A Veteran of the Marine Corps, Josh Emison is another Vet from a military family. With an Army Aircorps veteran grandfather and a Navy Veteran for a father, Josh grew up all over the world. In the mainland US, England, Puerto Rico…well, you get the idea. Josh knew early on he wanted to have a military career, and his father’s advice was, not surprisingly, go to the Naval Academy. Not really knowing what to expect, Josh applied and was accepted and met a bunch of terrific Marine officers. That di...
Feb 23, 2022•29 min•Transcript available on Metacast Navy Veteran Sean Bonner started his military career a little later than most. At 28 years of age, he was the “old man” as he began. Growing up in the Philadelphia area, he was an athlete through high school and college. He had a friend who had joined the Marines and Sean had an interest in the military, but it was the 90s, nothing much going on and he had an opportunity to join a stock exchange, so he went to work with them. With the financial markets taking off, Sean did well and started his o...
Jan 26, 2022•45 min•Transcript available on Metacast Zachary Green is living the American dream. As a boy, he had three “sparks” as he calls them. First, to be a Marine. He had to wait until he was 18 to do that because his parents didn’t want him to join. Second, he wanted to be a firefighter. He did that. Third, to be an entrepreneur. He has done that one to the max, building a company that saves firefighters’ lives, and now inspiring others with speaking and his book. The military dream started early. Zachary was G.I. Joe every Halloween. While...
Dec 15, 2021•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast Charles E. Gaudett II started his entrepreneurship journey early – at age four to be exact. Never one to take on a traditional “job”, Charles was always fascinated by building and growing companies. After college he founded a company voted one of the most successful seed companies by Ernst and Young CPAs and he was just getting rolling. He continued his start-build routine until 2010 when someone offered to pay him to help them build their company and the consulting career began organically. He ...
Nov 24, 2021•39 min•Transcript available on Metacast Retired Army Colonel Rob Campbell really preferred basketball over the military, but getting cut from the college team his freshman year – he says not having a “left hand” finally caught up with him – plus the fact he ran out of money nudged him toward the Massachusetts National Guard, which had some education financial packages. Rob’s father having been a Reservist was some familiarity, so Rob decided to give it a try. In 1987 he went off to boot camp and decided he really liked what he experie...
Nov 18, 2021•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast Olaseni Bello moved to the US from Nigeria at age 10. Calling his transition “challenging” to say the least, his assimilation into a radically different environment happened successfully over time. Enrolled in martial arts – Taekwondo specifically – by his mother, learning self-defense is evidence to the challenges Olaseni faced, but that which does no kill us… He went on to be a gold medal-winning Junior Olympian and found his second family with his martial arts community but it happened becaus...
Nov 10, 2021•51 min•Transcript available on Metacast Navy Veteran Chelsea Mandello actually came from an Air Force family, of course making her the black sheep of the family. There were two main reasons for her “defection”. First, Navy bases were on the coast and Air Force bases tended to be in the middle of nowhere. Second, she was a photo journalist and got sent to the pretty places to shoot pictures that made the Navy look good. Solid reasons for her choice. Her first station was Navy Public Affairs where she would be deployed on a ship but onl...
Nov 04, 2021•46 min•Transcript available on Metacast Growing up a self-proclaimed “old school knucklehead” who loved the spectrum from cowboy John Wayne to the see-the-world “Stripes” movie, Keith Pape went into the military not really knowing what to expect. But he know all along he was not ready for more school after high school and wanted the military badly. He convinced his parents it would save them college tuition and whether they believed him or not, they signed the papers. He joined the Army delayed entry and served through the end of the ...
Oct 20, 2021•46 min•Transcript available on Metacast Armed with a master’s degree in engineering and a desire to be an astronaut, Elana Duffy’s first job was sitting in front of a ton of blueprints figuring out the cost of renovating a large building. A far cry from the space program, Elana went into her boss’ office and said she was going to call a military recruiter and possibly join the Reserves. After a huge laugh from her boss, that sealed it for Elana and she was ready to enlist. Since the Army was the only branch that allows you to choose y...
Sep 22, 2021•48 min•Transcript available on Metacast Mike Madrid and Donny Brazeal were shipmates on a Navy destroyer. Both of them were coffee aficionados and so were many of their friends on board. So they pooled their money, bought really good coffee from the top roasters of the world, and then shared each batch so everyone got to sample the best coffees and decide which ones they wanted to brew on a daily basis. Mike went to the Academy then served on destroyers and was statopned in Spain when he and Donny met. Following his move to the states...
Sep 15, 2021•44 min•Transcript available on Metacast One more of Josh Carter’s many friends, Fred Wellman of the Lincoln Project joins him today. Fred joined the Army partly because of a REALLY long family history. Going back to the 1640s to be exact with the French and Indian Wars - pre-revolutionary times! His father was a Marine in World War II and Fred wound up at West Point after looking closely at the Air Force Academy. He really liked the wide choice of majors offered and he was also a “sports guy” so West Point was a perfect fit. He always...
Sep 08, 2021•51 min•Transcript available on Metacast How do you feed the incredible growing population of the planet? Is big, corporate agriculture the only answer? Not if you’re Richard Brion. Brion, Navy Vet started Revolution Agriculture to grow vegetables at the neighborhood level to feed the planet with fresh, local produce in an incredibly clever way. This Tacoma, Washington resident joined the Navy when his high school had an ROTC program. With family members in different branches of the military, Richard wanted off the peninsula he had alw...
Aug 18, 2021•48 min•Transcript available on Metacast Veteran Apache pilot Jason Anderson chose the Army partly because of family heritage and partly for an early exposure to flying. His grandfather was a World War II veteran and his uncles were all in either the Marines or Army. And his father was a pilot, so he and his brother were riding in airplanes at an early age. His interest in military planes continued and when his brother found an ROTC track at the U of North Dakota that offered not only flying and helicopter training but a slot in the he...
Aug 11, 2021•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast Charles Read is a high profile guy, with TV segments in the financial news and more. And he’s a big, big proponent of hiring military Vets, so he’s a big favorite with us. A Marine veteran and also a Vietnam combat veteran, Charles is the founder president and CEO of GetPayroll, and online, fully-compliant payroll and payroll tax reporting service for businesses of any size. Military service was in the cards for Charles all along. His entire family has been “citizen soldiers” since the Revolutio...
Jul 28, 2021•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast Dan Regester is a third generation Air Force Vet. His deployment time was the Kosovo war where he flew on C-135s doing air refuelings. Originally “looking for adventure”, Dan had a childhood of the Air Force, visiting the air bases with his Dad, a Vietnam Vet, many times. And because many of his Dad’s friends were military, Dan was immersed in the mindset of the military person and that was the main attraction for Dan. Dan’s Grandfather was in the Army Air Corps during World War II before the br...
Jul 07, 2021•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast Ali Ahmadi, Navy Vet, is a good friend of our host, Josh Carter. A Queens, New York native was celebrating his Mom’s 50th birthday on September 9th, 2001 in the Top of the World restaurant on top of Tower Two. Of course, two days later was the attack and two days after that, Ali and his father joined the volunteer rescue teams to hunt for survivors. Two months later, Ali walked into the Navy recruiter’s office and signed up. His first memories from boot camp were the youth of all the other recru...
Jul 02, 2021•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast A post-911 military joiner, Danique Masingill wanted law enforcement as a career, and only the Navy would promise that in a contract, so in 2002 she joined and went to boot camp. Her first command was Charlston, South Carolina. It was a tough assignment. Rampant sexual assault, high suicide rates and a terrible place to be for anyone, especially a woman. Danique was caught in a terrible trap; she was law enforcement and the high ranking officials in the LE were the perpetrators. So who do you ca...
Jun 24, 2021•41 min•Transcript available on Metacast US Marine vet Kate Monroe, founder of VetCom joined the military in an unusual path. On a full ride scholarship to a Christian Bible College. A gifted student all through school, Kate was always told she would be someone great- the usual doctor, lawyer path – and she just plain burned out on it. After her freshman year, she looked into the Air Force originally. A chance meeting with a Marine recruiter on her way to take her qualifying tests resulted in being swept into the Marines at 19. Becomin...
Jun 16, 2021•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast Air Force Veteran Brian Reese served in Afghanistan and received the Defense Meritorious Service Medal. He then earned his MBA as a National Honor Scholar from the Spears School of Business at Oklahoma State University, so he is no slacker. Nor does he wish any other Vet to be, so he started VA Claims Insider, a Coaching and Consulting company whose mission is to educate and empower veterans to get the VA disability benefits they’ve earned for their honorable service. But let’s start at the begi...
Jun 09, 2021•44 min•Transcript available on Metacast Julie Davila likes tacos (and Manhattan cocktails too, evidently). And although she also likes fish, she hates those who phish. That’s part of the impetus behind ZibaSec, software security. Here’s her background: An Army vet, Julie applied to an ROTC scholarship which she received, but decided she did not want to be an officer, so she enlisted. Julie went into the infantry and learned very quickly that she could deal with the stress on her body because the military helped strengthen her mind. An...
Jun 03, 2021•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast Drew Bartkiewicz grew up close to West Point, had an older brother who went there and so it was a natural to attend there also. It wasn’t easy. He came up short in his initial application and spent what he calls, “the best year of my life”, attending a prep school to get over the bar. He studied aerospace engineering and learned that real creativity isn’t open-ended and willy-nilly, it’s a structured, disciplined path that leads to a revolutionary development. Graduating and sent to Northern Ita...
May 26, 2021•41 min•Transcript available on Metacast Navy Man Bryce Reich of Harness wanted to join the military for the structure but also because of the family background. Originally wanting to be a rescue swimmer for the Coast Guard, he went through the process but was put on a year wait list. His brother in-law had just left the Navy and Bryce looked up to him, so the Navy seemed like the place to be. He began as a submariner but decided he didn’t care for that while in boot camp. He switched to sonar technician where he finished his career. I...
May 20, 2021•42 min•Transcript available on Metacast As an 18-year old self-described “spoiled brat”, Michael Shenker wanted to leave home and his way out was to join the Army. He decided if he could join the military service, get the experience of learning about the world and get out without losing any serious body parts, he would be a stronger person. And it worked. In the Army, he went to basic in Fort Lewis and then tried his hand in electronics school, which was a mistake. Subsequently, he went to the tank organization in Fort Knox, Kentucky ...
Apr 06, 2021•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast Zach Jones was four years old when he decided on a military life. His father was in the Air Force and when he met his uncle who was a Marine his future was decided. He was “converted” to the Marines by his uncle and joined in 2011 and drove trucks. Starting with a couple of years in Okinawa and wound up training other drivers. If he had to do it over, Zach might have joined the Air Force as his father preferred, but the Marines did prepare Zach for pushing through the tough times and building hi...
Mar 30, 2021•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast The first time the show hasn't had a Veteran founder has a good reason: Patrick Nettesheim is helping Veterans overcome PTSD and related stress symptoms by teaching them to play the guitar. In fact, a research study of Guitars 4 Vets students showed a 21% improvement in PTSD symptoms and a 27% decrease in related depression symptoms. The study attributed learning and playing guitar as the primary catalysts for these improvements. And Patrick is doing his level best to get guitars into the hands ...
Mar 22, 2021•43 min•Transcript available on Metacast Army Vet Ken Robbins has stayed dedicated to his fellow soldiers. Growing up in rural Maine, Ken wanted to see more of the world and went to West Point and graduated an officer to start his 20-year Army career. He loved what he did, his opportunities and the people he worked with. His father served in the Army in Korea and that had an impact on Ken's choice of services. The president of a high school club, George Mitchell was a Senator at the time. Mitchell came to the high school and Ken got to...
Mar 22, 2021•56 min•Transcript available on Metacast An Army Vet who worked on the "Big Rigs", diesel powered machines as a mechanic, Portland, Oregon native Chris Benson was part of a unit that moved equipment around for the New England National Guard. He was admittedly aimless after high school and when his parents became obviously concerned about his lack of direction, the military seemed like a good place to put some discipline and purpose to Chris' life. And since he loved cars growing up and enjoyed tinkering with them, it was a natural to b...
Mar 16, 2021•40 min•Transcript available on Metacast A greater Portland, Oregon native, who lives across the river from co-host Josh, Jon Sanford grew up a Hippie Kid in a commune. His rebellion was going into the military, but since his parents would not sign off on infantry for him, he went National Guard. He loved working on cars as a high schooler and so becoming a diesel mechanic was a natural choice. He came home and went immediately to college. But the path to entrepreneurship was Jon's ability to lead. His personality is to sink his teeth ...
Mar 16, 2021•59 min•Transcript available on Metacast An Air Force veteran and a former graduate of the same Chicago Techstars program as our co-host Josh, Greg Coleman had a family background of military service. His father was a Naval Academy grad and Navy helicopter pilot barely missing deployment in Vietnam. And his grandfather on his mother's side was a Tuskegee Airman. With that background, Greg always wanted to fly. He went to the Air Force Academy and flight school, then an aviation career. He flew KC10s, even though he originally thought w...
Mar 09, 2021•53 min•Transcript available on Metacast Thubten Comerford joined the Navy, as did our co-host Josh, to get away from home. Coming out as a gay man did not go over well with his family at the time and life just started getting too limited. There was a Navy recruiting station by the Santa Monica College campus and made it quite convenient. The nuclear power program was most interesting to Thubten and he signed up. A prestigious program to gain entry, Thubten finally had a subject that demanded his full attention and he liked both the me...
Mar 09, 2021•49 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
