Chris Cortez: ‘They’re serving you. And you need to serve them.’
When Chris Cortez retired from the Marine Corps after 33 years in uniform, he emerged with a robust resume seemingly guaranteed to grab the attention – if not the hearts – of civilian hiring managers.
He was a two-star general. He’d led the recruiting of more than 75,000 men and women into the Marines. He’d supervised operations for 300,000 military personnel across what today is known as the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.
And during the Gulf War, Cortez served as battalion commander of 1st Battalion, 5th Marines. His unit was assigned to Task Force Ripper, which played a significant role in the conflict, navigating challenging conditions and contributing to the capture of many surrendering soldiers.
During its brisk push to Kuwait City in 1991, Task Force Ripper retook Kuwait’s Al Jaber Air Base and helped liberate the country, effectively ending the war.
Again: A jam-packed resume.
But when Cortez retired from the Marines and entered the job market in 2004, the retired general “interviewed with lots of companies – and got turned down a lot of times,” he recalls.
He was 55 years old and had stepped into a fraught period familiar to many veterans – the challenging, sometimes isolating transition from military life to civilian life. After spending years on close-knit military teams with steady orders to follow, new veterans often feel alone, a bit lost without daily instructions for navigating the civilian world and unsure how to find meaningful work.
“With few exceptions, people who are leaving the military go through this process, this trepidation: How am I going to transfer what I did in the military to a civilian occupation? Will civilians understand my military accomplishments?” Cortez says.
“It’s tough. It’s scary. You’re thinking, ‘What am I going to do? Where am I going to work?’ It’s a very human feeling to go through when you’re leaving the miliary.”
In 2006, he landed his first non-military career role – at Microsoft. He was the lead strategist and spokesperson for the Worldwide Public Sector Government Industry team. He focused on public services, national security, public safety and other government-related areas.
Soon, he met a fellow veteran in Microsoft’s human resources department. They shared a common calling that eventually became a shared mission: “Doing everything possible to help people who had served in the military,” Cortez recalls.
“Over time, we brought in a couple of other veterans (at Microsoft) and our theme was: What opportunities are there for people who served in the military and who now want to get into the technology industry?” says Cortez, now Microsoft’s vice president of military affairs.
“And the answer was: None. There were no opportunities. So we asked ourselves: What could possibly be done about that? What could we do at Microsoft?”
Those were the first embers of the program that Cortez would ultimately help create and lead – the Microsoft Software and Systems Academy, or MSSA. It was launched in 2013 as a pilot program at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state.
The full-time, 17-week technical training program – now fully virtual – incorporates live instruction, hands-on virtual labs, real-life application scenarios and opportunities to obtain industry-recognized certifications to prepare participants for tech jobs in any industry.
Eleven years later, Cortez continues to manage MSSA with the same style and look he took with him from the Marines. His wiry frame, tidy attire and short hair make him look like he could step right back into uniform. In meetings, he is firm, direct, no-nonsense. At work, Microsoft colleagues just call the retired general “Chris.”
His conversations and interactions tend to carry a similar sense of urgency – a byproduct of his fierce loyalty to other veterans.
Part of that commitment is rooted in the reputation Cortez forged in war. He was a two-star general known for looking after his Marines on the battlefield.
A quick anecdote: In 1990, not long after Cortez’ battalion was deployed ahead of the Gulf War, he spotted several Marines digging a foxhole.
“All I wanted to say to them was, ‘What can I do for you? What do you need to do your job as best as you can?’” Cortez said in a 2015 blog post. “These young warriors weren’t concerned about food or anything else. They were focused on their mission. And that, to me, speaks to the amazing young people who serve our country.”
“You have this sense of duty to take care of those under your charge,” he explained further in an interview for this story. “You have to train them. You have to equip them. You have to ensure their welfare. They’re serving you. And you need to serve them.”
But if we’re telling the full story, that’s also just how Cortez was raised.
He is the son of immigrants from Spain. In northern California, his father picked fruit and taught his son about the worth of self-discipline. At home, his mother, unable to read or write, nonetheless shared lessons about the virtue of hard work.
Cortez came of age, he says, “with those values imprinted on my soul.” They continue to fuel his mission to help veterans.
“I grew up in a family that was pretty poor,” he says. “We worked at a very young age. We learned respect. We learned that all people should be valued equally.”