Skilled Veterans
There are several employment options for military personnel when their current commitment expires. Many elect to re-up and stay in to make a career of their service. Others leave the service to try their hands at civilian jobs. A great deal of the training our service persons receive in the military translates into civilian employment. One place their discipline and training really pays off is when service people retire and join the ranks of veteran entrepreneurs.
Kept in Translation
On the surface, it appears as though the basic skills our vets acquire while in the service wouldn’t exactly help them in running their own businesses as veteran entrepreneurs. After all, following orders isn’t exactly at the top of the required competency list for successful chief executive officers. However, when you get beyond the stereotypes most civilians have of our military, you’ll realize that on a day to day basis, many of those serving are building a skill base most CEOs would find enviable. Think about the limited resources our soldiers and Marines face in the field, our sailors face on board a ship or our airmen face on some remote excuse for a landing strip. They’re still going to face problems in those locations. They still need to solve those problems to get the job done. Our vets may be the original “out of the box” thinkers when it comes to MacGyver-ing a solution. That ingenuity and tenacity translates well into business ownership. The ability to look beyond the problem to potential solutions has saved many small businesses from going under.
Advanced Training
The military offers a great deal of training opportunities to the ambitious recruit. Beyond Basic Training or Boot Camp, technical schools, college and on-the-job training are required in one form or another. One way the military prepares veteran entrepreneurs with this training is that it requires discipline to continue to serve in your current job while you’re learning new skills or new information. While that happens in civilian life, too, the conditions under which our service people learn is often an additional challenge. Civilians typically have built in support networks through nearby family and friends to aid in their quest for knowledge. Our service people are frequently separated from their friends and family through deployments or being posted to a base far away from home. They have to accomplish their training goals without the help of parents who will watch their kids, friends who will bring over pizza and extended family who will pitch in when needed.
These are just two of the areas in which the military prepares our service people to be successful veteran entrepreneurs. Each vet also brings their own specific skill set to the table to increase the odds of their triumph.
