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Pete Gerdeman

For someone with wanderlust—professional or personal—MITRE offers golden opportunities. It's a matter of asking. The corporation has 60 sites around the world and a continually evolving work program.

A visitor to Pete Gerdeman's office can't help noticing the nameplate outside his door: behind his name, there's a photographic view of New Zealand's Lake Tekapo.

It's a clue. For a man so eager for changes of scenery, MITRE has been the right place for nearly 17 years, because he also likes changes in his professional life. Today Gerdeman is the department manager for Telecommunications Systems Engineering in the Washington Command, Control, and Communications Center (WC3). But before this recent posting, he worked at six different MITRE sites and was in charge of three of them. His projects have involved the Army, Navy, Air Force, and intelligence agencies. Then he went on an eight-month sabbatical to New Zealand.

Opening Doors

Chalk it up to serendipity, or "fortuitous timing," as Gerdeman puts it. After serving in the Navy and then running his own engineering firm, he joined MITRE in 1988.

He was enjoying his MITRE work with the Air Force in San Antonio when a want ad caught his eye: MITRE was looking for a site leader in London, supporting U.S. Navy forces in Europe. He got the job. His 5-1/2 years there were "probably the longest I've ever been anywhere," he says. But new doors kept opening for Gerdeman, leading him to yet other places at MITRE.

First was a move back to San Antonio, then on to Washington, D.C., to become the first site leader at Bolling Air Force Base. From there, he accepted an opportunity at Ft. Monmouth, N.J., where he became a department head. But after two years of commuting from Washington, he wanted to be closer to home while his kids finished high school.

"There's another thing within MITRE that I think is true," says Gerdeman: "Ask and you shall receive." Asking around, he learned of an opening as department head and site leader at the Navy's National Maritime Intelligence Center.

New Zealand landscape

Sabbatical

Then, at the 15-year mark with MITRE, the idea of a New Zealand sabbatical arose when Gerdeman says "several vectors came together at once," including: He was ready for another change; his wife Betsy was on the cusp of her own major career change; they had an "empty nest" with children no longer home; and his sister-in-law had a vacation house outside Auckland that would be vacant for a year.

MITRE's sabbatical leave program allows employees to take eight weeks, and sometimes up to five months, of unpaid leave for relaxation, education, or other pursuits. The company continues subsidizing insurance benefits and promises job reinstatement on return. But because Gerdeman wanted to be away for eight months, there was no guarantee of reinstatement; he would have to re-interview to come back.

Pete and Betsy braved the strange looks from people—including their own children—who wondered whether they were crazy to leave their jobs and sell their home, vehicles, and half their belongings. How would this chapter end?

Two pieces of heaven

Sheep grazing

Heaven is the word Gerdeman uses for both the sabbatical in New Zealand and the job he found when he returned. "Being down there was probably the closest one could get to heaven on earth," he says, meaning not New Zealand, but the situation. There were books to read on the beach, many excursions, and—once again, fortuitous—encounters with people, including one who invited him to teach at the University of Auckland. They existed on "island time," unscheduled and spontaneous.

Gerdeman came back feeling changed. "Some of it was relaxing, almost spiritual," he says. "It allowed me to reprioritize a couple of things. But not all of it's been easy." Having sold their house, they were faced with the stress of deciding where to live. He also had to find a new position within MITRE. "It was a huge adjustment," he says.

Then he found his current position. "I've been lucky," says Gerdeman. He likes change, and has been able to indulge that desire within MITRE. On the other hand many MITRE employees stay on the same project and in the same location for years. "Why not? Whatever makes you happy. And change makes me happy. I might be slowing down, because I am real happy where I am now... I'm probably professionally in heaven."

—by Shari Dwyer