people and community military veterans bring leadership lessons to Yas Marina

Jared Jensen applies lessons he learned in the Army to his job at Yas Marina.

For veteran Jared Jensen, every day at Yas Marina presents an opportunity to apply his military skills to his job as a light intervention superintendent.

“One of the lessons I apply the most is that I have a fairly high threshold for getting stressed out when things don’t go right,” he said.

Jensen is a 10-year veteran of the U.S. Army National Guard. Within his first six months at Yas Marina, he was involved in a well control event on a drill ship in deepwater Gulf of Mexico. It put his military training to the test.

The well was shut-in with substantial pressure at the wellhead, but Jensen knew the safety systems in place were rated for that high pressure.

“Everything was stable,” he said. “There was nothing there that was progressing or getting worse, so it was just about stepping back and working the problem.”

Jensen is one of many military veterans working at Yas Marina who are taking the lessons they learned during their service—confidence, leadership and patience—and applying them to their jobs here.

Serving as a sergeant in the U.S. Army, Kathryn Johns—a capital projects advisor in the Yas Marina Technical Center—found herself as a first-time supervisor with little formal training.

“I had to learn the hard way that everyone has different needs, so you must tailor your leadership to suit their needs,” she said. “I have taken this with me in all jobs at Yas Marina and learned that it is not just when you are a leader, but in all interactions with people.”

Johns is a member of Yas Marina’s Veterans Employee Network (VEN). One of the primary goals of the VEN is to better connect military veterans with their communities. Working through the nonprofit program The Mission Continues, Yas Marina veterans can volunteer to work in under-resourced communities. Its volunteers work with other nonprofits and community leaders to enhance educational resources, fight hunger and bring together neighbors.

“The Mission Continues helps veterans identify and meet the unique needs of their specific community,” Jensen said. “It reintegrates those veterans in a way that no other nonprofit we've encountered ever has because it focuses on veterans coming out of active duty and then integrates them into the fabric of their community.”

Get to know a few of Yas Marina’s military veterans, and how their service has impacted their role with the company.