Veteran Founder Podcast

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....

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...

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....

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....

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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....

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...

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...