A Family Tragedy Leads to B-School

"It does not take long for one baby girl to alter your life—and your career path"

by Nathan Kolmodin

Nathan Kolmodin
University of Washington
MBA Class of 2009

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My life before B-school may appear idyllic, but the tale is not for the faint of heart—mothers-to-be should be careful in reading on. I had two parents who were very active in my life despite their divorce when I was eight years old, and during my childhood there was little in the world for me to worry about beyond striking out during the afternoon baseball game. Sports and academics came easily to me and opportunities to succeed presented themselves seemingly without effort. These included everything from obtaining a job at a baseball-card store the summer before I turned 15 to taking beautiful girls to homecoming and prom my senior year at Skyline High School located in Sammamish, Wash.

In four years as an undergrad at the University of Washington I double-degreed, earning a bachelor's in economics and political science. It seemed natural to fit in an extra year's worth of credits to earn the two degrees while also studying abroad in Spain for the first quarter of my senior year. It was easy street and I did not even have to drive!

Life in Afghanistan

I liked big business, with a particular fascination for the big part of it, but I desired to study language both to enhance my international job prospects and to accomplish my childhood goal of serving in the military. Therefore, after graduation in 2003, I enlisted in the Washington National Guard to become an Arabic linguist. I left for basic training in South Carolina in August, moved to Monterey to start an 18-month language course, and was engaged to and married my wife, whom I had met in while studying in Spain.

Following two years of training and studying, we moved to Washington intending to start the civilian side of our life. The army had different plans for me; by November 2005, I was preparing to deploy to Afghanistan for a year-long tour. We decided to start our family before I deployed. Five days before I left the United States for Afghanistan, my wife shared the good news with me that she was pregnant. Life was intensifying but the pieces were falling into place nicely.

The following nine months were difficult to spend away from my pregnant wife. My limits were tested in the most remote and arid places of Afghanistan, where I spent frozen nights on a mountaintop in early spring and sweltering days in what could only be described as a Martian landscape during the summer. Despite the discomfort created by these locations, I developed a great sense of accomplishment and pride while doing my job.

Death in Washington

I was able to leave country for two weeks, a leave carefully timed for the birth of our baby. En route to Washington, I contemplated the career possibilities available in the military that would help me become a member of the Foreign Service or a regional expert for businesses looking to expand into the Middle East and Far East, and how these goals might be accomplished with a family.

It turns out that it does not take long for one baby girl to alter your life — and your career path. Isabella Sofia, born Sept. 10, 2006, at 1:03 p.m., was the most beautiful and healthy girl I ever laid my eyes on. Everything was picture-perfect for 12 hours. After midnight, Isa began to struggle with oxygenating her blood, due to what we later were told was a congenital disorder described by the doctors as "incompatible with life." Somewhere between all of the surgeries, the nights spent reading to our daughter while she was under a drug-induced paralysis to prevent her from pulling out the half-inch tubes protruding from her neck, and the nine days it took for her tiny body to wear out, I figured out that the military could not afford the new level of stability that our family now needed.