The beginning of the end...

As I've mentioned before, Jeff is getting out of the Army. His last official day is May 4th. First of all, it's amazing how fast 5 years has gone. I can remember the days of ROTC when I used to see Jeff on campus walking around in uniform...hard to believe that was 7 years ago! I think that it will be a huge adjustment for him, but I think that it's going to be a good change. Although we were lucky and only dealt with one deployment, I can't imagine having him gone considering we have a baby on the way. I know many women who have given birth with their husbands in Iraq or Afghanistan and I can't even imagine how hard that was for them. It's so sad when I think of all of the husbands that come home and haven't seen their newborns in about a year. So much happens in that time and I don't want Jeff to miss a moment!
We went to the Cameron-Brooks career conference this past weekend in Charlotte. For any military officer that is thinking about getting out of the Army and transitioning to the corporate world, I could not recommend a better route to take than with this company. Jeff has been hard at work for 14 months...reading books, having study groups, practicing interview skills...all in preparation for this conference. Although it was hard work, it paid off significantly! We arrived in Charlotte on Friday night and sat through a lot of meetings beginning bright and early on Saturday morning. The meetings basically consisted of interview preparation and briefings about the companies that they were going to be interviewing with. On Monday and Tuesday, Jeff had the opportunity to interview with 10 different companies, including 3 different divisions of Johnson & Johnson, Ernst and Young, BMC Software, Abbott Diabetes Care and Aldi. Most of the jobs involve surgical device sales, management or consulting. Even though I didn't go through the interviews, I still felt as exhausted as Jeff! I helped him prepare for the interviews by asking him questions and helping him research about the companies. I think that after Jeff went through the first interview, the stress level went down a bit. He felt very confident coming out of that interview and I think that that set the tone for the rest of the day! When we woke up on Tuesday, Jeff found out that not only did he have his remaining 5 interviews, he also already had 2 follow ups from companies that he interviewed with the day before. It was very exciting to know that Jeff made as good of an impression on these companies that he thought he had (he had another follow up Tuesday afternoon also). So after 13 interviews in 31 hours, we ranked the companies in the order that we would want them. We had to take many things into consideration including locations. These companies range in location...Ohio, NYC, Chicago, Washington D.C., Michigan, and Boston. Jeff begins traveling on Monday for follow ups with the Johnson & Johnson and Ernst and Young jobs. Very exciting time, but soooo stressful because we don't know where we will end up in the next month! Hopefully we will be able to make a decision in the next couple of weeks and start to prepare for a move.