l s time to sail into lhe rest of four life, This sailing exercise will probably

be unlike any you have ever experienced during your military career.

Iwhether you served for 2 years or 20, yon have beett a member of the

Navy Marine Corps, or Coast Guard family, As you prepa~ to

transition, you [] be comforted knowing your military family is doing all it

can to ensulx you have a successful career move. As we outline in Chapter

4, your respective service provides several high~luality transition program~

that you ll want to take advantage of prior to leaving the Service.

This book is intended to serve a_s a self-directed guido that will steer you

through each phaxe of the career transition process. Tile beginning chapters

are focused on self-assessment and assist the reader in identifying well-

formed career goals and objectives. The middle chapters address the outs-

and-bolts of a job search-conducting research, writing resumes anti cover

letters networldng, interviewing, and negotiating salad. The final chapters

examine special career and lifestyle concerns of interest to many tmnst-

honing sea service penonnel--relocafion and implemenbng one s goals.

Our goal in writing this book was to provide you with a comprehensive

career transition book that you ll find valuable--not just in this career move

but those in the future as well. We hope that you will read it ea~fully anti

takeqo-heart our career transition advice. If you do. we re confident you II

enjo} a successful transition from Navy blue to corporate gray.

Our ability to provide this book for free to all transitioning sea service

memoers is a di~~t result of the support of our man) advertisers. We are

indebted to these fine firms alld encourage you to take advantage of their

transition-related proaucts, services, anta career opportunities. You will find

their advertisements in three chapters~hapter 16 tStart Your Own Busi-

ness), Chaptel 17 IFind Your Ideal Place to Live and Work), and Chapter

21 ((brporate Connections. We also wish to thank the Army, Navy, Air

Force. Marine Corps, and Coast Guard for giving us the opponumty to

~aonate a Corporale Gray SeriesTM transition guide to every person separat-

ing or retiring from active duty. And it is to you~e men and women who

have served oar nation m peace and war--to whom we dedicate this book.

May you have a smooth transition from Navy 0lue to corporate gray.