Transporter receives Executive MBA with honors, applies it to logistics career

SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ill. (Jan. 14, 2021) -- Earning his Executive Master of Business Administration (EMBA) degree in December 2020 topped off an amazing 20-month journey for Peter Mahoney, chief, Capabilities Branch in U.S. Transportation Command’s (USTRANSCOM) Strategic Plans, Policy and Logistics Directorate.
 
“I had not been in a graduate program for over a decade and felt it was time to refresh and expand my knowledge as I embarked on my second career,” said Mahoney, a retired Marine. 

After 22 years of service, Mahoney retired from the U.S. Marine Corps in 2017 while working at USTRANSCOM. Following his retirement, he returned to the command to work as a civilian.
 
“A work colleague introduced me to the EMBA Program at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. I was attracted to the program’s ‘Values-Based, Data-Driven Decision-Making’ foundation, meaning examining facts and figures weighed against principles, values and impact, and applying this to decision-making at an executive level,” said the native of Falmouth, Massachusetts.

In conjunction with graduation, the university’s Olin Business School faculty honored Mahoney with the Emory Award, given to the MBA graduate who best represents qualities sought in MBA students. He was also inducted into the Beta Gamma Sigma (BGS) International Business Honor Society, which since 1913 has recognized and honored top-performing students from around the world. Notable BGS alumni include a Nobel Prize winner, an Olympian, inventors and Chief Executive Officers – and now a USTRANSCOM employee.

USTRANSCOM’s Capabilities Branch has a very diverse set of responsibilities, all focused on helping the command evolve for tomorrow and channeling innovation towards enhanced capability for the Joint Deployment and Distribution Enterprise. 

“From joint concept development to war-gaming, research and development funding to technology transfer, we touch on a lot within the command,” said Mahoney. “Earning this EMBA has definitely sharpened both my leadership and business skills, and helped me bring an entrepreneurial mindset to guide our way through emerging and still unknown environments and technologies.”    

According to Mahoney, overcoming the challenges COVID-19 presented during the last nine months of the program was just as meaningful as the academics, with lifelong relationships made in the process.

“Earning the EMBA was truly a life-changing experience for me,” Mahoney said. “It was a privilege to have 15 amazing professionals and individuals in my corner to learn with and from.”

USTRANSCOM exists as a warfighting combatant command to project and sustain military power at a time and place of the nation’s choosing. Powered by dedicated men and women, USTRANSCOM underwrites the lethality of the Joint Force, advances American interests around the globe, and provide our nation's leaders with strategic flexibility to select from multiple options, while creating multiple dilemmas for our adversaries.