Mind on the Mission
Bryan Creason uses the focus learned in the National Guard in his role at Goetze Dental.
The Creason File
Raised in: Carrollton, Mo.
Age: 39
Company: Goetze Dental
Territory: Kansas City, Omaha
Title: Technology division manager and sales rep
Lives in: Liberty, Mo.
Noteworthy: Saw action in Bosnia in 2002-2003.
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One’s life can change when a 300-pound tackle falls on top of you during your freshman year of college and blows out your shoulders. Particularly if you’re attending school on a football scholarship. Yet that is a key part of Bryan Creason’s story. In fact, that tackle’s fall atop his shoulders ultimately led Creason on a journey to one of the world’s hot spots - Bosnia - where he dodged minefields and triaged wounded soldiers for a year.
Creason - who is technology division manager and sales rep for Goetze Dental in Kansas City, Mo. - was born almost 40 years ago in Carrollton, Mo. His father, Phillip Creason, owned Creason Implement, a farm implement company in Carrollton. As a boy, Creason would hang out at the dealership whenever possible, and it was there that he grew comfortable with equipment and technology.
He also grew comfortable with farming, as his family lived on a farm. "I started working on the farm when I was 10 or 12," he says. "I was tall for my age, so I got to start a little earlier than some." The Creasons grew crops, raised cattle and had about 300 head of sheep as well. One element of farming did not sit well with young Creason, however. "We went through the hog thing," he says. "But they’re nasty and stupid; not worth it. They tear everything up."
A high school football player, Creason turned down football scholarships to Purdue and Notre Dame so he could play ball at his father’s alma mater, Central Missouri State University (now the University of Central Missouri) in Warrensburg, Mo. The mishap occurred during a water break in football practice, when a player tripped, starting a mini-chain reaction. The bottom line: Creason lost his opportunity to get a degree with his football scholarship.
First Impressions: What did you do after the injury?
Creason: I had to find another way to pay for school. So
I finished my first year, then worked on a pipeline - installing fiberoptic cables - for eight months in Iowa.
I returned to Central Missouri State for my sophomore year. At the end of that school year, I enlisted in the National Guard. That was in 1989.
FI: Why the National Guard?
Creason: I decided to join the National Guard after a friend of mine did it as a way to make it through school. I always liked the movie M*A*S*H, so I joined the 135th MASH unit out of Kansas City. I figured that I could get my student loans repaid, and with the Montgomery GI Bill and my regular Guard pay - along with academic scholarships - I could afford to go back to school. And I did.
I returned to Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar, Mo. I thought I might be able to play football again. I went through all the practice, but as I got toward the first game, my shoulders started hurting bad. The doctor said I had too much play in them, and that I either had to get out or live with pain. So after a semester at Southwest Baptist, I transferred to Southwest Missouri State University in Springfield, which is now called Missouri State University. I graduated in 1994 with a major in biology and a minor in psychology.
FI: Describe your training with the Guard.
Creason: I went to boot camp that November [1989]. If I had it to do over again, I would go in the spring. As it was, I was at Fort Knox [Ky.] in the winter. Your first two or three weeks is an acclimation period. You get all your equipment, and they’re not too hard on you. Then you move into regular boot camp; that’s when all the fun begins. You have eight to nine weeks of boot camp, followed by eight weeks of [Advanced Individual Training] followed by eight weeks of [on-the-job training]. I received training as an orthopedic specialist - assisting surgeons with orthopedic fractures, putting on casts, maintaining traction. Basically, you assist the orthopedic surgeons.
FI: What did you learn about yourself during boot camp?
Creason: It gave me discipline plus the ability to sit down and keep myself on track, with one objective in mind. It teaches you how to focus, how to stay the course, how to make steps, how to plan, how to keep your thoughts organized. You have to learn how to think quick, have a pattern set, and follow it, because there might be a lot of chaos around you. You have to practice, train, be ready. In the military, you train for hours, months, even years for what might be just a few minutes of total chaos. You have to be able to just react. You have to use your head, yes; but you have to have a plan in place for whenever it hits.
FI: These sound like the same skills needed by a doctor in an emergency situation.
Creason: In my last unit - an area support medical battalion - we would take ambulances to the front, triage individuals, then bring them back to the hospital. We would look at patients, evaluate them, decide who goes back to the hospital, who is expected to die, who can be held. That’s the same thing doctors do day after day in triage decisions. You’re making life decisions based on what you see. You have to use your head and your instincts.
FI: Anything else about boot camp?
Creason: I graduated at the top of my class of 176. I was also the first person to receive the gauntlet in four cycles - meaning I was an expert in the rifle and grenade, I had zero no-gos (meaning I didn’t have to re-test on a single thing), and I maxed my [physical fitness] test, which includes situps, pushups and a two-mile run.
FI: So, did you know you were an expert marksman or grenade-thrower before boot camp?
Creason: I have always hunted, and I have always been able to run long distances. It was grueling, but I ran my final two-mile in 11 minutes 21 seconds. But I had never thrown grenades. As far as the grenade goes, you go through a course to learn how to throw it properly. Basically, it’s lobbing the grenade into a pit or area. There’s a certain way you have to throw it.
FI: You graduated from college in 1994. What kind of work did you do after that?
Creason: I graduated just a few hours short of a pre-med degree. Right after graduation, I worked for two oral-maxilla-facial surgeons in Springfield [Mo.] I was their private assistant, helping them with facial corrections. I assisted them in their office, but I was also their hospital tech, meaning I was their second hand when they were doing surgery. We also did some wisdom teeth, so I had some exposure to [dentistry].
While I worked for them, I played football in a farm league, which became a semipro league during my last year. Our team was the Springfield Eagles. (Now they’re called the Springfield Rifles.) It was full contact football; I played defensive end and some tackle.
FI: How did your shoulders fare?
Creason: I worked out hard and did all the exercises I could, so my muscles could hold the shoulders in. By my third year, though, I was like, "This hurts too much." I was in my 30s. But you always have that desire to play football.
FI: And then?
Creason: Although I loved working with the oral-maxilla-facial surgeons, I knew I wouldn’t make any more money there. So after three years, I went to work as a service tech for Patterson Dental in Springfield. I stayed with Patterson for three years, then started my own construction company, which I ran for a couple of years. Then Goetze called me, and I started working for them as a service tech in August 2001, right before 9/11.
FI: When were you called up to Bosnia?
Creason: It was the spring of 2002 - right after 9/11. In 1989, I had enlisted in the Guard for six years; after that, I signed up for another year, then another six. My obligation would have been up that year following 9/11. So they asked me, "Are you going to stay in?" That was a hard decision. I said to them, "Basically, you’re telling me that if I sign these papers, I’m gone for a year." At the same time, I felt I had a duty. This country had helped me get through college; it gave me a lot of things I needed. Ultimately, I decided I couldn’t turn my back on them. So I signed the papers for an additional two years. I was at one of my kid’s flag football games that next spring when I got the call. We left for Germany in October 2002.
FI: What was your understanding of the Bosnian situation when you were called up?
Creason: I didn’t know a lot about it at that time, but since then, I have learned there are lots of terrorist activities taking place in Bosnia. When one of the three religions in the country would get into power, they would slaughter the others. The only way to defuse something like that is to spend 10 to 20 years or more keeping the different sides away from fighting each other; that might take a couple of generations. Plus, the [warring factions] planted so many mines, the entire border is still a minefield. There are mine crews still out there today.
We were part of the United Nations contingent, but we did not wear the blue UN helmets. We wore our regular Army helmets. The country had been divided up into different sectors; we shared our sector with the Finns and Russians. I was located in Tuzla, which is the main air base in Bosnia. We had a landing strip, with Black Hawk [helicopters] and Apache attack copters. There were mines throughout our complex. You had to walk on the gravel areas or wooden bridges. You could see where they had marked the mines.
FI: Why didn’t the Army disarm those mines?
Creason: They were afraid of chain reactions - that if they pulled one out, all the rest would blow up.
FI: Describe your impressions upon reaching Bosnia.
Creason: We actually went to Germany first to do some training. They have you doing reaction drills, basically getting you ready for anything you might encounter. They had taken all the mattresses and sent them to Iraq. So we were sleeping on springs. And the heaters would go off at 10 p.m. and come back at 6 a.m. Germany in mid-winter is cold. But when I was there, I received a coin from General Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. [A coin is given by a ranking officer to recognize achievement. Creason received eight more before his tour of duty ended.]
I remember when we began our descent into Bosnia. Apache helicopters were flying 50 feet off our wings.
The reason is, a C-130 [turboprop cargo aircraft] had recently been "painted" by a laser [-guided missile], though [the enemy] never got anything off. I was surprised to see the attack helicopters on either side of us. Then,
I got up the next morning and saw the minefields 20
yards from us. It wasn’t the most comforting feeling. For the first few weeks, it bothers you. But after that, those feelings get suppressed.
FI: Can you describe your tour of duty in Bosnia.
Creason: I was platoon sergeant for ground ambulance and evac[uation]. I was basically in charge of the ER - everything from ambulance dispatch, contacting air [evacuation units], getting Black Hawks on the way, bringing soldiers into the ER, getting doctors in, coordinating things with the hospital if they needed to go into surgery - whatever needed to be done. We had about 1,500 troops on the ground. I was also in the TOC [Tactical Operations Center] for the first three weeks, reviewing perimeter defense and mass casualty [plans], and working on the UN computer system, which alerted us to activity going on.
FI: Was there a lot of combat?
Creason: A lot of pot shots and things like that, though there were some larger-scale things too. Americans can’t understand why suicide bombers do what they do. But when you see how they have been treated, and how little money they make - they might make a thousand dollars a year - you can see how someone could turn into a radical if he or his family is offered $25,000 to do a suicide bombing.
FI: Did you stay in Tuzla your entire year in Bosnia?
Creason: I went up to Tasar, Hungary, for a month and a half. I took care of a hospital up there. We had Iraqi freedom fighters there, who were being trained to go into Iraq after the [U.S.] invasion.
FI: Is it true that you picked up some computer skills while in Bosnia?
Creason: I had worked with computers prior to going there. In fact, before I left, we had been talking about my moving into a technology position with Goetze. One of the guys who was with me in Bosnia - and is now in Iraq - is now one of Goetze’s IT people. We started doing some networking, played a lot of [computer] games, and worked on a lot of other things too. When we got back here, I hired him. Now he’s in the desert, but hopefully, he’ll be back next spring.
FI: While you were there, were you in touch with your family?
Creason: We were restricted to about 20 minutes a
week on the phone. And there was a video conference setup in Springfield, so we could video conference with our families. You could e-mail too. Being in the hospital, we had access to the Internet all the time - probably more access than other soldiers.
FI: When did you return to the United States?
Creason: Oct. 27, 2003. We landed in an airport on the East Coast. It was nice, because a group of people were there to welcome the soldiers back. They had cell phones you could use to call home. From there, we stayed at Fort Riley in Kansas for a week. There’s always a period of adjustment when you return [to the United States].
FI: How did you feel about returning?
Creason: If the experience changes you in any way, it’s how you prioritize things in your life. Certain things that you used to put a little bit higher suddenly aren’t so important. As far as family goes, you know you need to spend time with them. And it’s not just quality; it’s time.
FI: How about the job?
Creason: I returned to Goetze in a service role. Before long, I talked to them about taking over the service department. [Goetze CEO Don Brunker] had some issues he wanted fixed, like getting control of the parts inventory, and drawing up protocols and procedures. I jumped into it, wrote a proposal on what I thought needed to happen, and moved from Springfield to Kansas City. We hit $120,000 reduction in inventory after one year.
At about that time, some of the branch managers were complaining that we had to do something different about [technology]. We had been using an outsourced firm to sell operatory computers, networks and things like that. So Don looked at me and said, "Bryan is going to start our new technology division." Then he said to me, "You can do it, right?" We did about $1 million in sales our first year, which I didn’t think was too bad.
FI: Did your experience change your approach to your job ?
Creason: I know how to get things done, how to manage my time better, how to be more efficient. I work on things faster and quicker than I did before.
FI: Do you keep in touch with people you knew in the service?
Creason: Yes. The bonds you make in the military are
not nearly as easy to break as those with, say, old high
school buddies. [FI]
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