and the data and AI practice a ton because we're able to focus on bringing the technology to solve the problems alongside our partners and our peers that every day are living the mission. And so I think that's such a unique situation that just really makes me happy. I would also say our data and AI practice is full of really talented, experienced professionals that are top of their fields. They're publishing, they're speaking, they're doing things to increase and push science forward along with the work that they're doing to support our clients. And so I just feel really blessed to be in an environment where I can do all the things that I think are really fun, get paid for it and continue to do the right thing for the United States. Awesome. And just to tie this back to you in your background, how do the lessons that you've learned throughout your career, through your upbringing and your work experiences, how do those show up in your day-to-day at Niantek? Well, because I came to this job in a non-traditional way, I obviously have leaders and team members that came through pretty traditional ways, right? They got trained in this, they went to school for it. And so I think one of the lessons that I always bring to the table, I think what I'm doing, engagements with the team or with clients is openness and being interested in what other people are bringing to the table. One of the things I mentioned is that I'm really passionate about multidisciplinary teams and teams of people that are bringing different experiences and skills and education and different client-focused areas, et cetera, to the table because we can think creatively about how to solve things across the board. And so I think I'm a pretty open leader. I think I'm really interested in hearing what other people have to say. I think I also really, really enjoy starting something or transforming something and bringing those new thoughts to the table. And so I really think that rather than being mired in this is kind of the way it's always been. It's been a really fantastic experience to be able to work at a company that likes my openness and likes the fact that, you know, I'm bringing a little bit of a creative layer to data and AI that maybe other people might not bring. And so I think it's a special time to be working in this at a special company. Awesome. And Brandy finally, my last question for you is what else do you hope to accomplish in the near or long-term future professionally or personally, however you like? Oh gosh, personally, well, my daughter is going to college in two years. So personally, I want to support her through that process. I know a lot of folks are probably in a similar position. So it looks a lot different than when I went to college. So I'm hoping to support her through that, continuing to have just a really close relationship with my husband and my family, support them in any way that I possibly can. And it worked. There's so many fantastic things I'd like to accomplish. I really want to continue to build out Nantech's data and AI practice. Make sure everybody knows what we're bringing to the table and how we can help them and really help our clients push their missions forward. I think there's a lot of things that we can do to support each and every mission that's out there and just want to continue to partner with every single one of my clients to help them achieve their outcomes and goals. All right. Wonderful. Brandy, thank you so much for sharing with us. Your journey from your upbringing to your current work and priorities has been so cool to hear how the connections and lessons you've learned, your work ethic, your parents work ethic, your connection to building something and of course to serving this country have really showed up at Nantech. So I appreciate you being here and for showing all of that with us. Thank you. Thank you so much Amanda. It's been awesome. Thanks for listening to this episode of Humble Beginnings. Check out WashingtonExec.com to find more of our podcasts and profiles on executives. See you next time.