Piloting a Life of Service

As the final notes of the Star-Spangled Banner rang out in a humid South Florida night, three United States Air Force jets rocketed through above Hard Rock Stadium. The Fighting Irish football team was about to kick off its season against the University of Miami Hurricanes.

For those sitting in the stadium, it was a spectacle fit for the occasion. But from the cockpit of an F-15E Strike Eagle, it wasn’t much to look at.

“From the perspective of a pilot, a flyover is a little like passing a McDonald’s on the interstate at 60 miles an hour,” said Maximo “Money” Navarro, a University of Notre Dame MBA student and a pilot in the U.S. Air Force. “You see the stadium, you look at it and then it’s gone. As a pilot, it’s just about the most mundane thing you can do.”

But the devil is in the details. On that night in late August, thunderstorms lit up the skies of South Florida. The three jets in the flyover formation took off from nearby Homestead Air Reserve Base about 15 minutes before the scheduled flyover. While airborne, they lost radio communications and had to adjust on the fly.

“We were just trying to find a pocket of air and avoid getting struck by lightning,” said Navarro, who was flying in an F-15E Strike Eagle alongside Major Trent “Wreck” McMullen (ND ’12). “We were lucky to be flying at all. Timing is everything in our line of work — and we were a few seconds early. But it was out of our control.”

Flying with a Notre Dame alumnus and two friends from previous squadrons was a memorable experience for Navarro. But so was what came next. After they landed, the airmen received a police escort to the stadium and managed to catch the second half of the game — a 27-24 loss for Notre Dame.

“We were racing through the streets of Miami at about 100 miles an hour with a cop in front of us. And that was more stressful than the actual flyover,” said Navarro. “But honestly, the best part was sitting in the stands with other Notre Dame MBA students from my cohort. They’d come down for the game, and I got to watch it with them. It was just a really good experience.”

Finding ‘Max’

If there is such a thing as an average MBA student, Navarro isn’t it. His story of how he arrived at Notre Dame is a deeply personal one that involves the kind of whole-life reflection few of us are willing to undertake.

Max Navarro

He already had earned master’s degrees in mechanical engineering from the University of Central Florida and in mathematics and statistics from the University of West Florida. His career spanned working as an engineer and a math professor before he made the momentous decision to join the U.S. Air Force with the ultimate goal of becoming an astronaut.

The next step took him to flight school, where Navarro described himself as similar to Tom Cruise’s over-the-top character in “Top Gun” —  interested in serving his country, yes, but equally enamored with flying fast. After that, he became “Chuck Yeager,” a test pilot who ultimately earned his third degree in flight test engineering from the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

Becoming “Neil Armstrong” was within his sight. But something was unsettled inside him.

“Each achievement felt like the next rung on the ladder to space. But the higher I climbed, the emptier it felt.”

Navarro, a deeply spiritual Christian, realized he was following the wrong plan.

“As long as I kept trying to be someone else, it was never going to be enough,” said Navarro. “So I hung it up mentally. I opened my hands and let go of the 10-year-old dream of going to space. I let go of becoming Maverick, Chuck Yeager and Neil Armstrong, and I embraced becoming Max. An officer for my country.”

God, Country, Notre Dame

Navarro had a new mission: How do I serve the person next to me?

The USAF Test Pilot School asked him to teach a new leadership division inside a school that had always focused on science and technology. Getting an MBA was part of the offer.

“I knew nothing about business school. I knew nothing about Notre Dame,” he said. “A year ago, I couldn’t even tell you where Notre Dame was on the map.”

He reached out to veterans clubs at 15 different schools and received responses from 12 schools over the course of a month.

From Notre Dame, he heard back from 12 military alums in a single week.

Navarro recalled the biblical story of the Good Samaritan in Luke 10, where the Samaritan instructs: “Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.”

“Notre Dame didn’t just send me an acceptance letter,” said Navarro. “You bound up my wounds of uncertainty, lifted me onto your shoulders and said, ‘We’ll walk with you.’ You welcomed me — a stranger — because you saw something in me that I didn’t yet see in myself. It was a no-brainer for me to accept the invitation.”

Unlike many MBA students, Navarro has a job waiting for him after graduation. Without the need to focus on recruiting, he has had ample time to devote to his studies and contribute to the community.

“My mission here is to absorb information and give back to my cohort in whatever capacity I can, whether that’s as a leader, a guide, a mentor, a study partner or a friend,” Navarro said.

When he arrived on campus, Navarro immediately reached out to the MBA Military Veterans Club to ask how he could serve. He also mentors in Iron Sharpens Iron, an after-school program in South Bend. Run by Transformation Ministries, it invests in middle and high school students through spiritual growth, academic guidance, life-skills development and consistent one-to-one mentoring.

“To be here and to be supported by Notre Dame and the Air Force has been such an opportunity and a blessing,” said Navarro. “It’s such a great opportunity to go back to school for the purity of just being in school. It is refreshing, revitalizing and rejuvenating me. Honestly, I feel like I’m playing with house money right now.”