Time and time again, Brendan Doherty has been faced with moments where he had to ask: Should I stay or should I go? Whether having to do with a lack of work fulfillment; family dynamics and questions of conviction; the conflicting values of duty and safety; or just which coast makes the most sense, these choices kept appearing. Find out how knowing when to hold ’em and knowing when to fold ’em is often the key to the long game.
Guest Brendan Doherty had entered college thinking he was a math and science person, was then drawn to government but his choice of major—geography—ultimately felt made for him when the government courses were all full. His post-college decision points, however, seemed to always weigh the balance between two weighty options. First he needed to decide whether he would stick with the favored idea of law school and not fully enjoy the work or choose a riskier unsure path. Then, when conflicting religious beliefs complicated his burgeoning relationship with a wonderful woman, he needed to decide whether they should break up or figure out a compromise. He weighed keeping a commitment to the Peace Corps with returning to a safer environment with loved ones and then whether to cut a west coast adventure short to move east or make a 5,000-mile trip to keep the California dream alive. Not always was the first choice the choice that stuck.
In this episode, find out from Brendan how sometimes just making any choice shows you, ultimately, the way to the right path…on Roads Taken with Leslie Jennings Rowley.
About This Episode’s Guest
Brendan Doherty is a Professor of Political Science at the United States Naval Academy. Fittingly for someone who was our class president for much of his time at college, he focuses his research and teaching on the U.S. presidency, campaigns, and elections. Brendan lives in the D.C. area with his wife and their two children.
Executive Producer/Host: Leslie Jennings Rowley
Music: Brian Burrows
Find more episodes at https://roadstakenshow.com
Email the show at RoadsTakenShow@gmail.com
Brendan Doherty: I'd met a wonderful woman, but things got complicated pretty quickly because we're different religions. In short she's Jewish; I'm not. And that led to all sorts of complicated family dynamics. We thought the challenges were insurmountable. So we broke up and I went to the Peace Corps in Honduras and Robin and I both realized that we'd made a terrible mistake.
Leslie Jennings Rowley: Time and time again, Brendan Doherty has been faced with moments when he's had to ask: Should I stay or should I go? Whether having to do with a lack of work fulfillment; family dynamics and questions of conviction; the conflicting values of duty and safety; or just which coast makes the most sense, these choices kept appearing. Find out how sometimes making any choice shows you, ultimately, the way to the right path...on today's ROADS TAKEN with me, Leslie Jennings Rowley.
Today, I'm here with my good friend Brendan Doherty, and we are going to talk about executive decisions and being executive and how our roads take us where we're supposed to be for better or for worse. So Brendan, it is so good to see you.
BD: Thank you, Leslie. It's really good to see you. It's really good to be on. Thank you for doing this. This podcast has been a phenomenal way to reconnect with classmates, and so I'm honored to be part of it.
LJR: Excellent. So, you know by now, I ask the same two questions of everyone and they are these when we were in college, who were you? And when we were getting ready to leave, who did you think you would become?
BD: Very good questions. And I've been thinking, cause I've been listening. And when I arrived at Dartmouth, I was very excited to be there and I had no clear plan whatsoever. I had fallen in love with the place and I felt very fortunate to have gotten in. Was thrilled to be in Hanover, but I didn't know what I wanted to study much less what I wanted to do after graduation.
In high school, I was more, I thought of myself more as a math and science person. So our first year I took calculus and physics and chemistry and biology, and those were all fine. But I found that I was much more excited about my government classes and the education class—I took Ed 20 the spring of our first year, as a lot of us did. So then I thought I would major in government. And then our sophomore year, I had trouble getting into the classes I wanted. Cause it was the biggest major. It was the most popular major. And sophomore spring, I was taking a political geography course that counted towards the government major. And then I couldn't get into a couple of government courses. I finally got into one and then I got kicked out. It was over enrolled and I hadn't taken a recommended course that wasn't required. So anyway a friend of mine, who was a geography major, pitched me on it and said, look, you can still study politics but political geography: small department professors are on a first name basis and there's a foreign study program in Prague.
LJR: Sold.
BD: Sold…exactly I just done the LSA in Mexico. And so the idea of going abroad again was very exciting. So then I became a geography major and that was great, but it didn't point me in any, you know, particularly clear direction ,as you know, well.
Junior winter for my leave term, I actually stayed in Hanover and I worked in career services and I did that because I was going on the FSP and I did a lot of student government class council stuff, and I didn't think that I could do that and be gone both for a winter leave term and then a spring FSP. So I worked in career services junior winter, and I watched the 95s go through the job hunt. And that was illuminating, but it wasn't clarifying. You know, I watched the recruiting process. I watched 95s who were looking for other plans and paths. And by the time I got to senior year, I still did not have any idea what I wanted to do. I'd always been interested in teaching. teaching. My dad was a middle school English teacher and he was great. And he was, you know, always an inspiration and a role model. And I had been, at Dartmouth I was a Spanish drill instructor, sophomore summer when they, you know, lowered the Spanish standards to be a drill instructor, cuz it was only our class on campus. So I could, I could just barely make the cut. And then I was a TA for a geography course. I always thought about teaching, but figured it would be easier to go to teaching later than it would be to start teaching than switch to something else. So senior year I did a little corporate recruiting. I applied to a couple of consulting firms. I remember I had one finalist interview and I applied to all sorts of things. I did apply to some teaching jobs. I applied to a D.C .think tank. I applied to the department of justice to the department of education. I applied to a few law firms and I ended up taking a job as a legal assistant at a big law firm in D.C. And it was fine. It didn't really, you know, feel like it wasn't something I was particularly excited about, but I'd been interested in law school and I was graduating Dartmouth with a good amount of student loans. And so I didn't wanna just go onto law school without being sure it was right, incurring all that additional debt. So then I moved to D.C. Excited to be in D.C., sort of excited to be at this law firm. Really didn't enjoy it. It was the first time in my life that I think I'd been unhappy for any sustained period of time. So…
LJR: That's actually right. If anybody knows Brendan, I bet they don't know a time when he was unhappy.
BD: Yeah. So I did it for a year. I worked on international trade cases and, and it wasn't just that I was doing the low level work. I looked at the lawyers at the top of the firm and they did not have jobs that I wished I had.
LJR: And they probably weren't happy either.
BD: Right. And they only saw their kids on weekends, if that. And I know a lot of people have found, you know, fulfilling joyful careers in corporate law, but I did not, you know, think it would be for me.
So I had told myself I could always teach, but I also realized I could always be unhappy. So I started looking at teaching jobs. And so after a year there, I talked my way into a job teaching middle school humanities and Spanish at a private school, just outside of D.C. in Silver Spring, Maryland. And I coached soccer. I advised student government. In the summers, I led Rassias programs, high school trips to Spain, which was probably the most fun I've ever had at a job. Really enjoyed it. But at the end of two years, teaching middle school, high school didn't feel like the right long term path. It was too much discipline, too much “Stop it Billy. What are you doing, Susie? Like, please be quiet, Josh.” And like, over and over and over. But still didn't know what to do.
And at the time I'd met a wonderful woman and we were dating and we were talking about maybe going abroad together, moving to Latin America, teaching English, just having some exciting experience. She worked on Capitol Hill. She was ready for something new. But things got complicated pretty quickly because we're different religions. In short she's Jewish, I'm not. And that led to all sorts of complicated family dynamics. So very long story made short: We thought the challenges were insurmountable. So we broke up. And I went to the Peace Corps in Honduras. ‘Cause I still wanted to go abroad and you know, what's better to get over a breakup than heading to Central America…
LJR: Alone in a foreign country.
BD: Yes. So I headed down there and Robin and I both realized that we'd made a terrible mistake. And we sent these like letters that crossed in the mail. Cause communication was terrible. We each sent a letter that we each got before we got the other’s letter saying essentially like, what have we done? [LJR: Oh.] Yeah.
And so I was Robin had taken a job at a startup that didn't start up, but gave her severance for a couple months, which was very fortunate. So she came down to Honduras and we realized that we wanted to make things work.
LJR: And there was your international living experience, right?
BD: Exactly. Yes. Yes. And it's great that she was part of that because it's an experience that's hard to describe, you know, unless you've seen it. So she went back to D.C. She got a new job and we tried to make it work from abroad. This was in 1999 and 2000. So the communications technology was terrible. I mean, it was, you know, letters that took weeks to arrive. We scheduled, weeks ahead of time, AOL instant message chat. We had to do it in the capital. And that was a three hour bus ride away if you, you know, splurge and paid for the, you know, the nicer bus. It was difficult. And I ended up leaving Peace Corps early after just seven months. And that was a hard decision.
It was a hard decision, but a clear decision. I was stationed in Eastern Honduras in this violent part of the country with a wild west reputation. And I kept hoping something would happen so I would just have to leave that it wouldn't, that it would, it'd be something that forced my hand. In my group of 42 Peace Corps volunteers in seven months, seven people witnessed shootings. So I mean, it was. The state was Olancho and they had all these like sayings, like “Olancho: Enter if you like, leave if you can. Olancho: Wide to enter, narrow to leave.” And so, and the low point came when I was sitting on a bridge at the end of the day, and all these workers were coming back from the fields and they were swinging machetes and they were, you know, they were their worker, their working tools. And I was hoping one of them would threaten me with a machete so I'd have a good reason to go home, you know, because I just wasn't safe. And then I realized: Look, if that's what I was thinking, I already had a good reason to go home. So I ended up leaving Peace Corps early after seven months which was, you know, tough cuz I'd made a two-year commitment, but right. And about a third of Peace Corps volunteers ended up going home early for one reason or another, so it wasn't an uncommon thing. But it still took a little bit to get there.
So I ended up back in D.C. And I still did not know what I wanted to do. So I started off…to earn money, I took a temp job with a company that did direct mail fundraising for nonprofits. So I learned all about how Doctors Without Borders, like, structures its direct mailings to raise as much money as they can, which is interesting. And then I took a job on Capitol Hill with something called the Congressional Award, which is Congress' award for youth for volunteerism. And so it's a nonpartisan organization through which members of Congress reward, honor youth for volunteerism and try to foster volunteerism.
LJR: But those sound like jobs not career…
BD: Yes. Yeah. So essentially I'd done four things in five years and I was still trying to figure it out. I kept thinking about law school, but all my schemes involved figuring out how to pay off my debts. So then I could teach law school. And then my wife's college thesis advisor was coming to town—she majored in political science. He was coming to town to give a book talk on some, not very sciencey book. It was like, Patrick Kennedy: His Rise to Power, something like that. And I thought, huh. And I looked into PhD programs and realized that you could go to a PhD program and often by working your way through, you could avoid the crippling debt that often comes with law school. So almost on a whim, I applied to PhD programs.
LJR: In..politics.
BD: In political science. I avoided geography because
LJR: There are four of them.
BD: Exactly.
LJR: And it sounded, I mean, all the things that you'd been gravitating toward anyway, kind of public service on the Hill and law and all of those things really…Yes, political geography kind of was an entree in, but it was really more grounded in the American system of what democracy means and who we are and how it works and all that stuff, right?
BD: Yes. And you, you could have written my grad school application. And so actually in the essay, I had to try to tie together, you know, all these disparate things I'd done. And the pitch I made was actually that I wanted to study immigration politics, because that was like sort of the one thing that I could weave through most, if not everything, that I'd done.
So I talked my way into a grad program out at Berkeley. And so Robin and I headed west and we got engaged then, and then headed west. And then we got married after a year out there. And it was definitely a leap of faith. Berkeley offered a masters after one year, so I figured if it didn't feel right, I could just leave. And that would be a fabulous parting gift and it would be okay. But I ended up loving it. It was, I mean, it was a program where I had to work my way through and I worked my way through with teaching research gigs. And teaching college was quite fun. I mean, you start off as a teaching assistant and then they finally let you teach your own course.
But two years in, we very briefly moved back to Hanover which is kind of a nutty story. So my…When we moved out there, Robin got a job working for Berkeley, and then she started looking at MBA programs and we wanted to stay in California so I could finish grad school out there. And we figured we'd end up back east eventually and wanted more of a California adventure, but she was waitlisted at the school she wanted to go to California and she was very excited to get into Tuck. So we waited and we waited and we said, is this wait list thing going to play out? Or should we move to New Hampshire? So finally it was time to move and the wait list was still the wait list. And so we put all our earthly possessions in the U-Haul. We put our '88 Subaru up on a four-wheels-up car carrier. Yes. And moved 3000 miles to Hanover. And the whole way we're debating what's the point of no return? Is it the continental divide? Is it the mighty Mississippi? Is it the New Hampshire state line? We get there, we signed a two year lease that an apartment out on Lyme Road. I had arranged to be a visiting, you know, researcher in the government department cause I'd finished my coursework. So I. Do my dissertation research remotely, which would been less than ideal working in a little carrel in Baker Library, you know, all alone.
LJR: Before remote was a thing really.
LJR: Before remote was a thing, but it would've worked. We got there. Both our sets of parents met us. We had a welcome back to the east coast lunch at EBAs . And then the very next day we were in Feldberg Library when Robin gets a message like welcoming her to business school back in California. And so we decided to move back, which is kind of crazy. And she would've loved to go to Tuck. It would've been amazing. But we just wanted more. It was better for my grad school to be in California. And we wanted to scratch the west coast itch, you know, more before coming back east. So we moved back and the craziest thing..
LJR: How long after did you move?
BD: So we actually moved back three weeks later, but we had a trip in there. So we were living in New Hampshire for about a week and a half. And in that week and a half, two good friends in 96 and 97 happened to get married at Moosilauke. And it was the very first time we'd been local in town for a wedding because we happened to live in Hanover for, you know, for three weeks.
LJR: And then you just drove back again.
BD: And then we drove back again. And the woman who rented us the apartment on Lyme Road, nicest woman ever. Gave us back our security deposit. And she re rented the place for say like $10 more a month. So, I mean, everyone won. So…
Two years later, Robin finishes business school and she got a job just outside of Washington, D.C. So we moved east. And at that point I was pretty far in my dissertation had a year or two left.
LJR: And had you stuck with immigration at that point? No.
BD: No, actually. So I'd switched to studying the presidency. So I had to teach and research my way through grad school and my first teaching gig was for a class on the American presidency and I loved it. And I didn't realize that, you know, I suppose I should have realized, but I hadn't really thought through the presidency as you know, my area of academic focus. So I ended up doing a dissertation on the ways sitting presidents focus on their reelection bids throughout their terms in office. And so two years later, I was pretty far along, moved to DC, cuz of course, Robin started after me and finished before me cuz that's the way PhD programs work. And we lived in DC and I started looking for academic jobs and academic jobs are such a role of the dice and there's the job market's terrible. Geography is a really difficult factor. I remember when we were at Dartmouth, there was a geography professor who had a job at Dartmouth and her husband had a job in Iowa. You know, I mean, you get all sorts of situations like that. And so after the whole Peace Corps experience, we were not willing to be separated again. So I started drawing concentric circles on a map, you know, from D.C. And ideally I wanted to be at a relatively small school with motivated students where teaching was valued, definitely inspired by my professors at Dartmouth, wanted to focus on teaching. And then I just got really lucky because the Naval Academy was hiring for someone who did just what I wanted to do, right when I happened to be on the job market. That was incredibly fortunate. They decided to hire me and I never thought of a service academy. They are, you know, very different places to teach, but wonderful places to teach, but it just hadn't been on my radar. But once I learned about it, I got very excited. Cause it's a school right about Dartmouth’s size. Like we've got, you know, just over 4,000 undergraduates.
LJR: With motivated students.
BD: Yeah. And yeah, absolutely. One of the joys of working for the federal government is that you are subject to the appropriations process. And so I was told in the fall of 2005, the Naval Academy wanted to hire me, but that they couldn't until Congress passed a full year appropriations bill. And by the time they did that in, I think it was April, I had had to look for, you know, other things just in case. And so I got a fellowship on Capitol Hill and so the Naval academy said, yes, we'd love to hire you. And yes, you can do this fellowship before you start. So I spent a year got to see Capitol Hill up close, and then in 2007, I started teaching the presidency at the Naval Academy. And I've been there ever since.
LJR: So, and that was pretty good timing to start talking about the presidency, right?
BD: It certainly was. Yeah. So I was there, you know, for the last year and a half of the Bush administration was when I started. So, and now I'm on my fourth president as I've now been there for 15 years, which is very hard to believe.
LJR: And for really interesting presidents to be thinking about your dissertation topic of sitting presidents, thinking about their reelection bids…different flavors, right?
BD: Yes. They keep giving me more data.
LJR: Yeah. More data and disparate data, but good data. And we see you every once in a while on news programs as the talking head around election time or some scurfuffle or whatever. So how, how is that part of your job? Was that anything that you would have sought out?
BD: No, I didn't see that part coming. So when I started studying the presidency, I was intimidated because it's an institution as old as the Republic. And I thought, what do I have to say about it that's new? So my approach to that has always been to get data that other people don't have, so I will have something to talk about that's new and interesting and important. So a lot of what I've done in my research, I actually just finished a book manuscript that I've been working on for years on presidential fundraising. And. I built a huge data set of not the money raised in, spent in, in campaigns, but rather the time that presidents spend fundraising. So years of painstaking, review of presidential speeches, presidential schedules, and so on to look at this as a resource allocation question: how much time president spend raising money for themselves and their fellow party members. So journalists started calling because I had data that no one else had. So not cuz I had particularly, you know, wise insights to share so
LJR: Maybe both, maybe both.
BD: Well,
LJR: All right. And so you were able to stay in that concentric circle of D.C. and Robin has had a great career too, and you've raised a family. So how have you been able to juggle all of those identities? The professor, the, and I'm sure there's service in a service academy, right? With fatherhood, spousehood. Having hobbies, if that exists in the world, I don't know.
BD: Our hobbies are pretty much parenting and, right? [LJR: Right.] And everything that comes with that. So no, it's great. And we're really lucky. We live right out of D.C., outside of D.C. Cuz my wife has always worked in or near D.C. and I can commute out to Annapolis. We…our kids are now 14 and almost 12 and they are delightful. And very energetic, you know. So I mean, just like so many parents that we’re, you know, we’re working at 6:00 AM and 10:00 PM, you know, and trying to juggle everything in the middle and do a good job at work, you know, and be there as parents and, you know, get everything done. But it's great. I mean, being a one beautiful thing about being a professor is that you, you know, you are always working like summer is not time off summer is time to research while wearing shorts and a t-shirt, you know, in my basement, which is great. But there's a lot of flexibility. So I mean, you're working at all hours, but it's definitely, when I think back to that law firm, I was at right outta college with senior partners didn't seem to see their families very much. I see my family all the time, perhaps more than my kids would like. You know, and it's just a constant juggling act, but it's great.
And we feel very lucky to, you know, to be able to juggle.
LJR: Yeah. So when you look back, B, at the 18, 19 year old Brendan who had that science and math focus and knew there would be something out there and you were to tell him this is where you'd be. What would he say?
BD: He first, would've had a lot of questions about the Naval Academy because it's a very different, you know, place where…cuz all of our students go on to be officers in the Navy or Marine Corps and they stand at attention at the start of class. And I get more respect at work than I, you know, ever will at home, you know, good morning, sir. And it's a wonderful place to teach. And I've got an army Lieutenant Colonel in an office next to me and a Navy commander in the other office next to me. So I would've had lots of questions about just what was involved, but once I'd heard the answer to those questions, I would've been really excited.
LJR: How did they let me in this club, [BD: Right!] would have been the first, among the first I'm sure.
BD: Yes, no. I mean, I always, when I was at Dartmouth I looked up to a lot of our professors, like George Demko was the professor who was my closest mentor. And he led that Prague trip that I went on and wrote a recommendation when I applied to grad school. And he was just…professors like that, who are, you know, engaged with their students, like excellent teachers in the classroom, did interesting research. Demko was fascinating. He was the former geographer of the United States and the state department. Yeah. So, and I certainly haven't done anything like that, but I think that 22 year old me, would've not been surprised that the road was not straight and that there are a lot of twists and turns. But would've been, you know, pretty excited at the news of where things have landed.
LJR: Yeah. And you were always searching for those adventures and experiences. So what would a straight road have given you, right? [BD: Yes.] Not much fun, right?
BD: Yes. I, to make myself feel better when we were at Dartmouth, I used to say that the, did the people who had such a clear plan, they didn't really have such a clear plan. They were just telling themselves that. So they would feel better, which was probably my, you know, uncertainty, you know, just playing out I'm sure a lot of them had, you know, clear plans cause they actually knew what they wanted to do, but I certainly didn't and it's, it's been a winding road taken.
LJR: Yeah. Well, as we found with many of our classmates. So thank you so much, Brendan, for sharing your winding road and we look forward to see, hopefully the presidency will remain an institution that you can talk about for many, many, many years to come. So
BD: Yes. May the presidency endure.
LJR: All right. Well, great to see you and thanks so much for being here.
BD: Great to see you. I really appreciate the chance to do this.
LJR: That was Brendan Doherty, Professor of Political Science at the United States Naval Academy. Fittingly for someone who was our class president for much of his time at college, he focuses his research and teaching on the U.S. presidency, campaigns, and elections. Brendan lives outside of D.C. with his wife and their two children.
The votes are in and this season of Roads Taken has been a hit with our listeners. With just a few episodes before we go on hiatus to celebrate the 25th-ish Reunion of the Dartmouth Class of 1996 with a Roads Taken Live show, I invite you to visit RoadsTakenShow.com to access the full archive. Leave us a note through the Contact Us link and let us know what you've enjoyed and what you've learned from our guests in these two seasons and 100 interviews...and come back next week to hear from another guest and me, Leslie Jennings Rowley on the next episode of Roads Taken.