Page 115 - Leadership Lessons of the White House Fellows

THE LESSONS

devastating knee injury in his junior year sidelined him—and his dreams
of ongoing gridiron success—for good.
“It was at this point that I learned from experience that when one door
closes, another one really does open,” Bullard said. “I couldn’t play football
anymore, but I could pursue my other passion: the mock trial. I decided to
try out for the academy’s team, but the advisor told me the team was full. I
immediately asked if I could form my own team. He said ‘sure,’ but I could
see the doubt in his eyes. Well, that was all it took. A week later I came back
with more than enough people to field a second team. This makeshift team
went on to finish second in the nation, and I was recognized as the best col-
legiate attorney in the West and an all-American collegiate attorney on the
national level. As trite as this accomplishment sounds now, these events
earned me a scholarship to Duke Law School, which set the stage for many
other achievements, including the White House Fellowship in which I
worked with NASA administrator Dr. Michael Griffin. It was passion that
inspired me to form ‘Bull’s mock trial team.’ Passion inspired my classmates
to join it, and passion fueled our success. Regardless of the circumstances, I
have always had an irresistible belief in the happy ending.” As legislative liai-
son for the secretary of the Air Force at the Pentagon, where he serves as a
link between Congress and senior Air Force leaders, Bullard has found a new
channel for his passion for being part of a winning team.
Among all the people I’ve ever met, George Heilmeier (WHF 70–71) is
perhaps the one who has used passion to his—and the world’s—advantage
better than anyone else. Heilmeier defines passion as simply loving what one
is doing, and he says it is an essential ingredient in any recipe for great lead-
ership. As with Bullard, Heilmeier’s passion as a youngster was sports. He
wanted to pursue a degree in physical education when it came time for him
to go to college, but his father encouraged him to go in a different direction.
“One night we were sitting around the dinner table—I’ll never forget this—
and my father said that in every place he’d ever worked, engineers wore clean
clothes and made a lot of money. Now, when you grew up in a German
household, what your father said pretty much was the way it was. So
consequently I decided I wanted to study engineering, and it became a
replacement for sports in my life for a while and ultimately became like a
hobby for me.”
What a hobby it turned out to be. After graduating from Princeton
with a Ph.D. in solid-state electronics, Heilmeier went to work for RCA

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