Katherine McGrady and Igor Mikolic-Torreira

00:03 So I'm Katherine McGrady. I am 56 and today's date is the 21st of February 2017. And where in CNA Headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, and my relationship to Igor is friend and colleague.

00:23 Well, I'm a grandma clutch Carrera IM. Also 56 I never realized we were exactly the same age. Today is February 21st of 2017. And I'm also hitting the room here at CMA headquarters here in Arlington, Virginia that used to be in multiple other places in Alexandria and Arlington before and as Catherine said we are friends make meeting here at CNA years ago and work colleagues, but personal friends 2

01:00 So I always wanted to ask you a Gwar. How did you come to CNA? I never asked you that before and all these years in a very indirect way that that happens on my parents were academic. So I grew up and universities all my life and then I went to undergraduate went to graduate school when I finish graduate school. I was determined not to go to university anything that wasn't Academia and I had several job offers. And this was the one that promised to travel around the world see the World ride airplane ships and submarines and things in that was scratching my itches opposed to being in a university. I had another job offer that would have trapped me in a dark building designing the re-entry parameters for the MX Peacekeeper reentry vehicles.

02:00 Which was going to be I would have to work in a place with no windows. Never tell anybody what I was doing and that was also designing how to optimize the destruction of the world was just not very appealing to me and you so that's a good question. It's funny. We never asked each other this before we just arrived here. So I was in grad school and I I had a I had job offers like you did and at the time I was in grad school in chemistry, there were there had been a lawsuit I guess of the Equal Opportunity Employment kind of equal employment opportunity commission or whatever. It was where they have very few women in chemistry and a big Chemical Company had gotten sued for having very for not having women or something. It happened. And so you had lots of job offers in for working in a lab and I went on those interviews and it was

02:59 Hard to get to know a job offer from that type of setting but the problem is you walked into these labs and they wanted you to be a manager of the lab right away. And I remember walking into these and there have been people in those labs would work there for years and they wanted me to manage those people. I had no idea straight out of grad school how I was going to do that like you I didn't want Academia the dispenser turned off by the environment and that's too bad but it was kind of the way it was but for different reasons maybe than you and then I got a call from a friend of mine worked in the career development office at the graduate school. I went to and she said, you know come over here and interview with these guys. They're called CNA stands for the center for Naval analyses. And I know you're in your interview suit and you know, I'm a chemist right and I'm a lab chemist bench chemist on top of it. So you never had good clothes on so

03:59 Was she was she knew I was dressed up in my interview suit cuz I had another interview that day. So I went over and talked to the interviewer from CNA and it sounded like you really much more interesting than anything. I've been offered before and they wanted me to use my analytical skills, which I realized. We're much more important than any other specific knowledge of chemistry and I kind of like that idea and I'd like that it was located in Washington and I liked that they wanted me to travel a lot so that that was really appealing and then I remember I called my husband up and I said, you know, I just got an interview by this place called CNA and here's what they do and he cut me off and he said it would be great if we could work there because CNA does war games and he knew somebody here who did a lot of War Games Peter Perla. And so he said it would be great if I could, you know work there too, and I could do more games which is hot.

04:59 You rather than his academic discipline which was chemical engineering. So they interviewed him as well. So it all you know, that's how it happened that we ended up here and I kind of took it on a lark people but work the people think you were crazy for doing this. Okay. That was me to them and I thought why would you go into that area without I mean, what are you doing is a mathematician. Like I wasn't even Labs. You just went to write you didn't know see anybody thought that being outside of Academia was probably a good thing. That's weird. Yeah, that's interesting up in the war. He had not been worked at anything like that, but he been doing your nautical design and I forget which Donald Douglas you're one of the

05:59 Scott here. Do you remember those first few days? I do remember the strangest thing is, you know, I was used to Academia. Were you sleeping late? And so I was terminal. Got to get up early. So I got up very early and I report it to CNN my first day at about 7 in the morning and the only person around was the security guy whose Name Escapes Me Hayes. Oh, yeah. Hey, yeah. I was really nice at the front desk with me for a while. And I said sure so I spent my first hour or so sitting at the front desk until some of the HR folks it was

06:46 I'm trying to remember her name she was so wonderful in D Davis Cindy Davis. What are you doing here is well and and she was instrumental in serve making me feel comfortable and in a setting where it will you I wasn't very comfortable. Where you comfortable when you first got here. I made it feel familiar know. Yeah, it was all for show my desk and there was an office with the desk to know what to do. There for a while reading the EHR material about employment rules and benefits and life insurance are think I read them three or four times like what am I supposed to do with this?

07:46 Who you know what's important here? What's not important? What's a retirement plan with the I still didn't care even after they told me. How did you get your first project? I was assigned something right away actually and they brought me into work on an aviation Marine Aviation requirements study. That was my very first study and had to do with what aircraft the Marines were going to buy and I thought how can they not know this? What am I going to offer to that? Yeah, and I remember my first Teddy director was Lavar huntsinger and he said there were two studies. They sent me to that was one of them and there was a big study team and Lavar told me, you know, kind of the ins-and-outs of the study and why it was important and then I remember thinking boy. I hope I can help on this but I remembered that whole thing about it wasn't my knowledge of

08:46 Chemistry that was going to help us or just a very analytical way of thinking and my first study was it was that study and then the particular part of it that I had to look at was closer support for the Marines and how they should think about that going forward. And so I remembered I did a piece of analysis on how close air support had been used by the Israelis during the 8th day war and I remember I had to find all this information about it was headed did quite a bit to find it but it was really fun when I found it. I was like, oh here it is get out and try to reconstruct it from the information I had and so I remember I did that study and I remember Phil deploy whose it was the president of CNA at the time after the study of been published. He called me up and at that in those days you could tell who is calling as long as it was an internal call so that my phone rang and it was

09:46 All the poor and I thought what did I do wrong? And I remember I stood up in my office to pick up the phone because it was felt like now and easy somebody stand up for but I remember but he said I really needed this piece of analysis on closer support and thank you for doing it because I didn't realize we've done something like this and I could just pull from your study exactly what I needed and I was like, oh good that's good. But the other study that I did had to do with my academic background which had to it was on composite materials and aircraft battle damage repair and that was close to what I done as a postdoc actually and so all of a sudden I was sort of pulled back into that world again, and I thought well, how do I make sense of the world? I know so well, it was a good example of knowing too much about something and having to translate it and it told me that it was better not to have to get back into

10:46 Or old field of study because then you were serve getting down into the dirty details of it. And what I really needed to do was focus on what it meant for the fleet how they were going to repair composite base aircraft from battle damaged, right? So, how do you do that in a setting on a carrier? I got to ride the carrier for about him about 6 weeks to try to figure out how they were going to do this and we had many failures of materials that broke cuz they didn't do it right and materials that you know stood withstood the test that they had to do. So, how about you? What was your first you remember your first study? Cuz it was very weird. No. I mean I was working for Ralph passarelli in the anti-submarine Warfare group and within about a month ago you give me some stuff to just go read and think about and within the first month one day comes to my are called me to his office and he tells me that the submarine command up in

11:46 London that one of the guys there is called them up and said he wanted help and I said what do you want help us in Ralph's it? I'm not really sure just go up and figure it out find out what the problem is and see what you can do. And so he just sent me up there. There was a field rep there at the time and I'm fortunate with age. My my it was Todd O'Neill and Tom O'Neill over we overlap for few hours before we left. I got there one afternoon. He said you introduced me around said he was sort of generally what the problem is, but they'll tell you more go think about it and work with him. So I spent the whole week there and we were able to with Tom's help after it's turned into a into a project and out of that came my first submarine ride a couple months later. So when underwater to started actually see the stuff work or not work if the case was

12:46 The hell I mean what's that feeling of being underwater? Actually, you're busy. So it's like being inside any other building except the Creeks a little bit as they changed up the creeks and the CEO. Last remember was was was commander Johnson was a great guy and knew I was new and so it was very nice to me, but they did a demo. So is there coming out of the harbor the others are on the surface? They tied a cord across the diameter of the boat and was taught you could strum it then we went out they went the Angles and dangles. Do they take the submarine all the way down to its limiting death and then back up every time we went down. Let me think that there was a 4-inch sag in the cord because the whole submarine compressed memory came back up to Periscope depth. It was taunting and you could strum it like a guitar.

13:39 So was then as you did that as a lot of creaking and you understood the physics behind it, how did it make you feel?

13:50 Sorry Ed. The thing it was weird was the schedule they live 18-hour days, right? They have 3 watch sections of 6 hours each and so they rotate through and because it wasn't 24-hour day the mule State on the 24 hour day for meals you only knew when you woke up what time it was right? I do it I'm getting up and they're serving steak. It must be dinner time. Not for me. I had my own little rack, but the enlisted guys with hot Punk.

14:24 Analyst struck me is as when I watched it on the carrier's way. They sometimes did the same thing and certain compartments. They would do the same thing. Compartments. I don't know parts of the boat and the ship and I noticed it to that. I was that do I don't know if I want a hot body but it is what it is worth mentioning on that boat. They still had the old sub rocks the nuclear launch missiles that end in the bedroom down in the in the torpedo room. And so I thought that was the closest. I've actually managed to be to a nuclear weapon cuz you had to go right up next to him when he brings her clothes over to a New Girl episode Where was Observe this but were you ever did you ever have that feeling of hit? There it is.

15:26 Mosquito really wrong

15:30 Not really, but you know what, this is something I wanted to ask you cuz I didn't worry was the factors that I had never planned to stay at Sea in a long time. I thought it'd be fun place to be for 5 hours for field you're now the president. But when you first came were you planning to make it a career planning? Its orbit right up for a while? I think I thought that I would stay with I not for as long as I wouldn't become what I've become that wasn't it? I didn't think of that at all. But I I had actually thought it'd be so cool to go to the field at various times in my career at CNA and I realized only in recent years how you know, I'm pretty loyal to organizations. So that was important. I thought seeing his mission was really cool.

16:27 And I thought so why I thought that I would stay I didn't think I would necessarily go off and do something else but I didn't think I would end up in management. I didn't I thought I was going to have another field torrent there A lot of times when I think about that sort of wistfully like I had thought, you know, eventually as you know had a child and I thought I would be great if she could go to school in a foreign country or in another place other than Washington DC and you know, it took me even at that point when I had her I was a management and or right after I had her I ended up in a match with job and I thought you know

17:08 I'm not going to get a chance to do this. What was I thinking and how come I'm still thinking that that's even a possibility so it took me a long time to get to a point where I realized. It wasn't in the realm of possibility anymore. But I did think about being a CNA for a long time cuz it felt like I was doing such a different things and it didn't feel like I was at the same place all the time. I had too many different kinds of opportunities so you can actually you took a leave of absence at one point, but I never asked you what you did the set of Ford was simply the the two years of 6 week which were by far my funnest fuel tour will also my most exhausting kill 20 was really

18:00 In those two years I was there if that's where all the seats at the counters and stuff was going on at the time. Right? We did we did Renditions if I was the only they weren't call Renditions at the time but we were about that kind of stuff with the strikes on Libya from an analyst point of view is really exciting. But from a work point of view. What was just just threw it so I had a I took a year off and all I kept was a backpack of clothes and an umbrella.

18:32 Cameron stuff like that and I first went where I've never been with his up in Scandinavia. So I went up to pretty far up in Norway to narvik and that whole area there and just kept wondering I took her to wake up and what do I want and it is there something to see where I am today, or if not to swear to keep going. Sometimes it by sometime to Train sometimes just hike or a fairy. So went up there went across the wind across the the northern part of Norway and Sweden what time of year it was?

19:16 October November has a cold and dark up the mountains on the Fjord till it made all they just wind up the mountains doing Switchback switch for Trane is pretty amazing. But then it took a long ride across that northern part of Norway and Sweden to eventually hit the northern part of the Baltic. That was all just you looked out the windows at the train and it was just flat snow with no end to meet so and then I just went back south.

19:57 My friends I had spent time in Germany and France went England and stayed with a friend who was a mathematician. He's going to a grad student and he work for gchq the the British NSA and he ended up disgusted with it and quit and became a farmer and so I stayed at the beautiful on Stone House that they had was colder than that cuz they only had a fireplace where it went into the house. And yeah, it was it was really it was so cold the bathroom was all the way on the opposite end of the house from fireplace which meant in at night. It got really cold in the bathroom. So in the morning Philippa Bruce's wife with service salty, it was awful. It was cheap back to our, that we don't like tea but that's what they served high and we would all drink tea and I quickly learned that the competition was who could no longer hold it and would have to

20:57 Use the bathroom and would warm up the feet.

21:04 I mention this because I he I stayed there for about a month and I helped them by delivering firewood in the winter. He delivered firewood a week split wood for hours in the morning. And then I drive a truck on the wrong side of the road that had to be double clutch to deliver firewood Serta paid for my keep but I delivered firewood to Ben Kingsley tips. Very nice.

21:35 But then eventually ended up traveling all the way got to Egypt tried to follow the Nile. They were having the war there continue to have a war then sedan. So I had actually a fly flew into

21:51 Foodtown to Kenya and spend time in Kenya and Tanzania. I really did. Haha. I was still Desert Storm and just started watch Desert Shield it started the time and then Desert Storm there all the time and I sort of part of me for long time felt guilty. That who I should be back at work helping but by the time I made it to Egypt, I I just really didn't care Somali Peter's used to go in on ships and planes and submarines but not not in the dirt was actually to Desert Shield and Desert Storm. And and so it's interesting. I do remember that. That was right around the time when I first remember hearing about you and the fact that you were gone on this journey.

22:51 Where was and I thought I'd like to meet up at some point. But but the yeah the idea of trying to have somebody deploy that wasn't on the ship and wasn't on a sub but was on the ground is was kind of hadn't been done in a long time. And so there are a lot of questions about you know, what that's like and I remember I know you asked me about Somalia, but one thing about Desert Shield Desert Storm. I remember I was field rats were supposed to write these letters and it's supposed to be once a month and I remember thinking

23:34 When I got on the ground in to bail, there was no mail, right and there was no way that I was going to be able to write something and there was this insistence that I I I write something and I remember thinking how am I going to get it to these people? I can't ask somebody put this in the mail. It's just it's in Saudi Arabia. There's no way so it was really, you know, I've had that experience. I think a lot of reps have had where somebody on the other end really doesn't know what's going on and the situation you're in but the fact that they didn't write those letters. You're stuck with me my whole career have to say to people sometimes but you should really write the letters cuz otherwise they're going to fuss at you, but

24:23 The purpose of the letters was to tell people back here what you were doing analytically and there was always a human interest story there at a plenty of those but the other problem is I can't figure out how to get a classified thing back to CNA because everything we were doing at the time was classified. So anything I would describe plans that kind of thing. I can't really describe this. So that was that was a little tough and that was kind of a weird experience. But and then obviously they needed to know to your question about you know, what was it like to be on the ground so that we have some context for this and I'm like, I can't even tell you what I'm working on. So I think now it's gotten a lot better there have been more people. But Somalia is so with the difference between Desert Shield Desert Storm, and then Somalia was

25:13 Desert Shield Desert Storm, there was like there was a big deployment there is you know, it was it was they were going to deploy me now and large groups of people were moving over to the Middle East and they are setting up camps and there was a, you know, a defined camp in a defined for line of battle and there was a you know, there was a border, you know is Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and Iraq and you know, see you had all of that clear lines. That's what I know as I think about it that way everything was just so clear and in Somalia there was none of that there was nothing was clear. So I remember and Desert Shield Desert Storm, you know the support to the troupe since the forces that were there was relatively well to find, you know, they'd set up maybe you'd have MREs for a few days or something like that. But you know that everything was pretty well to find

26:13 I knew how to act like move supplies at what was one of things I worked out but you know in order to get food and all you know, where it needed to be. It was very clear how to do that and where they needed to go but in Somalia when we first got there, it was pretty early on and and and I remember I there wasn't much there and they had what the marines called slit trenches at the time and that was the bathroom. And and so they did a pretty good job of then constructing outhouses. Basically that were barrels to graphic but you asked and that's what it was like and so if there was a woman going if it weren't very many women there and if there was a woman using either the slit trench or the outhouses at the time they say they took her to borrow other people from using the bathroom.

27:13 Set the same time right? That was what that's kind of how they managed it. And so there were so few of us that you know, it wasn't that hard to do and it didn't I don't know. I don't remember. I realize it's a big deal. It sounds strange to be one a few women, but it didn't feel that way just because of the people that we were working with another Marines knew I knew the group that I was with when I deployed deployed with a lot of those same people for Desert Shield Desert Storm. And so these were my friends right? So it didn't feel like I was so alone and isolated and I knew them well enough to express frustration or you know, or you know feeling like I was in a fishbowl cuz they were so few women, but I guess you know, it could have been a lot worse if I'd been if I didn't know the people and I really felt like I knew people there and but eventually the whole situation

28:13 Got a lot better and the food got better. We had at we had a porta johns at one point. And so that was good. And then I remember you take a bath with a liter bottle of water because there wasn't really any facility to take a shower in and so you don't believe her bottle over your head and then maybe take another piece of yourself up and take on another liter bottle and dump it over your head and I thought well, I feel pretty clean, you know, so I remember we had a meeting and I with one of the ngos nongovernmental organizations over there and it was in no a house actually that this group had taken over and there was a bathtub there and I didn't know it at the time but this woman friends with handed me a towel and a thing of soap and she said, you know, if you'd like to use the bathtub it's right up there and I'll block the door. Don't worry, you know, and so I did and I remember looking down. I took advantage of that. Well, why not?

29:13 And remember looking down in the bathtub and thinking wow, there's a lot of dirt on me because it was all in the back of that boy. So really I wouldn't recommend 2 liter bottles for bathing because it really doesn't do the job. But eventually they had, you know, much more normal facilities and it all kind of got straightened out after while and the best thing about you know, they had these in the food was fine and you really learn what it's like to be really hungry you'll eat anything and I remember the Italians were there and they brought their bread baking susilo days. So they would bring over loaves of bread from Vat19 getting there in time for a loaf of or a piece of Italian bread was just everything so

30:01 It was amazing. So what was you said that you were exhausted at the 6th Fleet bill at that you had so what was I know that I think I know that feeling of being exhausted but finding the work really interesting say can you say a little bit more about what you did at 6 play and what made it so interesting the staff. I came to that staff after having been in the Mediterranean by upon a long time. I've been at the ASW commands then I'd spent 18 months on the carrier billets by just playing with little what you described. I already had known for meetings and other or interactions with the most everybody on the staff and at that point, I've been in the med longer than anyone else on the staff. So I knew where all the skeletons worship speak which meant that they brought me into everything. I was in on on Ground Zero for planning.

31:01 Five five various operations. We did we were very focused on Lebanon stuff and a lot of that had to do with with we're with hostages and was there an opportunity to mount a rescue or something like that? And so there was some neat math problems of localizing things and make a lot of probability computation of what are the odds that we will know when enough of them are at any one time simultaneously things like that.

31:32 We were we we planned a lot of Tomahawk usage and ended up being used in Desert Storm, but we certainly had a whole bunch of we came very close to using it either Libya or Lebanon Syria kind of problems. So working out the bugs of that was sort of funny. Cuz at one point we had to do is eliminate what doesn't come on cuz I'm fly. Well, especially in hot are there was a limitation on what the temperature could be. And the problem is we had a we had a sea level temperature needed temperature at about 5000 ft and the documents all said well extrapolate the temperature down tattooed and I scratch my head and I scratch see the weather guy on the staff was also PhD and we both said well, do you extrapolate a tea bag? We are not adiabatic lie, and you couldn't figure it out. And so when we back in. There was no email so we had to write up form Old Navy.

32:32 Message back saying should be extrapolated 80 bad if you're not adiabatic Lee and the day later we got can you explain your question which showed that nobody really knew what they were talking about back home. They got so bad that it one point. I got flown with the chief of staff to London and I was told ya there the 4th Star they had arranged a brief buy a tomahawk expert and I was retired. So I just was on this little was a nice little Learjet kind of thing and I'm going to catch some z's and I asked the chief of staff. So who the heck is going to be talkin about tomahawk?

33:14 Andy says oh well, you're busy when I have time to tell you you are and he handed me a stack of blank transparent season a marker pens that go make your slides. So we didn't get any answers. I was able to ask all the questions but nobody was able to actually answer stuff back in those days cuz nobody really thought it through actually try to use it. I mean, it's eventually going to be a long time. So that was a lot of fun carrying all this time and we spent at one point like 5 days straight where needed of us left there's always stuff to do but it was stuff that they're going to turn around and use right away. So it was exciting. That's what I found. So rewarding about the whole field experience. It was stuff that they do use right away and you'd sort of take did you have this experience that I've had?

34:14 Where you where you may want to use it right away. You start take this deep breath in to say okay and you do but you're not listening. Did you have that experience? I had an extremely scary version of that because an admiral had this question about jamming and data links and I don't know the answer. It said we'll look here's how you could try to test this you do this kind of thing. And this was over a meal in in the wardroom and about five minutes after the meal. I get called to his office and there's a bunch of the guy says, okay you have you know for airplanes and three ships for this afternoon. What do we do? I knew it it was choreographing catastrophe planes and ships fall moving to do this.

35:06 I managed to get it postponed until the next afternoon. She had time to get our ducks in a row, but it was it was it was just an idea wasn't actually get to the movement of planes and ships around here.

35:29 Is your proudest moment at CNA?

35:32 Boy, that's a hard question. What's the moment where you thought what you were doing is quintessential CNA. Maybe it was the test. I don't know but you know, it's sort of like it all comes together in your like this is what Santa is all about. The one I would say, there's one I really think I can talk about that when I went to this day, but there is one where we're trying to go over the horizon targeting and everybody was trying to remember I'm at sixes and Foxy and all that and we finally I finally realized that we had real-time sensors the E to write you could do you spot so he's all these over ice in Target things that weren't accurate the store to get a rough idea where people were but the E2 had enough range that all our weapons were within its range. So I had to do is someone was turn it on rotate the

36:32 A couple times and paint it and that you could rely back really quickly by Beta links and when I sat down and walk the ammo on the off so through it they sort of stared at me for a while. Now. I'm 70 said of course and we just simply stop trying to make those old systems work and realized it back to targeting work for a while first ship now ship-to-ship stop. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and I mean it just change the way at least Six Flags thought about leaving characterizes a lot of what we do when I hear stories from other people. What about you? So mine was I too have a couple of instances some I still can't talk about that. There is one that's brought together the field experience. So I was asked when I came back from the field to work on a study that had to do with how the Marine Corps was going to organize themselves, which doesn't sound very interesting it.

37:32 First but it really was for me if brought together all of my field experience. And so the study was like I said about organized and you know how the Marine Corps should organized to accomplish a particular function and they hadn't been organized that way before and so the question was how should they organized and the thing that I felt we really came together was result was a really squishy problem. How should they organize do this function? And then the second thing what about it was that I realized that the experience I had in the field was going to inform how they should organize and that was most important cuz if they didn't keep that in mind how they're going to work, you know how we affect this could have on operations. There was no sense in organizing any one way or the other that the driver should be how they're going to affect these operations. So that was great to pull all that together and then the moment

38:32 I realized that was doing another study right afterwards. We went out to talk to some of the Marines in Japan and some of them started talking about this particular issue of how the Marines at organized but they didn't realize that I had done the study and I was with somebody who said how come you didn't say anything when they were talking about that and I said because I wanted to hear what they had to say about how it was being organized because at the end of the day, that's what matters right wasn't that I had done the study. It's how they interpreted it and what they thought about it and that was where I was like, oh, that's why this is so important. So that was my moment that I'm probably most proudest of so anyway, that's that's mine know. We're been enough time and understand we're running out. So thanks for inviting me to do this. Thanks for coming here to do it. I so appreciate it, and I think this is important to hear these stories. So I'm so glad you were willing to do it. Thank you.

39:32 Really fun. We should continue even after this trip for gas exactly. I agree. Thank you.