Jeff Bradford’s journey began in an Illinois farming community and has taken him to military bases and various points around the globe, all of which led him to Des Moines, where, after serving as chair of Drake University’s marketing department, he is now president and lead consultant of ROCG Stratum Consulting. He was a flight commander during his eight-year career with the U.S. Air Force, and funded his Ph.D. studies through a stint with the Oklahoma National Guard. During his travels, he rode horses in South America with a retired Argentinian military general, sipped wine with California wine mogul Robert Mondavi and observed weeks of international negotiations in Toronto regarding NAFTA. Now having settled into his own business, he takes pleasure in good wine, movies, golf and his family – his wife, a pianist whom he met on a blind date in college, and their daughter, a student at the Pennsylvania Culinary Institute.

After growing up on a farm in Illinois, did you ever consider taking over the farm?

The dairy cows have to be milked every 12 hours whether you like it or not. So I decided that was not something I wanted to do the rest of my life. But there was a wonderful freedom growing up on a farm. I can’t even imagine what it would have been like in any other environment.

Why join the Air Force ROTC at Southern Illinois University?

Family heritage, which I found to be very similar throughout the Midwest when I was going through military training. If you grew up in a smaller Midwestern town, you thought you needed to pay back your country and serve in the military. I never even thought about it being an option. Having the opportunity to fly planes made it a little easier. When you sign on the dotted line to fly, it’s an eight-year commitment. It was a lot of fun, it was great, but it was not something I had planned on making a career out of.

Did the experience change you?

Yeah, and the big change there was an appreciation for diversity. In looking at the military, there’s a lot of minorities, and you really appreciate the skills, intelligence and strength of character that they brought as well. One thing I never experienced or really saw was a lot of racial tension. Everyone was responsible, they did their job, and it didn’t matter what their race, color, creed was – they all worked together.

For the inexperienced pilots, what’s it like to actually fly a B-52 bomber?

It’s a real rush. You take off and you feel the power of eight turbo jet engines. Each engine is equivalent to two locomotives, so you’ve got power to burn. That plane could outclimb any plane on the planet until they came out with the F-15 and F-16.

When you left the Air Force, did you have any idea what you wanted to do with the rest of your life?

It was the one time in my life (that I did know). At 18 when I graduated from high school, I had no idea. I knew I should go to college, but I didn’t know what to major in. I got a business degree but didn’t know where I wanted to work. Then I got the opportunity to fly so I was able to defer that decision. With my free time (in the Air Force) I got my M.B.A., and had time to really think through what I wanted to do.

Where was your first stop after you completed your Ph.D. (in business strategy, global marketing and organizational design) in 1991?

At that point in time, we were going through the NAFTA agreements. I took a position at Bowling Green State University in Ohio so I could drive up to Toronto to witness the negotiations. I was there every week for several months. Part of my interest in it was the organization design side of it – change management. How do you get a large group of people to move forward and come up with an agreement that they can all sign in on?

What drives your passion in consulting?

Ninety percent of businesses in North America are privately owned, family-owned. If a private, family-owned business is prospering, they will give more to the community, and that will be a way to help local charities, local churches, local synagogues, and also their own employees. So if you help them, you really have a positive impact. If I can help small businesses, medium-sized businesses to go from surviving to thriving, then I can also make a positive impact on my community.

Did you always see yourself branching out on your own as a consultant?

Unrealistically, I thought that I could just do that in the summers (while working as chair of Drake University’s marketing department). Finally my wife said, “You’ve got two jobs. Could you just pick one?” You can only burn the candle from both ends for so long.

Have you had any other big adventures in your life?

In college, a friend called me up and said, “What are we going to do different?” Two years later he asked the same question and I said, “This summer, we’re going to Colorado to climb a 14,000-foot peak.” I had never really climbed before, so why should that hold me back? We took climbing school, and I stayed for another couple of weeks as a climbing bum washing dishes and I went back the following year as well.

Between flying Air Force bombers and climbing mountains, do you consider yourself a risk taker?

My dad asked me if I had a death wish because he said, “You’re flying, you have a motorcycle and you climb.” They’re all high insurance risks. I don’t have a death wish, but when I was 18 to 28, I would not describe myself as being careful.