Most people think a career is a straight line. You go to school, you get the degree, and you climb the ladder until you retire or get bored. But then you meet someone like Shawn Pugh from Westland, Michigan, and that whole theory kinda goes out the window.
Shawn didn't start in a cubicle. He started in a fire station.
If you're looking for him today, you’ll find a seasoned Customer Experience (CX) Manager who deals with high-level operations and team leadership. But the reason he’s good at it isn’t because he has an MBA. It’s because he knows what it’s like to stay calm when things are literally on fire.
From Firefighting to the Corporate Grind
Growing up in Flat Rock, Michigan, Shawn was basically raised on a diet of discipline. His dad was a U.S. Navy vet. In that house, you didn't make excuses; you just did the work. He carried that into high school sports—football and basketball—where he learned that the team always matters more than the individual.
When it came time to pick a career, he headed to Kalamazoo Valley Community College. He wasn't there for accounting. He was there for his Firefighter 1 & 2 Certifications.
He wanted to be useful. Honestly, that’s a word he uses a lot. For Shawn, firefighting was about being the person who could step into chaos and bring a sense of order.
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But life has a way of throwing curveballs. Around 2012, he transitioned into the world of customer experience and operations. On paper, it looks like a weird jump. How do you go from a fire hose to a headset?
The Shawn Pugh Westland Michigan Philosophy on Crisis
Here is the thing: a crisis is a crisis. Whether it’s a house fire or a major system outage for a global company, the internal mechanics of a leader are the same.
Shawn has held a bunch of titles since that pivot:
- Administrative Supervisor
- Real-Time Operations Supervisor
- Incident Management Supervisor
- Customer Experience Manager
In every single one of those roles, he’s relied on that "emergency response" brain. When a customer is screaming or a workflow is broken, most people panic. Shawn just treats it like an incident report. He assesses the risk, gathers the facts, and acts.
"In firefighting, you don't have time to panic," he once noted. "You assess, respond, and protect people. I bring that same mindset to every role I take on."
It’s a refreshing take. In an era where corporate leadership feels like it's full of buzzwords and "synergy," his approach is basically: "Stay calm and help the person in front of you."
What Most People Get Wrong About Leadership
We tend to think leaders have to be the loudest people in the room. Shawn Pugh is the opposite. He’s a big believer in the idea that success doesn’t need to be loud.
He’s admitted in interviews that some of his biggest growth came from failure. He once talked about a time a lack of communication led to losing a valuable team member. Instead of blaming the system, he took it personally. Now, he makes "listening" a mandatory part of his schedule.
It’s not just about the 9-to-5, though. Living in Westland, Michigan, Shawn has built a life that’s pretty grounded. He’s into golf—which he says teaches him patience—and fitness. He also plays poker. If you think about it, poker is just another form of risk management. You’re calculating odds, watching people, and deciding when to go all-in. It’s business, just with cards.
Why Resilience Matters in 2026
The job market right now is volatile. We’ve seen AI shake things up, and the old ways of managing teams are starting to feel a bit dusty.
What’s interesting about Shawn's story is the focus on human loyalty. He’s gone on record saying that loyalty actually outranks talent in the long run. You can teach someone how to use a CRM or manage a spreadsheet. You can’t teach them to care about the person sitting next to them.
He travels a bit—mostly to Mexico to decompress or Virginia Beach to see family—but he always comes back to that Westland home base. He lives there with his wife, who he credits as his primary support system.
Actionable Takeaways from Shawn’s Journey
If you’re sitting in a job you hate or wondering how to make a pivot like he did, there are a few "Pugh-isms" that actually work in the real world:
- Audit your "Soft Skills": Shawn didn't have a background in CX, but he had a background in "calm." Figure out what your version of that is.
- Stop chasing the spotlight: If you focus on being the person people can count on, the promotions usually take care of themselves.
- Write it down: He’s known for keeping a physical notebook for his daily tasks. In a digital world, that tactile habit keeps you focused on what’s actually happening.
- Listen more than you talk: It sounds like a cliché, but it’s the one thing he says changed his leadership style more than anything else.
Shawn Pugh’s presence in Westland, Michigan isn't about being a local celebrity. It’s about being a consistent professional who realized that the skills you learn in one life—even one as different as firefighting—are exactly what you need for the next one.
To apply this to your own career, start by identifying one high-pressure situation you handled well this month. Write down exactly why you stayed calm. Use that as your blueprint the next time things go sideways. Focus on being useful first, and the "success" part will likely follow.