0:02 Who are you and where are you going? What do you want? [Music] Hello and welcome to Business Lessons from the Military. I'm your host, Kevin Bemel, and and I'm here every Tuesday at 10 a.m. Pacific time to talk about uh military history, military doctrine, the practices of military leaders, all to distill from them lessons that we can
0:37 use in um building our businesses and professional practices. And so today uh we we got kind of a late start. We had some technical glitches, but today I am, you know, very happy to have uh a friend of mine, Darren Burrell, on uh on the show. Um if you've seen any of the social media posts promoting it, uh Darren is a veteran of the United States Air Force and after he got out of the Air Force, he got into venture capital. Now, I know what you're
1:13 thinking. Military people don't do venture capital. Yes, they do. There is lots of military people um on I put this in quotes, you know, Wall Street because Darren is not based in New York. Uh and and and there is, I think, much to be learned in the military that can be that can be um translated into the the the business world of finance and mergers and acquisitions and such. So looking forward to this conversation. Darl Darren, thanks so much for for for coming on the show and and for sticking
1:48 with getting the tech. No, hey uh it happens, right? We we adapt and overcome. So that's the first principle we'll go through. But uh no, it's a pleasure, Kevin. Appreciate you having me. uh and appreciate what you do to help really strengthen what I believe is very very needed in education and awareness on the principles that we learn in the military and how they are so applicable into the private sector especially in business. So excited to be here and and uh and really looking forward to our conversation. Well, great. Yeah. You know, uh, I mean,
2:23 Darren, I I think you and I were both fortunate to serve in the military at a time where we had really the respect and the gratitude of our fellow citizens and and at the same time, the military spent spends just a tremendous amount of money training us, uh, giving us experience. And so, you know, especially when I have a fellow veteran on the show, I feel like it's it's an our our opportunity to give back to our our fellow citizens and as well as our veteran colleagues. Uh you know, a little bit of of what we got, you know, from them. Um having the
2:58 the opportunity to serve and and having the kind of support that we had. So um so so start if you would tell us you know what was your experience in the United States Air Force uh you know what you know where where did you start? What was your rank? What did you do? How you know how did that end up? Give us give us kind of the the the background story there. Yeah. Yeah. I'll try to not put your uh your listeners to sleep but uh yeah quick background. I did a full career 21 years active duty air force. Um all of it was in the financial
3:34 management career field. So what does that mean? You know people typically think it's you know a finance officer or a budget officer or something like that but essentially what I did is uh I helped you know I like to say I didn't help I didn't fly the planes. I just helped pay for them. Right? anything that takes uh anything to operate, whether that's at a base, uh whether that's deployed at the Pentagon, I I managed about a 15 billion dollar program when I was when I was stationed at the Pentagon. Uh then uh dep combat deployed five times, Iraq, Afghanistan,
4:10 Turkey, even Guantanamo Bay, uh 12 billion uh just in Iraq and Afghanistan. Uh and uh so you know the we like to say that air power is not free and so we have to help manage those budgets to find the right places to uh help acquire the things that help our war fighters on the on the front lines. I finished up my time um in the White House. I managed the president's communications budget that was under the Obama administration. And it was there that I I made the the rank of colonel or ' 06. Uh but decided to transition out of the military at
4:47 that time. I just really felt like there was a uh you know that I'd been you again 21 years. Uh I I felt like I'd done the things that I wanted to do. I wanted to command. I commanded a squadron in Italy. That was probably the best three years of my life. Wow. I had been at uh you know at the Pentagon at the high levels and then again uh advising senior White House officials. Uh so I I'd done a lot of great things. Uh but I felt like there was something to to be done in the private sector. So I got out uh just uh been just about 10 years 10 years today or pretty close to
5:24 it and transitioned to the private sector. Still doing the financial thing just in the uh private sector. had moved to uh to Knoxville, Tennessee where the job was and uh spent almost 10 years there about nine years. But I uh immediately I'm going to stop you there because I want to stay with your military career if I can for just a couple more minutes. So you mentioned that you um you oversaw a $15 billion program. Um I you know with with everything that's been going on geopolitically and I I'm not I not don't want to get into the political side of it but you know people hear you know for example well you know the the Iranians
6:00 they they can only fly you know sort of you know F4s or F-14. What did you work on any of the the aircraft programs? Um my understanding is the Air Force typically was at least these days is flying F-15s and X F-16s. Um, were you involved in any of those kind of programs? Yeah, so it's a great question and we can dive down a little deeper into that. So when I was at the Pentagon, we did work on there were people that worked on full acquisitions of like total aircraft. Biggest one when I was there was the F-35 or the joint strike fighter. F-15s and F-16s been
6:37 around for a long time. I worked on them, but it was more or less the, you know, the operations and maintenance or the upkeep of it. And so, you know, we called it, you know, cost per flying hour. So, like a an F-15 might cost, you know, 10 $10,000 an hour uh to fly. And that includes everything. It includes fuel, that includes the the parts and things like that. So, that's what I did um is is really the depo maintenance and the upkeep of the current inventory of aircraft that we had. There were other people that did a lot of acquisition and and investments in uh in the future
7:14 years. Uh but that was a whole I mean they really segregated the different types of money that you would use for people for equipment for training and then also for procurement and and uh things like that. So um so I dabbled in a little bit of all of that. But then when we got stationed at a base like like let's say when when um when I was done with the Pentagon, I went to school for a year but then moved uh moved to Italy uh and I took command of the squadron of the finance squadron that was in Italy. Uh that was F-16s. So
7:49 there were F-16s at that base. And so you'd have, you know, several hundred million dollars, you know, let's say 500 million or 300 million that would use to run that base. Uh, and that included everything that you would see in a town, right? You know, the wing commander is kind of like your mayor and uh and and you're kind of like the CFO of the town or something like that. And so so you know you'd pay for water, your utilities, civil engineering, roads and upkeep. All of that stuff was out of that pot of money. And a portion of that even was for the
8:24 flying hour program for the F F-16s at that at that particular base. But but I worked at bases that had F-15s, F-16s, B-52s, uh even F-22s when I was at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia. So, a lot of different aircraft you're exposed to and um and even uh you know different completely different mission sets like a mobility mission when I was in Tampa, the tankers and being refueling there versus combat aircraft that you have in the fighters and then bombers when I was at Mina. So, a lot of different
9:00 diversity that you learn to try and become a well-rounded officer when you end up do go into the senior uh you know ranks and trying to make sure you allocate resources to the right place at the right time. Does that does that help clarify some stuff? Yeah, it does. and and and I I actually it's the information you shared I think is is really important because for people who are not familiar with the military um so much of the focus on defense spending seems to be on procurement and yet the bulk of money at least from my perspective and and I was uh when I was
9:35 I was a chaplain as you know um my first job was was with the Marine Corps in Okinawa and you know our entire budget was really supplies, you know, and that kind that that kind of day-to-day stuff, right? And I was in charge of all of that. Um, and and I think a lot of people don't realize that that really is the the majority personnel and and those sort of routine day-to-day uh costs. That's really the majority of the defense budget. And people there are people in the military. That's what you know we do in terms of um the experience
10:12 we have uh handling you know money within the department of defense. It it it really is more like what you have out in the civilian world right procurement civilian world too isn't a you know major issue per se. Yeah, I mean I I I clarify the more work goes into to that to to the you know the what we call that operation and maintenance that day-to-day stuff the dollar amounts were bigger in investment. I mean because you know joint strike fight cost about a billion but the dollar amount is easy when you put it all in one contract right it's
10:48 different when it's you're like okay I got to give some to the security police I got to give some to the civil engineers I got to give some to the command post you know you you so what you're saying is you know from a work standpoint it's a little bit more challenging because you have a finite amount of resources and you have to do tradeoffs with okay you know I have requirements that equal 100 million I've only got 80 million And so 20 million is not going to get done. So let's figure out how we're going to do this between now and the end of the fiscal year. So definitely uh could see that uh the people that are in like you know the Pentagon is where most of the acquisitions uh take place and so the
11:24 program offices there that get this large amount of money and they're working with the you know the big defense primes the Lockheed Martins and the Boeings to get those aircraft and stuff. very important job but very different than what is happening when you got people because even with that same pot of well not I guess with the same pot of money but with that same that same finance squadron you're also paying the troops right so all the twice a month you got people coming in saying you know hey I I have this entitlement that didn't show up or or I was overpaid here that happened pretty rarely but uh you know then the so that's uh that you're dealing with both sides of the
11:59 coin you're dealing with paying the troops and you're also dealing with keeping the aircraft craft in the sky and and all the other missions running on base. So that was that was majority you know we we moved about 10 times in in my 21 years. So we wow we saw a lot of different things a lot of different bases a lot and and with that comes a different mission set and so you kind of get an idea of how the fighter world is different than the bomber world which is different than the tanker world. And so you got uh you got all these different things, but it really helps you become I would say more well well a more well-rounded uh financial officer. And I
12:34 think that actually h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h h help helps uh you know in that transition to the private sector as well because you're used to adapting and learning new things and figuring it out that uh that even if it's a little bit different, the same principles of leadership hold true no matter where you are. Yeah. And you know you and you rais another great point and I saw the same thing in the Navy. So people I again people who are not familiar with the military which is most of our fellow citizens they have they look at each service branch as being pretty homogeneous whereas I know in the Navy we have different communities. So
13:09 you have the surface warfare community you have the air you know the air community you have special operations i.e. the SEALs you have the the CBS the construction battalions submarines. Each one of these communities not only has its specific, you know, tasks that it it it's charged with completing, but it has a different culture. uh you know and and I'm I'm talking I can't remember who it was but um a a Navy guy that I didn't know when I was in the Navy and we were oh I yeah was in a I'm I'm the um president of the Beverly Hills Navy
13:44 League and we joke about um the black shoe Navy and the Brown Shoe Navy because being having been with Naval Aviation and for two tours I'm a brown shoe Navy guy and and the the the the ship drivers are the black shoe Navy and of Of course, in the aviation community, we always called them with derision they're a shoe, meaning a black shoe, right? And you know, it's you look, it's it's somewhat of a fun rivalry, but it but it also shows the diversity of cultures within this larger organization.
14:19 100% totally agree. Uh it was so funny when I went from a bomber base straight to a fighter base. um the different mentalities there whereas you know if you're in a in an F-15 going a lot faster than you are in a B-52 right and so that mentality actually translates to the day-to-day uh um you know completion of tasks you know there's a different mindset of a bomber than there is in a fighter pilot. So you just kind of have to adjust and and uh you know to the to the circumstances around you to the
14:54 personalities and uh uh yeah so it is definitely true that each base had its own culture its own mindset even though we're all still part of the one big in in our case air force and then even military at a higher level. Yeah. Okay. So now you know you you've made the decision you're you're you're not going to you know vi to join the star club as I call it become a general. Right. Right. you decide to transition to uh you know civilian life. So um and you mentioned you moved to um Knoxville, Tennessee, I think it was. So right tell us about you know a little bit about that transition um because I think
15:30 that's also useful for you know our our our you know fellow citizens to understand what that's really like as opposed to what they may hear in the media. Yeah. So um so I really uh you know I loved my time in the military. It was a very hard decision for me to decide to uh to transition into the private sector. So when I got to Knoxville, um it's not a not a not a huge military presence there. A couple of guard units and reserve units, but uh but for the most part, it's pretty it's it's pretty civilian, right? Mhm. Uh so
16:06 the transition was a little bit more of a challenge than like let's say if you retired, you know, in DC or in a military community in San Antonio or something like that. You know, you still got your your tribe, if you will, right? Um, so that was part of a a a challenge I would guess uh when we transitioned over is I it it wasn't just about you know the transition for for the job but for the whole family because my wife and my children we have five kids the transition to the private sector you know they were used to a military base they were used to military friends easy
16:42 to make friends that way because you know you only had a couple years so it was it was quick. Um, but when you go to a to a a community that's not heavily militi military, um, then they know they they're nice. They were great people. Um, but they'd also been friends with their neighbors for 20 years, right? And, you know, still had their families and extended families and everything right there. So, it was a little bit more of a challenge even for my family as well. But, um, but we did make the transition. Um it took probably I'd say two years to feel like okay, you know, we're finally out of the military. Um
17:18 because we missed it a lot. Um and I think that's a testimony to just how how how great military service can be if you have the right attitude. Uh I still still think about it. I'm so glad that I'm back into the uh being into that ecosystem and helping out veterans and and working with the Department of Defense now, which I'm we'll get to it a bit, I guess. But so basically what I did is is I got a job as a chief operating officer of a small fiduciary company in Knoxville about 45 people um about 450 million assets under management and it was about retirement
17:54 plans. Uh so it was it was financial but you know as you know we don't really have 401ks in the military. The closest thing is the TSP. Um and so I had to learn a whole new industry. uh instead of working with a DoD, I worked with a Department of Labor. That's where where that most of those rules lie. And so I I I did, you know, you put on your hat just like you do at a new assignment and you figure out uh what you need to know. Uh but you still know how to lead um when you come out of the military. As you mentioned, the government pours billions into developing our nation's u military leaders, right? and they come
18:30 out of the service with the same characteristics of Fortune 500 CEOs. you know, the think that, you know, the resilience, the adaptability, the ability to make decisions in a time constrained environment, that integrity, that work ethic, all of these things that you learn whatever you're at, whether you're an E5 or an ' 07, you know, you have these inherent things that military breeds in you and that they continue to educate you on with a different professional military education. So, I had the ability. I said, "Well, I don't know a whole lot about 401k plans, but I do know we need
19:05 a hierarchy here. We need to have SOPs. We need to put in structure, administration, organization." Uh, and I think that's something that small business really needs, right? Small business typically doesn't do that. Uh, it's just go go go. And uh and so when I got to this business and I helped them really put in process management and that uh ability to ex to execute the mission, you it's all about getting things done, but to do it in a manner that is structured and repeatable and documented. Um that's something they hadn't seen before. And the results were pretty amazing. Um because over the next
19:41 three years, the company went from about you know less than 500 million assets under management to about three billion. the company went from about 45 employees to over a hundred and uh and it ended up uh you know leading to an uh being being acquired uh at about a 5x over that over that three years. Wow. So it was so um so that's where I learned that gosh the principles that I used in the military are extremely applicable in the private sector number one and number two as we were growing um they needed additional
20:17 capital and uh they said hey you're a money guy go find us $2 million and I was like oh okay well used to doing that in the military you just go and submit a requirement and no problem but it's not that easy in the private sector So that's where I was I was first exposed to to alternative capital, you know, venture capital and uh and so I over the next six six to nine months is when um I learned all about what I wanted about alternative capital and it was tough. I mean I got the 2 million. Uh it was definitely a challenge and
20:53 that's kind of where I'm like, okay, if it's hard for me, a money guy who's been doing this for a couple of decades, it's going to be hard for a lot of veteran uh veteran businesses because company I was at was led by by a veteran. Mhm. And then uh so that's kind of where I started putting the the thinking cap on and thinking, okay, I think I can help solve this problem because I started to do some research. And I found out that veteranowned businesses had a had a disadvantage in getting access to capital. In fact, they're 30% less likely to receive venture capital even though the BLS uh statistics show that they outearn their non- veteran
21:28 counterparts. So I saw another opportunity. I saw an arbitrage if you will that if you get in at a good valuation you can scale the company quicker and then you can have that liquidation event uh in and return on your investment in a faster ma manner. So I kind of interject were were you able to figure out why um veteranowned businesses were so much less likely to be able to get VC funding? what what what what is the you know what is the reason behind that or the reason behind that? Yeah, great
22:03 question. Uh and yeah, there's lots of statistics on it. U the main reasons are is is because when when when we were out, you know, serving our country on the front lines and being deployed and doing the things that we did to get the mission done, the pe our our civilian counterparts were building that network in the private sector and Wall Street and on the banking sector and all that stuff. they have the capabilities to know where to go for money and better install, you know, and that's really what it came down to is access to capital and and and set and those networks. And so, you know, I I had shadowed under uh a couple of uh VCs and
22:40 um angel investors for about a year before deciding to launch out and start veteran ventures capital. Um because I thought that, you know, uh um learning how to do it and how to, you know, manage deal flow and all that kind of uh important things that uh I take for granted today. I learned back in the early stages while I was working two jobs. Uh but that's um you know that was uh it was all tools right building blocks. I knew that uh that you know what what veterans bring to the table in the business world is dramatically needed. And I knew that also that we could help bridge this gap in access to
23:15 capital. So you know right around COVID is when I went full-time on BBC and decided to raise our first fund. Um, and I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna stop you there because I'm gonna have take a sponsor break and then we'll pick it up with um with V VVC. Okay. America is a maritime nation. Our freedom and security depend on strong sea services. The Beverly Hills Council of the Navy League stands with our Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, and Merchant Marine through community support,
23:51 education, and advocacy. For over 120 years, Americans of all walks of life have heeded our call. No prior military services required to join our mission. The Beverly Hills Council of the Navy League of the United States. Help us support those who serve at sea. visit navyleague.org. So, this is Business Lessons from the Military and and I'm I'm your host Kevin Bemel. My guest is Darren Burrell. And Darren was uh in the in the first part
24:26 of the show talked about his career as a finance officer in the United States Air Force and then his transition to the civilian sector working for a fiduciary organization basically helping it it expand by sort of orders of magnitude um using what he learned uh as a finance officer uh in the military. And so now Darren, you you were just talking about making the transition to to being full-time with Veteran Ventures Capital. So, um, yeah, why don't you continue with that and and and and you know, how did that go? Going out on your own,
25:02 basically. Uh, well, it was, uh, first couple of years of a lot of a lot of lessons learned, if you will. Um, we we started, uh, raising our fund again, um, in in the midst of COVID. And so one of the things you start to learn about um in the world of fundraising is that for firsttime people out in the gate, you know, they call emerging managers or first-time fund managers, it's it's uh it's really about who you are. It's your relationship. You know, they're they're investing in you because you don't have a track record of this many deals with
25:38 this level of return. you know, it's much more statistical driven today than it than it was when I first started out. And so, the best way to do that is to get in front of people, to shake hands, and to travel around. You couldn't do any of that during co co, right? So, it was a little bit of a challenge. And I think that was uh uh something that really helped me later on. I mean because you still call upon the types of things that you did when you were deployed and you had very little uh you know resources but you still had to get the job done right and so that was one of the you know just continually
26:13 grinding it out is what we all you know what we did in the military and it's kind of what happened during the midst of co we ended up raising about $20 million for our first fund. Wow. Um and uh and really, you know, it was during that time that we started to really assemble the full team. There's five folks on the team now, including myself. And uh and so we we started to hone out how are we going to invest in veteranowned and veteranled type of companies that uh that are, you know, that that really reflect the military
26:49 ethos, but also reflect those characteristics that I told you that we wanted to see thrive in in the private sector. And so what we found is that investing in what we knew which is companies that um are really bent on solving technological issues for the DoD. Um so where we found that the best investments took place for us was at the intersection of dualuse technologies and veteran leadership. So what does that mean? Dual use technologies means it has a governmental or a DoD use but it also has a private use. So think you know
27:26 space and satellite technology government uses that but so does the private side. Think uh you know drones and autonomy uh and even you know cyber security. The first thing that came to mind for me was Velcro which I think was originally developed right for space. You I'm showing my age right but that's right or even GPS for that matter. Government did that too. So yeah and and so that's what we found you know that uh if we connected with those people that were somewhat early stage you know they had product market fit and maybe had their
28:01 first million or so but they really wanted to get involved in DoD contracts and acquisition and procurement. Well the gosh that's what I did when I was active and what another guy on the team does. So we were able to connect them to the right program office or to the right group of folks that had this all these pots of money that helped spur this innovation to the battlefield, right? And so just for an example, the budget this year was about 990 billion dollars for DoD, right? A little less than that, 9885 maybe. And then about 145 billion of that is research
28:39 and development related. So if you know the the budget and again you know this kind of what I did with the Pentagon is we help build these budgets. In fact you know one of the guys on the team still does reserve duty and is finishing up this week building the budget for next year. And uh and so right now you can scour those budget documents and you can find out where the government's going to be allocating resources years in advance and you can find out which areas are growing the most. And so that's what we did. We found out okay we know that space is going to be big. We know that quantum is big. We know that cyber is big. CFIR
29:15 in general you know material science. These are all areas that we invest in because not only do we know them and we can help get them to the right people on the in the Pentagon, but we also know there's a lot of money there waiting to be allocated to help bring this innovation that the government needs. Everybody knows that DoD is modernizing and that the future of uh wars uh really lies in technology and the defense of our nation is technology and things like that. So, so that's what we did, you know, we we did that. Um we were very successful because we invested in 14
29:50 companies with that first fund. But um what what our our value ad was is those same 14 companies generated an additional $161 million in non-dilutive funding on top of our equity investments. So that means for about every million dollar that we invested, we were able to get Uncle Sam to back these companies with 10 million bucks of non-diluted money. Wow. So that could be in the form of research like SBIR, small business innovative research grants, could be in the form of a DARPA RFP or could be in the form of a congressional ad. We've done all of those things that
30:27 not a lot of people know about or understand. Uh defense, you know, defense tech investing is now invogue, but it wasn't back then. It was just getting started and we kind of had a leg up on that. And so that's really what we thought was pretty important because when you invest in a company and then you get additional money from the government, it derisk the investment for our investors. It helps these companies scale further faster, but they also don't need to raise as much because you get $10 million from the government. That means your future rounds aren't as big, which it it decreases dilution for
31:02 my investors, right? And they don't have to give the entrepreneurs love it. They don't have to give away as much of their company. So you you you have this win-winwin when it comes to helping these companies scale and lead to faster liquidity events because if you get you know let's say you start off with a million in revenue and then you get a couple government contracts and you're getting up to 20 million in revenue well that then increases the likelihood of that major defense prime like we talked about earlier the locked or the Boeing or even today and SpaceX or um Palunteer someone like that they actually say,
31:38 "Okay, I like that technology. Government needs it. I need it. Let me just go ahead and acquire it." And they buy the company at whatever, you know, six, seven, 10 times revenue. And there's my 10x return for my investors. And everybody wins. And so that's what we did with fund one. And now we just we're wrapping up our fund raise. If I can interject for what I found so interesting about what you were saying is um when it came to raising capital veterans were behind the curve because they didn't have established networks
32:13 because you know they we were you know in the military while other people were doing that. You actually sort of turned that on its head. So you went and said in essence where do I already have an established network that I can then pull into the private sector uh and use and so in essence you were able to compete you know head-to-head with pe you know with people who had been building their networks all along by using the network you had already developed and and kind of repurposing it so to speak. Does that sound Well,
32:49 yeah, that no that's that's that's very um insightful because what we found is that there's a lot of what we call spectator investors today that are trying to invest in DoD, but they don't have the same knowledge of the acquisition and regulatory framework, the bureaucracy of working at the Pentagon, who to talk to for what pot of money. We had that because we' done that on the other side of the coin, right? Mh. So having that e expertise if you have the subject matter expertise of dealing with the government it's not hard to work with them because for years what I heard is oh you don't want to play you don't want to um do business
33:24 with the government because you can't get anything done and if you don't know what you're doing they're not wrong okay but if you know what you're doing and we see a big movement um of this even our current administration to try and streamline operations here and there but even even so you know the these billion dollar funds that are spraying and praying a bunch of capital across everything. That's a lot different than what we do. We are laser focused. We will invest and you know really feed our winners with multiple rounds because we know that what the DoD wants these guys have and then once we get one contract
33:59 you get that past performance with the government and you can get a lot. And so that helps the it really helps the whole ecosystem. I'd love to see military service become the gateway to entrepreneurship. And the way I can do that is by helping my investors make a lot of money, right? Because if I can get these companies to have tremendous exits and then I see people along the side of the road watch these people get, you know, unicorn status and they're like, "Hey, I want to go do that, too. Let me go serve my country." You know, and so they get those same principles, the education paid for, the different levels of leadership development, and then they come out and they're like, "Okay, I'm ready. I'm ready to bring
34:35 something new to the fight and disrupt some sort of industry and we're able to do that. And so that's that's really what I think um you know my initial inertia was for starting Veteran Ventures. It's grown a lot since then. You know our our second fund is more than triple what our first fund is. And so we've been able to show like I said before it was a lot of relationship based but having the track record of you know 10 times uh governmental money but for every dollar we invested that really helped uh strengthen our position and you know institutions now endowments and
35:12 states and things like that are backing us where they weren't in the first fund. So it really is a uh it's awesome feeling. We call it a triple bottom line impact. you know, you get to help out uh strengthen our national security. Uh you get to help transitioning veterans and you get to make a return. Uh we love what we do and it helps just motivate me every morning to get up to know that there's a purpose and just like we had in the military, right? You're serving in something a lot bigger than yourself. And uh so it's it's exciting, you know, and and I I think the um it now is a little bit more invogue uh to be in the
35:48 defense space than it wasn't when we first started. So I think that's interesting too. So it it what you said about bringing more people from the military into entrepreneurship. You know post World War II there was a huge surge of veterans and some of the biggest companies around. The first one that comes to mind is is Fred Smith. Um I I always I always forget whether he was FedEx or UPS but FedEx FedEx right? one of the biggest shipping companies in the world, right? That Fred Smith was a was a veteran, right? And and then we saw a
36:24 decline in veteran entrepreneurship um you know, coming out of kind of the Vietnam War era, unfortunately. And like you, I've always thought that entrepreneurship is is a natural place for for for military veterans to go because so much of what we do and learn in the military is similar to what what one needs to know and and be able to do in business. Now, my career was the opposite. I was in business for 20 years before I joined the military. So I kind of saw it in the other direction and I
36:59 brought business practices, you know, to the operation, for example, of the base chaplain's office in in Okinawa and I was saying, well, you know, like I remember one of the first days I showed up, I'm like, you know, I was made supply officer and I said, "Hey, where's the master inventory of all the supplies that we have?" And the poor petty officer looks at me and says, "What's that, sir?" You know, right? So, it's it's funny the you know the sort of back and back and forth um you know crossfeeding if you will that that both the military and the civilian sector can
37:35 benefit um if there is is is more sort of um you know oil if you will to to grease that you know that that movement and that's what that's where I see veteran ventures capital really providing you know that that you know that that grease that oil that you know to make them works more smoothly together. Yeah. And I think what you what you said um deserves a little bit more of peeling the onion back because there was an amazing legacy of of um veterans that started some not just businesses. It
38:11 wasn't just a mom and pop shop. They revolutionized industries and not only in the US stage but on the global stage. FedEx is a big one. Walmart, GoDaddy, Enterprise rental car, U-Haul, USAA, Nike, um even Domino's Pizza, you know, Remax. These these are massive, you know, multi-billion dollar companies. And uh and it took a mindset of someone that had some discipline. They were, you know, resilient. Uh they knew how to work as a team. It's just uh and they
38:46 had they had strong integrity as as I'm sure that you heard uh you know uh Fred Smith passed away yesterday and uh Oh no, I didn't hear. Oh my goodness. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. He uh he was 80 years old and you know was one of the consmate professionals. I met him uh at a at a veteran event of a group I used to work with Bunker Labs which is a entrepreneurial program to help veterans and spouses start businesses. and he was a speaker there. We talked, you know, and I I tried to get him to invest in Better Ventures, but that was a long
39:21 time ago. Almost had him too. But, uh, but yeah, but he he uh he was one of those people. One of the things that I think is another hallmark of veterans is taking responsibility. You know, if he had a bad quarter, he owned it, right? And uh and he was just a real model of integrity and of of leadership. um and certainly uh uh has left behind a huge legacy. And that's really what we're trying to do. We're trying to build more Fred Smiths, right? We're trying to help these companies do some amazing work um to, you know, again, transform the areas
39:56 that they're in, but also, you know, it it is uh I want to have a you know, a fun three and a four and a five or whatever. And uh and that and that means I got to generate a return. Uh and so we we we it's got to be a good business case. It's got to have the right team in place and then uh and then we'll help you get the scaling operation done when you've got these that foundation, you know. So, uh yeah, it's exciting. So, you know, another another aspect of this is um kind of following on your remarks about the the um veterans coming out of World War II. You know, I I'm not sure
40:34 people really appreciate we won World War II in part, maybe largely in part because we out, you know, logisticized, if that's a word, right? you know the actors I mean it was it you know for every one you know soldier in the field or sailor on a ship there were the estimates are somewhere between seven and 10 you know supporting that that soldier or sailor or marine airman and that's an that's a massive
41:09 um operation to support that and so the veterans coming out of World War II maybe for the first time had the knowledge of really creating large companies with global scale uh and and seeing it could be first of all knowing it could be done successfully because they did it in the military but then having the confidence that they could replicate that in the civilian sector and I think that that's that's true today the the scale may not be as massive we don't have 18 million you know people in uniform in the US
41:45 military today. But that that ratio of, you know, one per one, you know, soldier in the field to, you know, 7 to 10 supporting that still exists because that's what it takes to, you know, run that kind of run that kind of organization. So, I'm I'm curious your thoughts on on on that aspect. Yeah. Well, let's think about this. Okay. So, what you said is true. It was upwards between 60% to 70% of returning veterans started businesses. And what transpired is that the that the the US economy dominated the world stage for decades to
42:21 come. Right now let's fast forward to today. Today's veteran is much more educated. they have tons more uh uh experience in learning how to get things done because there's technology there is again you know the different levels of schooling that the government provides gratus or they'll even pay for your master's degree I mean I got three master's degree while I was in the military so that they uh so so they give you all of these additional tools they didn't have 40 years ago you know and so
42:56 that is important because I think that we are in a better position than we were back then and yet something's not right because we are not starting businesses in the same manner that they did back then and that is because in my opinion there is uh there's really a couple of different factors but one is educating the the the first of all educating the veterans as they transition that there's more than just going back and becoming a GS civilian or becoming a contractor. Those are very valuable uh uh you know jobs.
43:31 We need them. And so I'm not denigrating those at all. But there's a whole world out there where you're used to and you can thrive in an autonomous environment by leading your own company and by helping get the mission done in a new way. And I think that that's something that we need to communicate better to our veterans. And I think that that's there's been a a sincere push to do that over the last five, seven years or so. So I think that's great. And then I think also we need to make sure that we are touting the um the strong leadership and development characteristics that the military provides our veterans. We don't
44:07 need to be dwelling on the negative. Um there is there are certainly uh problems with some forms of uh people that that transition out. You know, PTSD is a real thing. All that stuff is is true. But that affects about 15% at most. you know, depending on what stat stats, 15% of the military, 85% of the military is ready to rock and roll no matter what. That 15% can easily be brought into that the rest of that. But what I'm trying to say is, you know, that we sometimes we we we do a disservice to our veterans by always focusing on the the the the the
44:42 problem areas, the areas that we need to to to be addressed. I'm not I'm not saying that, but I'm also saying that there is a massive amount of talent that's coming out that has the ability to lead as a Fortune 500 CEO. They both had the same amount of experience 25 years or so, right? They just need to be given the same opportunity that their civilian counterparts are. And I think that's what we try to do at BBC. And I think there's plenty of people in the veteran I guess uh entrepreneurial ecosystem like Bunker Labs now merged with the IVMF or the Institute of
45:19 Veterans and Military Families. That's a great organization out of Syracuse kind of absorb Bunker Labs. So yeah, I think it's there's there's there's tools out there today that and there's resources and now the capabilities of our veterans. We should be doing it again. We should lead the next several decades of entrepreneurship and business development in the private sector because that's what we're good at. We're good at building things, execute the mission, getting things done, and helping uh move the entire ball forward as a team. Yeah. And it it's interesting. Um we we have very similar
45:55 experiences in terms of um veterans coming out of the military. I I when I first went off of active duty, I thought because I had already had a couple of decades of experience in, you know, the private sector, so it would be natural for me to, you know, coach veterans who are or coach military people making that transition. And what I found was so many of them figured, well, the next thing to do is, like you say, go get a GS job. one one of my friends in particular. I'll I'll mention his name and give him a free plug here, John Rabbino. Uh John was a a naval flight officer and and
46:33 when the first time we spoke, that's what John told me. He said, "Well, I think I'm going to get a a GS job or maybe I'll go to work for a a defense contractor because I I did defense procurement, you know, when I was at the Pentagon, blah blah." And and and and I said, "Well, you know, what other kind of things are you doing?" So he started talking about how with a partner like at that time it was about I think five, six, seven years before he had started a small real estate company and he started talking about the projects he did and there was a marked change in the level of enthusiasm between him talking about getting a GS job and talking about the
47:08 real estate investment projects he put together. And at the and and I finally said to him, I said, "Why are you not going to go into your real estate business and and pursue that? You you obviously have a great deal of passion for it." Uh, you know, and and look, I I don't want to say, you know, so he I don't want to take credit for it, but in the end, he talking with his wife and his partner, he decided that that was a better way to go. And here he is, you know, you know, a number of years after retiring from the Navy. and you you know the the his the portfolio of investments
47:43 they that his company with his partner um deal with it's it's grown I think tenfold you know it's that's that's tremendous right we're talking about eight eight maybe close to nine figures you know of of investments um and and it's really tremendous and he just he's just really loves what he's doing you know and that I think that's that's so important as well you you mentioned something earlier about um that that uh having a purpose in in VVC is so important to you. I also found that was
48:18 a really key for veterans to thrive. They need to feel there's a purpose to their work. And I wonder if you would talk a little bit more about that because I think this is really an issue in the civilian workforce where it seems like every other day I'm reading about how disconnected Gen Z is from their jobs or they they feel like they're not really doing anything of value. talk if you would about how you see purpose in in one's work and and and how that plays out both, you know, kind of military and civilian.
48:53 Yeah, it's it's it's a great thought. Um I I got to say, you know, you got to know what really drives you. Um and I think that when you're serving in in the military, there is a there is a sense of a higher calling, right? uh for you know for me there's always been you know my faith um and uh and that's number one my family and uh is is number two and then it's you know uh everything else right and but I but everything ties back into those first two things for me and so having an opportunity to serve and to
49:30 strengthen our nation while I was serving and you know making sure that we didn't have another 911 you know I was looking to get out, you know, uh do do my five years or four years and then get out after, you know, I went to college at the Citadel, got got a commission and then went in and I was looking to get out when we were stationed in McDill uh Air Force Base back in 2011 or 2001, excuse me. And uh and then 911 happened and I was actually deployed during 911. I was in uh um uh Kuwait coming back from a deployment
50:05 there and uh we were actually diverted. We were in the air when the when the planes uh hit the uh um uh New York and uh and and so we were diverted to Portugal for an extra week because they locked down the skies. Uh and and I remember seeing back then all they all they had was CNN and they just in the PAX terminal they just kept showing and hit hitting that uh both buildings and uh so you know I was like oh give get you know I've been gone away from the family but but there was a sense of really got to get uh into uh get back
50:40 into the fight if you will and so that's where you know came back and I felt led to stay in after that po point and say okay we're not we're not going anywhere. Um so so anyway uh this idea of always finding something bigger to be a part of uh I think that's that should be a drive of uh folks. It shouldn't, you know, just be about compensation or it shouldn't just be about, you know, whatever, you know, um, it should be who you are as a person is help helps you makes those decisions, right? So, when I got out and even when I was with this, uh, company in Knoxville, well, 41k
51:18 management, that was pretty big, you know, that was a large large portion of what we do in the in the um, you know, in the private sector. all these businesses had this ability to help people retire with dignity and things like that. So, I could even get on to that, but I did miss the the camaraderie and the unit cohesion and um you know what comes into the military. And so, uh, getting back into it with VBC of finding these veterans that are building these teams that are building these technologies and that are helping strengthen the overall industrial complex and the defense complex and
51:54 again contributing to our nation's security and I'm back at it again and it's exciting and it's it's that purpose that it that you're doing something that goes far be beyond what you or what your firm is and helps provide for the family. it helps strengthen the the things that you believe in and that you feel like you're you can be a part of. So for I I think it's important to have that inner drive if you will and uh and for me you know the foundation is uh is is faith and family uh but it's also that uh that that initi you know the being being a part of uh of really what
52:31 has made our country great right our strong military you our strong belief in freedom and uh and and integrity and discipline and excellence things that that uh that the military stands for that is perfectly applicable in the private sector as well, right? And and I that I think that may in in fact be the key business lesson from the military because we you know you talked about the quality of leadership, the the ability to handle large projects, the you know the ability to to you know to teamwork. All of these things are are were
53:07 critical to your success. I think though the and this I've seen this time and time again, the young person who comes into the military, they're fairly aimless. They feel they just they don't seem to have been able to grab on to life in any significant way. And the military shows them how to live a life with purpose and and that's what turns it around for them. And once once they've had a taste of that, I think most most people carry that through the rest of their life or at least carry through the desire to live a life of purpose through, you know, for the rest
53:42 of their life. and and and like I said that that to me that and I' I've never thought about it until what you just said, but that may be the most important business lesson for the military is is it shows people one can live a life with of of you know of purpose and how powerful that is. Yeah, I agree. The desire to serve does not go away when you take off the uniform. And so that's important that you find that that that same outlet of you know trying to continue to give back to to do something
54:18 again I go back to I think you know mission execution getting things done that's a hallmark of a veteran and who in business would not want that and so the idea of doing that yeah it's well we could go on and on about it but I totally agree with you and I think this has been uh you know just like you said um the things that that uh that really what makes our nation great and what makes our nation's military great, it's also what helps us drive us in the private sector, too, when we make that transition. Yeah. Well, Darren, thanks. Thanks so much. Our our time is up, unfortunately. Um, but I really
54:53 appreciate you being on the show today and and sharing your, you know, a little bit of your life history and and your thoughts, uh, on on what, you know, the military brings in terms of creating success in in the civilian sector. So, I'm going to wrap do a little wrap-up here and then we'll go offline and chat for just a minute. So, so thank you all. Thank you again. Oh, you're absolutely welcome. So, thank you all very much for for joining us. Um we I we I've seen we've had a number of of live viewers cycle through. So that's that that I I you know that is an attestation to Darren Darren I think um le less so than
55:29 me. So always great to know people are out there watching us live. Um just real quickly tomorrow at 10 a.m. Pacific time is my show People Making Money. And uh my guest and I'm going to bring up his name because I otherwise I'll mangle it. My guest is John Solader. And John is uh uh you know he's he's a serial entrepreneur uh like me. He's we're we're the same vintage. We figured out. And John is going to share with us uh what he's learned over, you know, really
56:04 a lifetime of entrepreneurship, what what he sees as being the keys to success in in starting and and growing a business. So, I hope you'll join me uh tomorrow again at 10 a.m. Pacific time for people making money. And then next week, Monday, 10:00 a.m. Pacific time is my show, Trust and Estates Weekly. The topic is self-explanatory. And then one week from today, I'll be back for the next edition of Business Lessons from the Military. So, once again, Darren, thank you so much for being a guest on the show today. And signing off as I always do. A tremendous military
56:40 supporter was my friend Marie. You are and ever will be my bell.