Not Veterans of the Business World
Posted: 7:54 pm Thu, November 8, 2012
Patrick McCormack didn’t intend to become a business owner, but he did like to play the drums, and he was pretty handy at making his own.
Right out of high school, the Baltimore native enlisted in the Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment. After five years, he realized there was a market for his custom-made drums, and MapleWorks Drum Co. was born as a side business.
Twelve years — and several deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan —later, McCormack is still running what he calls a stable, profitable business. His two employees are guys he met in the Army, and his only business know-how is the experience he gained on the battlefield.
“The military definitely sets you up for success,” the 30-year-old said. “Most people in the military are pretty productive people and can succeed in the economy. It’s not a bad thing to have the guy who’s the veteran come work for you.”
McCormack is among a burgeoning number of veterans who start their own businesses, although most do so after finishing active duty.
Some learned their trade before enlisting, while others revived long-neglected hobbies. Some serve the general public; others cater to fellow vets. Some strive to make a difference; others just need to pay the bills.
But across the board, these veteran entrepreneurs said their military service laid the groundwork for their strategy in business world. They learned how to finish the job they started, persevere through tough times and cooperate with a team, they said.
Sounds like a reliable soldier — and a successful business owner.
Small businesses are often touted as effective engines of economic growth, especially during a recession, and over the past several years, the state and federal government have introduced several initiatives to encourage veteran entrepreneurship, primarily financial incentives.
Alex van Breukelen, who spent 13 years of active duty in the Marine Corps., opened The Americana — a restaurant and bar in Canton — in June 2011 with the help of a federal Patriot Express Loan, which is geared toward veterans.
The loans feature the Small Business Administration’s interest rates, and the agency guarantees 85 percent of the loan, reducing the liability of the private bank that funds it. The SBA also expedites the processing of the loan.
Van Breukelen said although the SBA-backed loan was helpful in opening the restaurant, which now employs about 15 people in addition to him and his wife, Jennifer, he said he wished there were more resources available to him.
Although he said the restaurant’s revenue has increased every month since it opened and is on schedule budget-wise, he hasn’t broken even or been able to cut himself much of a paycheck.
“[My personal income] is pretty much nothing,” he said. “It’s been enough to pay for gas and cigarettes over the past year and a half.”
He said the military’s Transitional Assistance Program, which soldiers are required to complete upon exiting service, has been revamped to highlight entrepreneurship as a viable route for them to take.
“That would have been huge had I had those resources,” he said. “I would be leaps and bounds ahead of where I am now.”
As more than 1 million troops return from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, efforts will likely accelerate, several people said. But for a handful of reasons, many of the initiatives have only been modestly successful, according to several veterans who own their own businesses.
The biggest issue, they said, is that many veterans aren’t aware what programs are available, or how to find and apply for them.
Securing loans or tax breaks can be a confusing, convoluted process that they said discourages would-be participants from following through.
McCormack, who is considered a service-disabled veteran, said he consulted with the Maryland Department of Veterans Affairs about its no-interest business loan. Even though he was eligible, he passed on the loan, he said, partly because he decided not to expand MapleWorks Drum.
“When I was talking to the state, they were excited I was considering it, because they don’t get many people applying,” McCormack said. “To a lot of these guys, doing all the paperwork is intimidating.
“There’s plenty out there,” he continued. “It really comes down to if people take advantage of it.”
That’s part of the problem, though. The same qualities that make veterans successful business owners can also make them less likely to seek — or accept — assistance, several said.
“Most vets that want to get involved in business won’t accept a handout,” van Breukelen said. “We won’t always look for the easy way out.”
To eliminate the barriers to participation, van Breukelen said a local, grassroots approach is necessary. There are
large organizations and national listings of veteran-owned businesses, he said, but not specifically for those in Baltimore. He hopes to create a network of veterans who own businesses in the city who want to share advice, point out available resources and find potential partners.
“With the business world, it’s always going to be competitive,” van Breukelen said. “From talking to other business owners, there are some that are very close-lipped about what they’re doing, whereas most vets are more than happy to share what they know with other vets.”
To start, van Breukelen is hosting an informal meet-and-greet at The Americana on Friday, starting at 8 p.m.
Veterans comprise a solid portion of The Americana’s customer base, he said. There are more than 400 names in the restaurant’s veteran sign-in book, he said, adding that he hopes to involve as many of them as possible.
“The vets of our generation are going to be stepping back into the civilian world and are going to be the leaders,” he said. “I want to be able to start a solid base in Baltimore now, so that 15, 20 years down the road, we’re able to have a strong foundation of people that genuinely care about the city, the community and the country.”
Once he establishes an informal group of Baltimore veterans, they’ll try to coordinate with the established organizations, he said.
“The other organizations, like the Veterans of Foreign Wars and The American Legion, are doing tremendous things, but unfortunately, they’re fairly antiquated,” he said. “They do have a lot of resources; I’m not trying to re-create the wheel.”
McCormack said he didn’t know of any similar meet-ups in his neck of the woods, but he’d be interested to find one.
The government’s greater emphasis on veteran-owned businesses is part of a larger trend that’s emerged over the past several years to improve their transition to civilian life.
“The military tries their best to make sure guys know what’s out there,” McCormack said. “In the last five years, there’s been a huge, huge push for veterans to know their rights.”
Veteran volunteers enlist to fight unemployment
A new program kicked off this week that aims to reduce veteran unemployment by putting volunteers in 20 communities around the country.
Thirty volunteers, half of whom are veterans themselves, were sworn into the Veteran Leadership Corps on Tuesday during the Community Blueprint launch reception at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
An extension of AmeriCorps, the Veteran Leadership Corps will place volunteers in communities to connect veterans and their spouses with resources to help them reintegrate into civilian life. The Community Blueprint aims to provide a framework through which local communities will coordinate services between government, nonprofit and other organizations to improve the lives of veterans and their families.
“Local communities must be the cornerstone of any national program to reduce veteran and military spouse unemployment,” said Kevin Schmeigel, executive director of Hiring Our Heroes, an initiative of the Chamber of Commerce that helped draft the blueprint.
“The Community Blueprint is based on the notion that veterans can often reach out and help other veterans in ways that others cannot,” said Stephanie Weiss, the chief marketing officer for Points of Light, a non-profit organization focused on volunteer services.
Points of Light leads a coalition of more than 55 non-profit and government organizations in implementing the plan. Hiring Our Heroes helped draft the blueprint’s sections dealing with employment.
“If they don’t walk away with a job, we want to make sure they’re better prepared for the next opportunity,” said Army veteran Ross Cohen, Hiring Our Heroes’ senior director of programs.
In addition to employment, the Community Blueprint seeks to connect veterans with housing, education and health care.
“When I transitioned out, I didn’t understand how much it was going to be in terms of medical costs,” former Petty Officer 2nd Class Elizabeth Perez said. Services that Perez was used to receiving in the military were no longer provided when she left the Navy in 2006 after nine years in uniform.
“In the military, everything is structured. You have one place to get that information,” Perez said. “And when you come out you don’t have that same kind of structure.”
Perez, a newly sworn member of the Veteran Leadership Corps, will serve as a veteran advisor with Vets First in San Diego.
Volunteering tends to keep job seekers motivated, Cohen said. “When a veteran continues to serve, they report higher rates of successful reintegration,” he said, citing a 2010 Civic Enterprises report.
Hiring Our Heroes also conducts workshops to help veterans and their spouses translate volunteer experiences into marketable resume skills.
Points of Light also lists resources on its website to reach veterans not included in the initial service areas.
“We hope to expand to 200 communities by 2014,” Weiss said in an email.
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