Navy Veteran Erica Dobbs To Fellow MSPs: ‘Lead Through The Chaos No Matter What’

Dobbs, who served in the U.S. Navy for 35 years before founding Dobbs Defense Solutions, says that MSPs deserve greater credit for being ‘a part of the mission’ of national security.

Even across 35 years of serving in the U.S. Navy, Erica Dobbs found that many of the key lessons for leadership came at the very start and have remained central to how she runs her company.

Dobbs, founder and CEO of Dobbs Defense Solutions, told fellow MSPs and MSSPs Monday that there’s no question they deserve greater credit for being “a part of the mission” of national security.

“It’s bigger than your monthly revenue. It’s about protecting economies. It’s about resilience. It’s about leading with integrity,” Dobbs said during a keynote session Monday at XChange Security 2025 in Frisco, Texas. “Because you’re not just solving problems. You’re really leading through chaos.”

XChange Security 2025 is hosted by CRN parent The Channel Company.

During the keynote address, Dobbs recalled key moments from her U.S. Navy service that imparted crucial leadership lessons—starting with her arrival in Orlando, Fla., in 1983 for boot camp.

Growing up in Philadelphia, Dobbs had been the youngest child in her family and was raised in an environment where “everything was centered around you.”

“I grew up like an only child,” she said.

That led to a major shock when, after joining the Navy at age 19, she quickly found that “no one cares about who you are.”

Adding to the difficulty, Dobbs was informed early on that she had been named “section leader” with responsibility for up to a dozen of her peers. And yet, she felt “just as confused and disoriented” as everyone else.

“And I’m trying to understand, 'Who picked me? Who decided I’m a leader?’” Dobbs said.

While Dobbs never learned the explanation, the choice ended up being life-changing as she eventually realized that she was, in fact, leadership material.

“On that particular day for me, everything changed. My whole mindset changed,” she said. “Someone believed enough in me—this spoiled kid who always had everything in the world centered around them. Someone said, ‘We still see this leader in her.’”

Dobbs later recounted some of the instances where she had to demonstrate leadership under massive pressure, including while serving on the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman in the early 2000s.

Late one night, a threat to the aircraft carrier while it was stationed in the Mediterranean Sea prompted fears among the younger Naval personnel on board, she said.

Despite her own anxieties over the tense situation, Dobbs realized that part of leadership in the situation was to help reassure some of the younger personnel that everyone was going to be OK.

“And just like that, I went from surviving to commanding,” she said. “I understood that my mission, my goal, was to lead unapologetically.”

Ultimately, the leadership approach forged during some of the most intense moments of her Naval service “became my mindset today for my clients,” Dobbs said.

The stories shared by Dobbs are a testament to her amazing leadership and career as well as an inspiration to the MSPs in attendance, said Reagan Roney, chief experience officer and principal at Solvere One, an MSP with offices in Dulles, Va., and Washington, D.C.

Her account of being faced with adversity she was not prepared for—and then pushing through and overcoming that—is not only powerful but also relevant to the experience of all MSPs, Roney said.

“That’s what we’re all facing,” he said.

As Dobbs described it, success for MSPs is really about “making sure that you’re the leader and that you’re standing up and you just keep moving forward,” Roney said.

Indeed, Dobbs said, the challenges and chaos are always a part of the work of MSPs just as they were so often during her Naval service.

But the reality is, “it doesn’t matter if you feel like you’re ready,” she said. “In the midst of war, you’ve got to lead through the chaos no matter what.”