Pictured, left to right: Jennifer Saylor, Terrence Wright and Eamonn Moye.
At Cardinal Health, our work across the healthcare supply chain is focused on a clear mission: improving the lives of people every day. Fulfilling our mission means ensuring that critical medications and medical supplies reach hospitals, pharmacies and patients when they’re needed.
For many leaders, operating in the fast-paced environment of our distribution centers (DCs) feels familiar, because they developed the core values that guide our operations, including accountability and integrity, as well as a dedication to supporting others, in the military.
This Veterans Day, we honor all who have served, and spotlight three leaders who draw on their military service to guide operations, develop teams and support patient care across the country.
Eamonn Moye: Building a culture of trust
At our Montgomery, New York, distribution center, the largest in our U.S. medical product distribution network, director of operations Eamonn Moye oversees more than 400 employees. In a facility of this scale, operational performance depends directly on how effectively the team works together.
"In the military, you have to build a cohesive team to succeed," Moye said. "That means genuinely caring for your people and looking after their physical and mental well-being. The same is true in civilian workplaces. Your operation cannot run well if your team isn't supported."
After multiple deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, most recently in 2020, attached to U.S. Special Operations, Moye continues to serve in the Army Reserve. One weekend a month and several weeks each year, he directs a regional instructional site for the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, training Army Reserve and National Guard majors in tactics, military history and logistics.
His background as an educator and military leader shapes how Moye leads on the warehouse floor. For example, in the Army, regular developmental counseling sessions ensure soldiers understand their progress and know where they stand. At Cardinal Health, he translates that standard into frequent constructive check-ins with his supervisors and frontline employees.
"Accountability and honest feedback have to go hand-in-hand with recognition," Moye said.
"People need clear, consistent feedback about what they’re doing well and where they can grow. When expectations are clear and people know you genuinely care about their success, they bring their best. In civilian work as well as in the military, leadership comes down to placing the right people in the right roles and trusting them to deliver."
Moye values military experience when hiring, he said, because "veterans bring discipline at every level and an instinct for mission completion."
Terrence Wright: Failure is not an option
Terrence Wright spent two decades in the U.S. Army, but he sums up his transition to civilian logistics simply: "Nothing's changed but my uniform." (Hear directly from Wright in this video.)
Wright, the inventory manager at our Knoxville, Tennessee, pharmaceutical distribution center, followed in his father’s legacy of service by enlisting in 1995, and specialized in logistics. His military career spanned the globe, including deployments to Bosnia and Iraq and service in Germany, South Korea, Kuwait and Afghanistan. Later, as an Air Defense Artillery supply specialist at Fort Bliss, Texas, his unit was the only battery to achieve the Army’s top-tier Table-8 certification, a rigorous evaluation confirming that a unit is fully combat-ready.
"My teams supplied the frontlines with everything from food and fuel to ammunition and vehicles," Wright said. "When you supply soldiers in combat zones, failure is not an option. You are responsible for people's lives."
This sense of responsibility carries directly into Wright’s work at Cardinal Health. Today, he and his team of 12 inventory coordinators manage the flow of critical prescription medications to hospitals, clinics and pharmacies. He grounds his leadership in the Army’s core values, captured in the acronym LDRSHIP: loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity and personal courage.
“It’s all about maintaining team health and morale," he said. “When you treat everyone with dignity and compassion and keep them engaged, they step up. That’s critical, because delivering medicine to patients who need them isn't just logistics, it’s an urgent duty."
Jennifer Saylor: Leading toward shared goals
When Jennifer Saylor joined the U.S. Army out of high school, she was looking to broaden her horizons. Growing up in a small coal-mining town in eastern Kentucky, she’d seen little of the country and had few female professional role models to learn from. Enlisting gave her the opportunity to gain independence and discover her own potential.
During her four years in an Army communications role stationed in California, Saylor saw women serving across leadership ranks. That experience expanded what she believed was possible for her own career.
When her military service concluded, a fellow soldier recommended she apply to Cardinal Health. She got her first civilian job at a distribution facility in Memphis, Tennessee, where she unloaded freight off trucks.
"My military experience trained me to follow instructions, adapt quickly to change and collaborate with people from every background imaginable," Saylor said. “That served me very well.”
She built her career at Cardinal Health, and 15 years ago became director of operations in our Charlotte, North Carolina, medical products distribution center, where she continues to lead today. She has continually relied on the agility and focus instilled by the armed forces.
Saylor pays her military experience forward. She previously served as a regional leader in Cardinal Health’s Veterans and Military Advocates employee resource group (VMA ERG), traveling to military installations like nearby Fort Liberty (formerly Fort Bragg) to recruit transitioning service members.
She also champions the VMA’s Veterans Professional Advancement Course (VPAC), a free development and mentoring initiative that helps transitioning service members and their spouses launch civilian careers through resume reviews, mock interviews and networking. (Learn more about military career resources at Cardinal Health.)
Honoring the service that strengthens our workforce
This Veterans Day, we pause to express our gratitude to the veterans, reservists, National Guard members and military families across our workforce. The qualities they bring to our teams, including teamwork, accountability and composure under pressure, strengthen our culture and our operations.