Serving With Honor, Finding Pride: Embracing Authenticity at Cisco

I am what someone would call an enigma — I simply do not make sense.

I grew up in a military family. That is what I knew, that is what I was exposed to. It was ingrained in me that this is what we believe, how we vote, and how we love. As a military child, I was preconditioned to be subservient without questioning authority.

As a child, I was ok with this — life was planned out. However, when I reached my teenage years, I started silently listening to the sounds outside my insulated regulated bubble and looking in different directions. I was forming my identity. This is what usually happens in life. Everything makes sense until the acne and growth spurts hit. I began to question more intimate aspects of what made up me — the core of my existence. I knew innately that I was different. But, acting on these questions would have alienated me in my own house. Notice my wording … I said house and not home. Home to a military kid was never finite — it was a temporary part of the life. I never truly had a home growing up.

Throughout my childhood, I was an athlete, but I chose a sport that would only be about me. I became a swimmer. I swam more laps and finished more individual races than I could ever fathom. I also developed an interest in band and choir. Fine arts and contactless individual sports were something that my father could not understand. As the first-born son, he wanted a son that would be a carbon copy of him. I was always anything but. We never truly bonded. I was scared to display my inner thoughts and self for fear of more isolation.

A few years after high school, I made the conscious choice to join the United States Marine Corps, knowing I would have to hide my true authentic self. This was before “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT), the official United States policy on military service of non-heterosexual people, was repealed, so I had to lie on paper and to myself to enlist. Thankfully, years of living in denial and self-inflicted isolation had prepared me for this.

I am proud to say I met my husband in 2010. I am sad to say he had to be at arm’s length for a year. He knew why. But we stuck through it. Life worked itself out. We married in 2016. I graduated with my Bachelor of Arts and my Master of Arts. We have a happy life. I work at the most inclusive company in the world. Cisco was the first employer that I used the phrase “my husband” in my initial interview.

Cisco was the first employer that accepted me — not the manufactured version of me, but the real me.

I now lead the Cisco Veterans Inclusive Community’s flagship event, Global Military Career Day, and have done so for three years. As a leader in Cisco’s Inclusive Communities, I have been given a voice and an opportunity to connect with so many people. From my initial interview, I felt a sense of acceptance and belonging that I had never experienced before. I truly understand the value of our company’s purpose of “powering an inclusive future for all” and want to create that same sense of acceptance and belonging for others that I felt in my first interactions with Cisco.

Currently, I am a Catalyst Renewal Specialist for our Department of Defense customers in Customer Experience. I am able to continue supporting the government that I was called to defend against all threats foreign and domestic. For almost five years, Cisco has given me wings to grow myself and my career. All it took to make this happen was me being honest with myself. It was a risk, and a big one. Sometimes in life, risks can be the caveat to effect positive change.

I might be a self-described enigma, but so is Cisco. We are all given the freedom to grow without sacrificing what makes us special. We prosper because we are individuals that form a united team. That makes Cisco special.

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