We explore Pat’s journey, rooted in strong family influence and an innate drive to pursue her goals without hesitation. Pat opens up about her path to self-discovery, shaped by a deep sense of self-awareness and an unrelenting competitive edge that pushes her to rise above every challenge she faces. Pat highlights the value of thoughtful observation—knowing when to pause, evaluate, and listen before speaking or acting. Whether you're navigating a career pivot or working to better understand your own capabilities, Pat’s insights will inspire you to think more deeply about identity, preparation, and how to effectively translate your existing skills into new opportunities. She encourages others to research what’s required for the next role, embrace continual learning, and take bold steps toward their goals with clarity and confidence. https://www.linkedin.com/in/patsmth/ https://www.oracle.com/veterans/ ----------------------------------------------------------------- Episode Transcript: 00;00;00;00 - 00;00;33;04 Unknown You're listening to the Oracle Maven podcast, where we bring people together from the veteran affiliated community to highlight employees, partners, organizations and those who are continuing the mission to serve. Welcome to the Maven podcast. I'm your host, Chris Spencer, and in this episode I'm joined by Pat Smith, Oracle principal security engineer and Army veteran, where we explore Pat's journey rooted in strong family influence and an innate drive to pursue her goals without hesitation. 00;00;33;08 - 00;00;56;28 Unknown Pat opens up about her path to self-discovery. Shaped by a deep sense of self-awareness and unrelenting competitive edge that pushes her to rise above every challenge she faces. Grounded in possibility and resilience, Pat highlights the value of thoughtful observation, knowing when to pause, evaluate, and listen before speaking or acting. Her ability to take on tough, high stakes tasks reflects a rare combination of courage, adaptability and solution oriented thinking. 00;00;56;28 - 00;01;18;07 Unknown Pat doesn't shy away from discomfort. Instead, she leans into it, earning the trust of those around her by demonstrating competence, reliability, and strong commitment to results. Whether you're navigating a career pivot or working to better understand your own capabilities, Pat's insights will inspire you to think more deeply about identity, preparation and how to effectively translate your existing skills into new opportunities. 00;01;18;07 - 00;01;36;11 Unknown She encourages others to research what's required for the next role, embrace continual learning and take bold steps towards their goals with clarity and confidence. This episode is a must listen for anyone who wants to lead with purpose, grow through challenge and be recognized as someone who delivers real impact. We have all we need to become the person we want to be. 00;01;36;11 - 00;01;55;16 Unknown Let's remember how to connect with others with sincerity and genuine intent as we continue the mission to serve. Thanks for listening. We hope you enjoyed this episode, and please remember to check in on your buddies and family. Pat's contact details are in the podcast description and you can always find me on LinkedIn. Good morning Pat. How's it going? 00;01;55;18 - 00;02;16;24 Unknown Good morning. Going great. How about yourself? I'm doing all right. Thanks. Happy Monday. So funny thing, people say that. What do you think people say? Happy Monday. I don't know, because Monday everybody usually dreaded after the weekend. Right. Yeah. They want their weekend to be a little longer. A little bit longer. Yeah. So. So we talk about the weekends and coming to work. 00;02;16;25 - 00;02;48;01 Unknown You know we're going to talk a little bit about you and then what you do. And before we started recording for everybody out there, I asked Pat how it was going. And I guess the Monday already started. So there's a lot of a lot of things going on already. And it's interesting if you, as you hear Pat talk about her, not only your experiences here at Oracle, what she does, and you probably understand how things keep moving and, what we do for our customers and for the for the company and supporting the effort of what whatever the collective organizations do. 00;02;48;03 - 00;03;07;17 Unknown It'll be clear. So. But before we get into all of that, Pat, would you tell us a little bit about Pat? Good morning everyone. My name is Pat Smith. I've been an Oracle roughly three years. I am former military Army go Army storm. I served in the Army and an army reserve as well. I went to Germany. 00;03;07;18 - 00;03;30;03 Unknown I'm in a different places. I ended up deploying to Southwest Asia as well. And, once I got out of the military, I started working for the Department of Defense. I work for DoD. I've, been a member of Homeland Security for. I work for U.S. cert, and I also work for the, FBI. Before ...