Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling officially retired in December after nearly 38 years with the Army. Now, at 60, he has launched a second career as an adviser on physician leadership and strategy with Florida Hospital in Orlando and recently was named to the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports & Nutrition.
Q: You were a three-star general who spent your entire career in the military. How did you know it was time to retire?
A: In the military, when you’re promoted beyond two stars, you serve at the pleasure of the president. Normally, when you’re promoted to a three-star, that’s essentially your resignation letter. It says, “We’ve got one position for you for three years, and at the end of that if we don’t contact you, then it’s goodbye.”
I had my first three-star job in 2009, and in January of 2012, I got the call saying, “Thanks for your service, but by the end of the year, you’ll need to retire.” It’s a young man’s game. Truthfully, I didn’t know what I was going to do next, I just knew I didn’t want to go into defense contracting.
During my 10 years leading military training, we revamped the training and feeding of soldiers to account for the poor health of the new recruits we were seeing coming into the system. I was in charge of that.
Q: What are you doing now?
A: I was recruited by Florida Hospital in Orlando to lead a global health partnering strategy. When I got here, they said I could do a lot more than just global strategy because we need help with physician leadership and we’re trying to change the physician culture. They also had Healthy 100, which is an effort to do more for the health of the Orlando community. I had been involved with a nonprofit called Mission: Readiness (a group of retired military leaders calling for removing junk food from schools).
Then someone on the president’s council called me and asked if I was interested. Because I’ve done some things that changed the way the military approaches (the problem of out-of-shape recruits), they can use me as a sounding board for what will or won’t work and how to get communities mobilized. It fits into my wheelhouse. My wife (Sue) continues to remind me I’m retired. In my last job, I worked 18-hour days, seven days a week. Here, it’s eight to 10 hours, five days a week, and nobody’s shooting at me.
Q: Military families move around a lot, some of them live with a high potential for danger and can find it difficult to transition to civilian employment and life. What impact does that have on their retirement and what advice do you have for starting a second career?
A: Actually, one of the reasons I stayed in the military so long was the strong sense of community and values. When it came time to retire, I was concerned about the transition. But when my retired friends from the military found out I was retiring, they helped me network, and I’ve begun to do the same for other people transitioning. The military teaches a lot of things, especially leadership, that aren’t taught very well in the private sector, so you need to leverage that.
Q: How are you approaching your financial game plan?
A: We’ve downsized quite a bit but still feel like we’re living pretty well. When I first got out and was consulting, I had no idea about taxes. A couple of fellow generals advised me to get a good tax lawyer and sign up with a strong financial institution, and I’ve done that. The biggest issues for me were saving for travel and our grandkids’ education.
Q: Any big surprises since you retired?
A: A lot of people are fascinated by military service. When people hear I’m a general, they say, “Holy smokes.”
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