KC soldiers find friendship, opportunity in Army Reserve unit from Wichita

The Army Reserve has been pretty good to Maj. Randy McCoy.

It led him to his wife, to his best friend, and now it’s leading him to a career change in his civilian life.

McCoy and Maj. Larry Motley’s careers have paralleled each other in just about every way since the two met in 2004.

They work together in Wichita’s 451st Expeditionary Sustainment Command, and they are preparing to deploy to Kuwait soon.

When they return from the Middle East, McCoy plans on buying into Motley’s burgeoning Kansas City-area business.

“Everyone has a best friend,” said McCoy, 41. “You find a synergy with somebody and it just clicks.

“We just work really well together.”

‘Maybe it was meant to be’

Motley and McCoy first met while deployed in Iraq. They were both staff sergeants at the time, and in the course of casual conversation, Motley mentioned he had just started his own business.

McCoy was intrigued.

So they began talking more and more about business, and realized they shared a lot of common ground.

“We had the same set of values, the same kind of work ethic, and we were both interested in the same things — finance and business,” said Motley, 34. “We hit it off and were really good friends.”

On a subsequent deployment in 2009, Motley, and McCoy and his wife all found themselves at the same Iraq base, assigned to three separate units.

McCoy’s wife was deployed first, then McCoy, and finally Motley.

When Motley came to Joint Base Balad, McCoy and his wife were there to greet him.

“It was just kind of a weird, surreal experience,” McCoy said. “Here you are with obviously my wife, who I love, and my best friend, and we’re having this greeting in this foreign place.

“It just doesn’t seem like something that would ever happen. Maybe it was meant to be.”

Teamwork

Motley and McCoy’s lives have intertwined numerous times — they were commissioned as officers around the same time, they have drawn the same assignments, and they were most recently promoted to majors together.

Whenever they came home to the Kansas City area, Motley continued developing his business while McCoy hopped back into the UPS truck he drove.

It was a good job, he said — it paid the bills and had good benefits. But it was kind of a letdown from the Army Reserve, where he had influence and sway.

McCoy went back to college and got a master’s degree in finance, inspired in part by Motley, who was becoming successful in his business.

McCoy credits the camaraderie and friendship he found through the Army Reserve for helping him get where he is today.

“That’s what the Army’s all about, and that’s the thing I think people miss the most about the military: It really is about the teamwork and the partnerships that you have as a team,” he said.

“That’s one of those things that’s hard to find in the civilian sector. It’s hard to find a job where you feel like you fit in and you’re part of a family.”

Starting his own business

In addition to his work training soldiers for the 451st, Motley owns a small business in Cameron, Mo., called United Home Management and Consulting.

It does what Motley hopes is a novel concept in the Midwest: He integrates various technologies, such as solar energy and ground-source heating and cooling, with the goal of reducing monthly utility costs, he said.

“In the Midwest I haven't seen anything (like it),” he said. “Right now it’s kind of a niche market. … In 10 to 20 years, it’s going to become the standard in new construction.

“Being able to be a pioneer and a front-runner in being able to do that systems integration is going to be important and, hopefully, profitable.”

He started the business in his parents’ dining room, he said, and it has been successful enough to grow into a new 12,000-square-foot, almost $2 million headquarters earlier this year.

As Motley’s business grew, McCoy thought many times about joining him in the venture, he said.

He and Motley had been trading stocks together as a hobby for years, he said. They were good at it.

“That really drove the financial freedom for me to be able to make the decision to say, ‘Hey, I want to be involved in your business,’ ” McCoy said. “At the same time, it really solidified us and kind of set the foundation for us being able to work together.”

Balancing civilian, military careers

Motley and McCoy have been “hard-charging” in the Army for about a decade, McCoy said.

For the past three years, they have developed training exercises for various troops stateside.

But with a growing business to look after, Motley said he will have to go through some “soul-searching” to determine his next steps.

“As long as it stays fun and I feel I can add value to the Army … I'd like to stay as long as I can.” Motley said. “But at the end of the day, I’ve got (my employees) — their lives and their families are counting on me, and that’s got to be a priority at some point.

“I think it's going to be more difficult as time goes on.”

After serving 23 years in the Army, McCoy said he feels the same.

“You’ve got to kind of balance what your priorities are and determine what’s important,” McCoy said. “Obviously, owning a business and taking on something of that magnitude is a huge deal. If I get involved in it, that’s going to be the most important thing to me.”

For now, though, Motley and McCoy are focusing exclusively on their upcoming deployment.

After all, it could be their last deployment, the thing that originally brought them together.

“It's been an interesting life experience and a story having a very close friend that you can count on to be there for you,” Motley said. “It's just kind of a natural next step to do this business thing.”

This story was originally published March 25, 2016 at 4:58 PM with the headline "KC soldiers find friendship, opportunity in Army Reserve unit from Wichita."