The Craig Hall Chronicles :: Carly Whalen

Looking out on downtown Seattle from his office on the 43rd floor of the F5 Tower, Chad Whalen can see the activity taking place at ground level, the traffic moving from stoplight to stoplight, people going here and there, all the sound mostly muted by distance and thick 10-foot windows.

It affords a big-picture view one story from the building's top, a spot befitting the Executive Vice President of Worldwide Sales at F5 Networks, a technology company that counts its annual revenues not in millions but in billions.

"I've got a nice view," he says, meaning the panorama opening up before him, but at this stage in his life, both professionally and personally, as the father of two high-achieving daughters, time and experience also add to his broad perspective.

If he looks east, he can see where it all began, this journey that took him from humble beginnings in Spokane to a spot high above Seattle, to industry influence and financial security, where he first developed the hunger to strive for more, to shrug off any perceived mooring lines and leave them behind, driving forward unfettered by others' expectations for his future.

When he narrows his focus more inward, at family and at the 19 years of his youngest daughter, Carly, a freshman on the Montana soccer team, he can only shake his head, filled with both pride and wonderment.

"I'm very fond of her. She has an insatiable appetite for life," he says, both knowing he had a big role in making that happen while allowing a bit of awe to seep into his voice, as if he and Krista did their best with Jordan and Carly but maybe didn't quite expect this, two girls doubling as forces of nature, unleashed on the world from their home in Issaquah.

Jordan, the older, is studying computer science at Illinois, one of the Big Five programs in the country, along with Carnegie Mellon, MIT, Stanford and Cal. Also a 4.0 student, Jordan's younger sister has put that Whalen focus into soccer as well. Her arrival is Montana's gain, both school and athletic program.

"She has a very crystal-clear view of her own vision, and she's selfless in her pursuit of that vision. That's remarkable and kind of her superpower," says Chad.

Indeed. To sit for an hour with Carly Whalen is to be knocked backward, blown away by a college freshman possessing that level of conviction, that amount of self-belief that she knows where she is going and owns the playbook, has learned the secrets of what it takes to get there.

There is confidence. And then there is what she has internalized from her home life, something that goes beyond a mere belief in oneself.

"The hours I put in are why I'm here and why I'm prepared for this moment," she says. "I believe in myself and believe I'm destined for greatness. Why would I not believe in myself? That doesn't make sense."

As she talks, always with so much passion, you ask yourself: Is she chasing success or trying to outrun defeat, because those are two very different carrots. But it's actually neither, those two being outcomes, not the process. It's the process she lives in, thrives in.

"You keep going and going," she says. "You've got more to do. I have a few good accomplishments, but I don't care about those. It's about now, this moment and what I'm going to do, not what I did. I focus on that. It becomes ritual."

Her dad lives that professionally, tasked by his board to make money, develop new inroads, wherever in the world that happens to take him, also in the hope of making more money, expanding F5's reach. It's how he and his teams are judged, many of them on 90-day contracts, a more cutthroat version of Division I college athletics. Perform or we'll find someone hungrier who will.

That will certainly get someone out of bed in the morning, no snooze button required. It's a high-expectation work environment.

"Every 90 days you have to deliver. That's the profession I'm in, that's your performance contract," Chad says. "It's very different than software engineering. You have a very specific thing you have to do. It's easy to measure. It's a very measurable outcome."

He doesn't focus on the pressure, on the need for results, on fluctuating markets. If he did, he would burn out before the end of the week. It's why he's been in his particular position longer than anyone in the history of the company.

"A lot of it is showing up repeatedly, all the time," he says. "Sometimes it goes your way, sometimes it doesn't. You have to continue to drive." Carly Whalen, then, is simply a fruit of her upbringing, as much learned through seeing as taught directly. "Carly embodies that," Chad adds.

"Both girls take on challenges with the vigor that you have to. They are not tepid about anything they do. That's Carly. When she's in, she is all in and doesn't deviate from it. She is a product of her environment but she has chosen to embrace it and make it her own."

He was born in Spokane, welcomed into a family of few means, the last of seven children, arriving 23 years after the oldest of his siblings, none of whom took the high-school-to-college route. But he wanted a different path, knew it was his chance at a different life and wasn't going to stop for anything.

"He broke the cycle," Carly says. "He's like, I want to be successful. He put his mind to it, did it."

He's given his girls what he didn't have growing up, arriving when he did, the last of the bunch. He's both father and life coach. "Your parents can be guideposts, as long as there is context," he says. "My parents were on the back nine of their careers and lives when I was born, so their context of the market was not the same.

"I didn't know what was available, so I set out to see what was available. I was open to find ways to change, grow and capture the opportunity." The sound you would have heard was a jet engine coming to life, a Harley-Davidson firing up. Feet had firmly been placed on launching pad.

"That was the start of what was a feeding frenzy for me and continues to be to this day," he says.

As he looked around the student body at Eastern Washington, he could spot those kids who had been born on third base, on second base, even on first. He came to the plate with nothing but a drive that he was going to win, be the first around the bases. It was the only option.

He put the ball in play, put his head down and ran. And kept running. Picking up every unsavory odd job he could to pay the bills, he graduated ahead of time, "just kept setting my sights on something new, exciting and different," he says.

Upon graduating, he saw a newspaper ad for Cabletron Systems, called them up and killed the interview. "Be prepared for the moment, even if it's unexpected," says Carly of the story that is passed down in family lore. "He told them, I will make your company better. I will be that person. He got good at something and just kept going."

It was the first step toward where he is now, having worked at F5 since 2017. It's instructive to note that surrounded as he is by advanced degrees from the best technology schools in the world, he humbly submits a vitae that lists an undergraduate degree in business administration and management from an outpost in Cheney, Wash. That's it.

His career trajectory can't be traced to family name and influence or a prestigious college in his background. He's self-made. He went all in on himself and won the day.

"I'm fascinated by technology and very adept financially. When you get into tech, those two things coalesce all the time. Tech offered an accelerated opportunity for me because of those two things, then the ability to drive, motivate and lead initiatives is very transportable," he says.

He saw it early in his second daughter, those same traits she had no idea she possessed, how she learned to ride a bike – forget the training wheels – in one day, how she sat bobbing in the frigid Columbia River, refusing to get into the boat and under a warm towel until she had gotten up on water skis.

It hit him square on when Carly was nine or 10, at a ski race when she was competing for Crystal Mountain Athletic Club, having never lost a competition in her life but this time down on time after the first of two runs. And that was pretty much unacceptable.

"When she got into athletics and sport, her appetite to win was evidenced early, very early," says Chad.

She abandoned lunch with her family, went out on the course, talked to her coach and watched other racers to see how they approached the early turns, where she thought she might have lost time. When it was time for her second run, "she took the corrective action, laid down the fastest time on run 2 and won it," Chad says.

"That's when I said, okay, she has a discipline and a drive that is special. That's when we knew she was hyper-focused."

She was destined for greatness on the slopes but the cost – of having a second life in Park City, Utah, a splitting up of the tight family unit – was too burdensome. She would take that focus, which had been split between skiing and soccer and set it solely on the latter.

She would mirror the father, follow in his same footsteps, for his path was not exclusive for his line of work. It would help anyone prosper at anything they wanted to accomplish. "My parents created who I am," Carly says. "He is the definition of, you made it. It was all on his own. He's worked for everything.

"He has the drive of a beast. I look at him and think, that's who I want to be. But better. I was lucky to have that role model because he didn't have that."

Let's not overlook Krista, also from Spokane, who went to Bellevue College, studied radiology, trained herself to run marathons, then one day, when Carly was five, learned she had leukemia, a cancer of the blood cells, and has been on a regimen of chemotherapy ever since. It's abused her body but hasn't cracked her spirit.

Now, a new driver, a new motivator. Beyond Chad's life story, the girls now had their mom and her experiences. Now all that hard work would be done with a sense of thankfulness, the combination of their parents' stories making them stronger and stronger.

"I remember the first day (my mom was diagnosed). I had to put my feelings away. I had to be there for my mom and be strong for her. I had to give her everything I could. Now, every time I get to work out, I'm thankful. I'm grateful I get to do it," Carly says.

There was more. Her grandfather also was diagnosed with leukemia, her aunt with breast cancer, Chad's mom with ovarian cancer. "I'm going to go do it for them," Carly says of the experiences. "Why would I waste this day? There is a lot that has shaped me into who I am."

Chad adds, "The things she's witnessed, she has a very high adversity quotient. She is able to handle a lot of different pressures and do it in a way that is both positive and effective as opposed to disruptive. That's a learned skill."

Does it all lead to a self-imposed pressure, to live up to the example her dad has set, to win and win big at everything you do, to make the most of every day for those who can't? Of course, and if it went unrecognized or unchecked, it could blow this whole thing up, vessel without release valve, a broken girl among the detritus.

"It's an incredible motivator but it can be incredibly damning if you don't understand it," Chad says. "We have worked with her on that and we've had therapists work with her on that, to temper it and use it in a positive way, not a negative way."

Let's be perfectly clear here before going forward. There has been no pushing, father using his own success to burden his girls, demanding they match it, requiring they succeed in everything they do, love coming conditionally upon their own effort and outcomes.

Not even close.

The girls are not golfers, but he did the equivalent of putting the ball on the tee for them, getting their feet set, their aim pointed toward the goals of their choosing and let them swing away, using what they've learned simply by growing up Whalen. If they needed to re-tee a ball, give something else a try, let's do it. Let's find something you're passionate about.

"She had a living example of what it takes to be at the top of your craft," Chad says. "So she knows what it takes. The freedom was, we want to provide you with opportunities. The opportunity is there should you go seize it, but it's on you to go seize it."

Skiing? We'll take you to the mountain, buy the gear and the day pass, get you to the top of the slope. The rest is on you. Same with soccer. Same with studying computer science at one of the nation's top schools for that major.

"If I have to motivate them to go do it and I'm not there, what do they do?" Chad asks. "It has to be something you love and something you want to do. I'm going to do everything I can to support that journey, but it's unequivocally on my kids.

"As parents, you're trying to shape your kids as best you can. You give them the tools to really go out and be their best selves, whatever that is. We've raised the girls with that premise in mind. Your self-discipline and dedication to your craft is what is going to make you great."

Has he always been there for his girls? Impossible in person with his works demands, always on the go, bouncing from continent to continent. Soccer games would get played with mom on the sideline but dad in Asia, dad in Europe, dad in South America, gone for weeks at a time.

It's just the way it was. But those days when he was there, could make that big match? Those were the best.

"You want to be there for your kids at all of those moments, but in my craft, you can't," Chad says. "You do your best to work through it. For me, it intensifies the time you do have. When time is scarce, you really, really soak it in for all it's worth. When I'm present, I'm very present. She knows I am there specifically for her. It allows me to have a very real, very present relationship with her."

Who didn't have goosebumps that time he flew home from Costa Rica just to see his youngest daughter on the day of her prom? He wasn't supposed to be there but he also wasn't going to miss it. "He had to miss a lot but I know he's my biggest fan," says Carly. "If it's from a distance, it's from a distance. I know I have two parents who love me."

Finally, to all of that, we're going to place a chip on her shoulder, the result of her being a 5-foot-3 midfielder, never getting that last growth surge that would have had the top programs in the country lining up to get her signed to a scholarship instead of looking for something different. Do you have the same thing but perhaps in a larger size?

Another dad lesson: Nothing you can do about that. What you can do is take what you do well and make it even more of a strength, then take your weaknesses and shore them up until they are no longer a deficiency.

In other words, take the perceived negative out of the equation for those who are willing to see with open eyes all the positives.

"What I saw was a very talented midfielder," says Montana coach Chris Citowicki. "Beyond what she can do with the ball, there is a spunky, competitive personality that you just can't teach. She has it in abundance.

"She is small but, boy, can she play. She is an absolute monster of a player who won't hold back on anybody."

What chance did she have when Citowicki arrived at a Pac-Northwest clinic, not to watch but to be a hands-on coach for the day? Other coaches? They gave off serious why am I here vibes. Citowicki? He was just there to win the day, per normal. Whalen had found someone just like her.

"Oh, I like his energy, how he makes me feel," Whalen remembers thinking. "Other coaches? Too serious. They didn't want to be there. Then why are you here?

"He stuck out like a sore thumb. He's very different, enthusiastic, compassionate, has a lot of passion for life, just energy and I have a lot of energy. Hey, this is kind of like me. He has that same energy and gives that to me."

Other schools passed on her because of her height. One Ivy League school told her she hadn't taken enough AP classes. Anybody else want to throw on a little more fuel for a girl who hardly needs any more of it?

"If I'm not what you want, I don't want to be there," she continues. "I want to feel wanted. Chris said, I believe in you, so I believe in him and what he's doing. I believe in this team and his vision. I can already tell this is going to be the experience of a lifetime because the girls here are exceptional."

Uh-oh, we might have just gotten her started. Take it away, Carly, we won't stand in your way. She's a freshman who talks about the program like she has the investment of a fifth-year senior.

"I believe in him and want to help him get there, do what people don't think we can do," she says. "People look at us and say, this is their ceiling. I'm tired of that. I'm done. I've been the underdog my whole life. I want more. I'm tired of, you can't. No, we can and we will right now.

"We're going to prove to you that we're better. We're not just Montana. We're the Montana Griz. When you're surrounded by good people, you're destined for greatness."

Before that, before she chose Montana over her other suitors, Chad and Krista did what they've always done. They got Carly to Missoula, in front of the Griz coach, then stepped back and mostly kept quiet. All by design.

"We were very conscious of not obstructing the process. What I said was, you have dedicated so much of your life to your craft, you need to find the spot where you can have the best opportunity for this part of your life because it's a fleeting," Chad said.

"That's the only guidance I had. We've lived under the premise in our house that we guide but you ultimately own the decision. When you make that decision, we'll support it."

She committed, then did the most Carly thing ever. She bought cowboy boots and hat. If we've learned anything about this girl it's that there is never one-foot-in commitment.

"Here we go," says her dad at the end of a 30-minute interview from that office on the 43rd floor. He can see a lot from up there but doesn't need that viewpoint to see everything he cherishes about his daughter.

"That's the way she's built. She's an all-in kid. That's what I love about her. She refuses to be defeated."

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