Credits: Adam DeRito
Most books about resilience are written by people who studied it. Adam DeRito’s book was written by someone who lived it in the most literal sense — across industries, geographies, and seasons of life that most people will never experience even one of.
DeRito is the author of The Guy in the Yellow Tie and carries a list of professional identities that is unusual by any measure: Army Civil Affairs Captain, veteran, energy and wastewater professional, farmer, volunteer firefighter, EMT, oil and gas worker, educator, and political candidate. Each of those roles was not a stepping stone to something else. Each was, in its own time, the thing itself.
The Energy Industry: Where Work Means Something
Colorado’s refining industry is not a glamorous place to build a career. It is demanding, technical, and often thankless — the kind of work that keeps the country running while remaining largely invisible to the people who depend on it most. DeRito spent years in that world, working in hydraulic fracturing, production, and wireline operations before transitioning into energy and wastewater management.
That background gave him something that cannot be acquired through graduate school or consulting: a firsthand understanding of what it means to do essential work under pressure, to operate within systems that are imperfect, and to maintain professional integrity in environments where the margin for error is real.
His graduate education in global energy management added analytical depth to that practical foundation. But it was the time in the field — the early mornings, the physical demands, the relationships built with people who worked with their hands — that shaped his sense of what leadership actually requires.
Farming and the Patience It Demands
Farming is one of the oldest forms of accountability there is. The land does not respond to excuses. The weather does not accommodate poor planning. The work that needs doing needs doing whether you feel like it or not, and the results of your choices — good and bad — show up in concrete and unavoidable ways.
DeRito farmed alongside the rest of his professional life, initially as a hobby but not as a lifestyle brand, and as a genuine commitment to working the land. He learned how to provide for himself and help his local neighbors. That experience reinforced something he had already learned in the military and the energy industry: that the most important things in life are built through sustained effort over time, not through single moments of inspiration.
There is a patience in farming that mirrors the patience required to rebuild a life after adversity. You plant, you tend, you wait. You deal with the unexpected. You adjust. And then, if you did the work correctly and had some luck on your side, something grows.
Military Service and the Civil Affairs Mission
DeRito’s role as an Army Civil Affairs Captain is perhaps the most instructive of his professional identities when it comes to understanding his worldview. Civil Affairs is not infantry. It is not special operations in the conventional sense. It is the work of building relationships between military forces and civilian populations — understanding local context, communicating across cultural differences, and operating in environments where the human dimension of conflict is as important as the tactical one.
It is work that demands intellectual flexibility, genuine empathy, and the ability to hold complexity without defaulting to simple answers. Those are qualities that show up throughout The Guy in the Yellow Tie — not as stated principles, but as the operating logic of someone who has actually had to think that way under pressure.
The Volunteer Chapter: Firefighting and Emergency Response
Before the energy industry and before military service at the level he would reach, DeRito served as a volunteer firefighter and EMT. These roles are not typically included in professional biographies because they do not come with salaries or titles that translate cleanly onto a résumé. But they are formative in ways that other experiences are not.
Emergency response work forces a rapid, honest assessment of what matters. When you are the person who shows up when something goes wrong, you learn very quickly that preparation, calm, and the willingness to act matter more than rank or reputation. DeRito carried that lesson forward through every subsequent chapter of his career.
What All of It Adds Up To
The biography behind The Guy in the Yellow Tie is not a collection of impressive-sounding credentials assembled to build a brand. It is a record of someone who has consistently chosen to show up — in uniform, in the field, in the classroom, on the land, and eventually on the page — with the intention of doing something useful and honest.
DeRito’s message about resilience is not abstract because his life has not been abstract. He is writing about things he has actually done, actually lost, and actually rebuilt. That is what makes the book worth reading. And it is what makes his argument — that adversity does not have to write your story — something more than a motivational slogan.
