Former CEO ARMA Global & ARCTOS | Ranger | Armor Officer | James Fugit

About This Episode
======== Join our weekly Combat Check-In Newsletter (www.combatstory.com/newsletter) to get a short email from Ryan for people who love and support our veterans, service members, and their families. It has info on a significant event in military and/or intel history, a funny military joke, an update on a current event I'm following, something I'm doing that week in my life, a book I'm reading, a look at an upcoming interview, a reflection on a past episode and more!
Join our weekly Combat Check-In Newsletter (www.combatstory.com/newsletter) to get a short email from Ryan for people who love and support our veterans, service members, and their families. It has info on a significant event in military and/or intel history, a funny military joke, an update on a current event I'm following, something I'm doing that week in my life, a book I'm reading, a look at an upcoming interview, a reflection on a past episode and more!
Today we get a slightly different Combat Story where we still hear from a veteran, but this time in terms of overcoming challenges to succeed in business, in addition to their military experience.
For this first Combat Story: Business Edition of, we hear from James Fugit, my brother and a very successful businessman who sold two companies in the defense space providing aviation, intelligence, IT, training, and equipment (in many cases delivering Soviet era helicopter parts and ammunition to various countries while supporting our efforts in Afghanistan). This took him all over the world with many meetings and partners in Russia, Ukraine, Afghanistan, and more. It’s like a real life and legitimate Dogs of War if you’ve seen the movie.
James co-founded ARMA Global Corporation, which provided information technology, engineering, and technical support to defense and government customers, and helped build it from a handful of employees in 2008 to over 800 employees in 2014 when it was sold to General Dynamics Information Technology. He also co-founded and served as CEO of ARMA Aviation Corporation, which provided logistics, supply chain management, maintenance-repair- overhaul (MRO), and training and mentoring to the US government and its allies, which merged with another company called ARCTOS in 2019.
In the military, James was an Army Armor officer and we delve into how his time in the Army helped shape his business acumen and leadership skills, including going through Ranger school at the same time eight trainees died of hypothermia.
As you can imagine, this was a special interview for me given that James is my older brother and someone I’ve looked up to my whole life so getting to dig into some of the bigger decisions and challenges he overcame meant a lot to me personally and I hope you enjoy this first ever business edition of Combat Story as much as I did.
Show Notes:
James Fugit
Chapters
- 0:00Intro
- 0:59Guest Introduction (James Fugit)
- 02:35Interview begins
- 04:16The biggest success
- 06:22ARMA Global history
- 11:07Childhood
- 13:15Boarding school and path to being successful
- 18:52Want to join the Military
- 19:594Patriots
- 21:18JMU and the Military
- 28:25Hypothermia at Ranger school incident and impact
- 30:38Time in the Army
- 39:18from the Army to ARMA
- 47:01Meeting Todd and taking risks
- 51:53Building the team
- 01:01:18Milestones of success
- 01:07:12Working with Russia
- 01:10:57Key players
- 01:12:55Surreal moments
- 01:15:29Military training to business success
- 01:19:58What's next
- 01:20:30Listener comments and shout outs


