Page 76 - Leadership Lessons of the White House Fellows

LEADERS HAVE A LASERLIKE FOCUS ON THEIR PEOPLE

Salk introduced his lifesaving polio vaccine in 1955, the highly contagious
and occasionally fatal disease was a frightening epidemic in the United
States. Determined to survive, Dawkins underwent months of grueling
physical therapy to regain the use of his limbs, and he beat the disease.
From that victorious moment onward, Dawkins was unstoppable in his
pursuit of personal excellence, rising to meet one extraordinary challenge
after another.
After defeating polio, Dawkins won a scholarship to Cranbrook
Kingswood Schools, a prestigious private school outside Detroit. He
excelled academically and also on the playing field as captain of the baseball
team and one of the league’s leading quarterbacks.
Dawkins turned down the chance to attend Yale University, opting
instead for the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. There he played
halfback and was captain of the football team, assistant captain of the
hockey team, brigade commander, and class president and was in the top
5 percent of his class academically. His achievements were so outstanding
and his future held such immense promise that he was profiled in Life and
Reader’s Digest. In 1958, Dawkins won two of college football’s most pres-
tigious awards—the Heisman Trophy and the Maxwell Award—putting
him in the same company with gridiron greats such as Tony Dorsett,
Marcus Allen, Vinnie Testaverde, Roger Staubach, and Paul Hornung. Upon
graduating with honors from West Point, he attended Oxford University on
a Rhodes Scholarship.
After earning a degree in philosophy, politics, and economics from
Oxford, Dawkins completed Infantry School and Ranger School and
assumed duty with the 82nd Airborne Division, where he commanded a
rifle company. He served as senior advisor to the Vietnamese 1st Airborne
Battalion in Vietnam. He won two Bronze Stars for valor and was a bat-
talion commander in Korea, a brigade commander at Fort Ord, and the
division chief of staff in the 101st Airborne Division. He taught at West
Point and was selected to be a White House Fellow, serving as military
assistant to Deputy Secretary of Defense Bill Clements. During his
Fellowship, Dawkins worked on a task force responsible for converting the
army to an all-volunteer force in the aftermath of the Vietnam War. After
serving twenty-four years in the Army, Dawkins retired as a brigadier
general and launched his career in the private sector with a partnership at
Lehman Brothers, a global investment banking company. He then served

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