Our sessions are ending but we still have  a lot of networking to do.  Se you all at the May VFP meeting and Thanks to VFP for sending us to this amazing conference! There will be more pictures on the veterans for Common Sense website.

View from our Room at the Sandcastle Resort

Michael continues this afternoon to offer information on the Entrepreneurial process.  Right now he is talking about the types of research you need to do to start a business with lots of examples of Veteran businesses.  You need to research Demographics – who are your customers, Geographic ‘s, where are your customers and psychographic’s, who are the affinity groups who will be your customers.

Resources for research include: US Census, Business Schools, International Business Intelligence System (IBIS) – accessed through a school of Business, Local government and footwork.

Florida Resources:
www.enterprise Florida.com
Florida Economic Develop research (EDR)

Next Write a
Vision Statement:
Make it very short and it should create a visual image of what you want to do
Mission Statement:
The purpose of your business
Value Proposition:

Need to employ financial, social and cultural capital
Writing a business plan includes
Plan around  a 100 day timeline

Need a banker, lawyer, accountant and insurance agent
See the New Business Road test to check and see the chance of success form your plan.
Te Pitch – used to convince your vendors, funders, public and partners that what you do will succeed

LLC protects your personal assets

Nadine is the lead organizer of this conference and she is also a woman vet small business Entrepreneur.  Here is our own Nancy Shebenek modeling some of Nadine’s work.  She does T shirts for women Veterans and her business is called Lady Brigade

I am sitting in the Entrepreneur workshop with the amazing Marine, Michael Zacchea who I introduced in an earlier post on the opening session.

Dr Zacchea started working on Veterans workforce issues in 2010.  He found a downward spiral for veterans who fell out of the workforce and set about to do more than current veterans services who try to fix the superficial problems rather than offering more support as they come back into the workforce and start new businesses.He found a significant number of veteran owned businesses in Connecticut and so came up with a model is called the re-integration value chain model.

Veterans need to plan for separation at least 2 years before they get out.  They need to have a plan.
Work with educational institutions to make them aware of the number of veterans enrolled and to help meet their educational needs. Leverage defense industries and veteran owned businesses to provide more employment opportunity.
Workforce reintegration needs support from businesses who fear liability issues connected with vets with issues like PTSD.
Better access to Health care as they reintegrate
Better access to adequate food and housing.
Mentor-ship
all these service create what mike calls a “Sea of Goodwill”

http://www.business.uconn.edu/2015/03/20/a-fix-for-jobless-vets-make-them-entrepreneurs/

See the EBV website for more about Mike’s Boot Camp for Veterans.

I am sitting in an afternoon break out on Military Sexual Trauma presented by Sue Ann Garrison PhD, MSA.   Some facts about MST:  Its not just rape but includes Sexual harassment as well.  The numbers: Among women who participate in the VA health services 55% experience sexual harassment, 23% experience sexual assault.  These numbers include only women in the VA and it is estimated that only 20% of harassment or assault are actually reported.  Restricted reporting of MST gets the victim help but does not prosecute the perpetrator.  Unrestricted reporting does follow up with the intent of prosecuting the assailant. Men also experience sexual harassment and sexual assault.  When any Vet has a physical at the VA it is required by law that they be asked if they have experienced MST.

MST investigations are still controlled by the victim’s commander rather than the legal system.  Many commanders decline to prosecute.  Since 2007 the number of cases not  prosecuted has decreased. SO we are seeing some improvement as well, in fact 71% of cases with sufficient evidence have been investigated since 07.  However many of these investigations led to minor or no punishment. Only 197 out of over 5000 were actually convicted as sex offenders.

The big message: Make sure you are asked about MST when you visit the VA because victims of MST are more likely to suffer form ill health including PTSD, depression, substance use, Obsessive Compulsive disorder and Suicidal ideation.  The rated of PTSD are higher for people who experience sexual trauma than people who experienced combat.

Two effective therapies for PTSD:
Prolonged Exposure
Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT)

Maryanne is a Korean War vet and is 80 years young.  She told me that people don’t believe her when she says she is a Korean War vet. I asked if it was because they did not believe a woman could have served in Korea.  Maryanne said no it was because they did not belive she was old enough.

we are hearing from Diane Zumatto now who will speak on Empowerment and Toxic Wounds. She is doing a roll call of who served in what Era.  We have two WW2 Vets, 3three Korean War vets and a scattering of Vietnam Vets.  A large number who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and during the cold war.

She’s telling us that in the 70’s 75% of congress were veterans and today it is 19%.  She is urging veterans to run for office. She works for Amvet as a legislative liason. Check out one of her slides above.  Her report from Congress is not good.

We are getting a lesson on how to influence bills in congress.

She has great slides – one last one before lunch:

Veteran entrepreneurs is one of the themes of the conference.  we are listening to Michael Zacchea, survivor of Iraq and the battle of Fallujah, disabled vet who retired as a Marine Lt Colonel.  Mike has received numerous medals including a bronze star, purple heart and the Order of the Lion of Babylon from the Iraqi government.  He is also a member of Veterans for Common Sense.

He directs the U of Connecticut School of Business’s Entrepreneurial Boot Camp for Veterans (EBV) . i will be going to attend his breakout sessions this afternoon.

Lind maloney seaking

Linda Maloney is speaking right now.  She is a jet pilot who flew off carriers in a support role and is telling her ejection story from an A6.  They lost both hydraulic systems while on the way to Jacksonvile.  They went into a roll and ejected through the canopy. They landed in the water and got into the raft successfully.  A P3 was overhead within 3 minutes rocking his wings. When the helicopters and they hauled her out of the drink one of the crew exclaimed “You’re a girl!”

Linda is also an author with an award winning book Military Fly Moms and is organizing and speakers bureau for women veterans.  She believes that it is important for us to tell our stories.

Linda mentioned some interesting statistics:  Florida is third in the country with 165,962 women veterans .

Only 10% of the US population are veterans

You may not think of women vets having service dogs but here are two sets of service dogs and their owners at the conference.

Leslie and her service dog

Holly and her service dog