Episode 555 Marty Strong Blue Collar Comeback For Veterans Transcript

This transcript is from episode 555 with guest Marty Strong.

[00:00:00] Scott DeLuzio: Do you remember when you rolled off base for the last time at that time, did it hit you that your rank or title all stayed behind you at the gate and up there you became just another guy in traffic trying to figure out how to pay the bills, be there for your family, and not feel like you went from hero to zero overnight?

[00:00:18] You might have even been told that the only way forward after the military was get a degree, get a job with a cubicle and a career that maybe looks nothing like the life that once made you feel alive. Meanwhile, the trades that you are raised to overlook and are quietly playing six figures and people in those jobs are doing pretty well.

[00:00:41] Today, retired Navy SEAL Officer and business leader, Marty Strong, joins me to talk about a different path forward through Warrior Haven, USA, where veterans train in woodworking, metalwork, and culinary arts on a horse farm out in Florida. They get hands-on therapy with horses and [00:01:00] dogs and learn from people who have already walked a mile in their shoes.

[00:01:04] Sometimes we need some humility when we’re starting over at the bottom. And this episode we’ll talk about why blue collar skills and smart apprenticeship might be the fastest way back to a sense of purpose, uh, good income and some confidence after taking the uniform off. Before we begin though, I wanna take a moment to raise awareness for something that’s deeply important to our community.

[00:01:28] The Global War on Terrorism Memorial Foundation. This organization is working to build a permanent national memorial in Washington DC to honor the service members, families, and civilians who are impacted by the global war on terrorism. This memorial will be both a tribute to those who served and a way to ensure that their sacrifices are recognized and remembered for generations to come.

[00:01:51] If you’d like to learn more or find out how you can support their mission, visit GWOT memorial foundation.org. Now, let’s get into today’s episode.

[00:02:13] Hey Marty, welcome back to the show. Really glad to have you here.

[00:02:16] Marty Strong: To be here, Scott.

[00:02:18] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it’s been a little while since since you’ve been on the show. We had had you back on a couple years ago and, things have kind of changed with you. You’ve, you’ve kind of moved into a new role with warrior Haven, USA and wanted to get you back on to talk about what you guys are doing with Warrior Haven, USA and, and, and kind of share some of that mission.

[00:02:37] So, you know, hopefully folks have listened to that episode already and know a little bit about you, but if not, well, I’ll have a link to that episode in the, the show notes. They can go check that episode out and, and kind of. Listen to our, our first episode, but tell us a little bit about your, your role with warriors Haven USA, what kind of got you into taking this role and, and what is, what’s the organization all [00:03:00] about?

[00:03:02] Marty Strong: It was the brainchild of the co-founder, Pete Gary, who was in the Marine Corps Force, recon Marines for eight years. And we’ve been friends for 35 years and never worked together. Just been really close friends. Even if we lived in different states, we, we were always in touch, you know, on, on a regular basis.

[00:03:21] So he went on went to culinary school for a couple years. Culinary Academy, decided he, his first job in a, in a major restaurant decided he didn’t like it. And so we went off and decided to sell cars while he was figuring out what he wants to do. And he ended up becoming a fantastic car salesman.

[00:03:37] Ended up managing not one, but as many as three or four dealerships all at the same time. And was really good at marketing and advertising. So then he went on to create his own advertising company and did really well with that. So, basically. Serial entrepreneur, you know, high school graduate Marine, and [00:04:00] I called him up, I guess, well I sent, sent him an email in January this year.

[00:04:03] Said that I had just had a board meeting with the board that I’ve been working with, with private equity guys and everything for about 12 years. And I was managing multiple companies. Some of them were government contracting companies, and one of them was a healthcare company. And we had spun everything out by this time except for the healthcare company.

[00:04:21] And I thought I was gonna exit and go into semi-retirement for the two prior years in a row. And then something always happened that, that, you know, I had to stick around for some reason. So this January I called the board together and said, I’m real. This is for real. Here’s my succession plan, here’s my replacement.

[00:04:40] You know, I’m gonna kinda slide slowly down the dinosaur tail incrementally over the first half of the year. And and I’m an investor in the, in the whole thing. So I said, I’ll stay on the board if you want me to. If you don’t, I’ll just be a, a friendly advisor whenever you need, you know, I think you need any insight.

[00:04:58] Or if you don’t, it won’t hurt my feelings [00:05:00] either. So then I sent out an email to about six or seven people and said, Hey, this is what I’m looking for. Kind of the unicorn, unicorn request. I wanna keep running. I wanna keep doing paid speaking. I wanna do some coaching and mentoring, and I wanna do something philanthropic.

[00:05:16] And I don’t wanna be at the board level, if at all possible. ’cause I’ve been on lots of charity boards, some large ones too. And the next morning I get this call from Pete and he says, brother, you gotta get your butt down to Florida. I need to talk to you. I have, I’ve had this thing I’ve been putting together.

[00:05:34] All of 2024. And I, I think everything you, you, you said you wanted in that email, I think we can do that. So I went down and after about four or five trips, my wife said, yeah, okay, I’m good with going to Florida. So we moved from Virginia Beach to Florida about two and a half months ago, but I’d been coming down here almost every month for four or five or six days.

[00:05:55] And what we were doing is accelerating the development. Of a [00:06:00] veterans foundation that it may not be unique in every way, but we thought that it served an underserved niche, which is blue collar training, basically training to the trades and preparing veterans in, in a lot of different ways psychologically that. Right now, the person you see driving down the road in the a hundred thousand dollars car or you know, $120,000 SUV, there’s a higher likelihood that it’s a plumber or an electrician than it is somebody from Wall Street.

[00:06:30] Scott DeLuzio: Right.

[00:06:31] Marty Strong: And that’s completely missed on society ’cause of culture. Culture. You know, culture always has the, the, the, the working person and the trades is always kind of the backdrop person.

[00:06:43] And the white collar guys are the guys that are, you know, all the drama, making all the money and driving all the cool cars and having the yachts and that, and. Anybody that’s listening to this will say, yeah. Yeah. It’s really hard to get one of those people. It’s hard to get a good carpenter. It’s hard to get a good any fill in the blank.

[00:06:59] That’s because [00:07:00] there are a great demand. ’cause there’s fewer and fewer of them, and therefore they demand whatever they want to get paid and they live very, very well. And it’s gonna be like that for a very long time, unless this country kind of switches gears on the vocational side and tries to train a whole new generation of of talented workers.

[00:07:17] So. We looked around and Pete did most of this work in the beginning and we couldn’t find a whole lot of effort in the whole veteran philanthropic landscape. And so we sat there and said, what do we want to be? Well, we want to be niche, we wanna be focused. ’cause those are the, those are the organizations that really have high impact.

[00:07:37] We don’t want to be kind of the United Way of veterans groups where we say we can do anything and everything under the, under the banner of being, you know, helpful to veterans. Through the research we said we wanted. The niche we want to do is vocational training and we have some sidecars. You know, if anybody goes to the, you know, warrior haven usa.com website, you’ll see the program.

[00:07:58] So we have a business academy. [00:08:00] It’s virtual right now, but we have people enrolled in it and we either. We help ’em in whatever stage of, of business development they are. If they’re thinking about creating a business, we help ’em with those, those early thoughts, strategic planning. If they’re looking for money, we help ’em, you know, learn how to find funding, how to, how to present things to a bank or other types of investors.

[00:08:20] If they’re further on and they’re having difficulty with scaling or they’re having difficulty with management or leadership issues, or even a strategy for the next, you know, the next iteration of their, of their company’s lifespan, we help ’em with that. And that’s. Through lots of other volunteers, lots of smart people that have been in business for many, many years and they are gonna talk to them, you know, very, very straight.

[00:08:43] It’s not lecturing, it’s not academic in any way, shape or form. Sometimes it’s a little brutal. I sat in on one a week ago and it was about looking for, for capital and and it was all scared straight stuff. It was like. The person that was talking had been in the business of, [00:09:00] of building funding for companies at different stages for 20 years.

[00:09:04] The veteran that was listening had pitched to 21 venture capitalists already. So, so anyway, so, but that’s what, no, that’s what people need. That’s all people need is some candor. And so that’s the business academy. And then we have the, the three. Types of vocational training that we do, which is anything to do with woodworking, carpentry, things like that.

[00:09:28] Metalworking and then culinary. So culinary art. So those three have three different levels of engagement and I, I can talk about that in a minute.

[00:09:40] Scott DeLuzio: Sure.

[00:09:41] Marty Strong: And it’s all being conducted on a horse farm. Just outside of west Palm Beach, Florida. So we have a 1200 square foot facility now, and we’ve been training veterans in there, mostly in woodworking.

[00:09:54] There’s horses on the, on the farm. So we done equine therapy. We’ve got a partner called Semper [00:10:00] Fi Canine and Delray Beach, Florida. And they, they will come in with their, their canines and they, they. They basically just, it’s, it’s a level one is just a day, it’s just an experience. There’s no, we’re not trying to turn ’em into polo players with the horses or, or you know, using the dogs to, to find bombs on the second day of the program.

[00:10:21] But if, if they, they find that the veteran and the dog has there’s some synergy there that looks like it’s, they’d be a good candidate for a service dog. That particular organization also helps match. Veterans with service dogs and they train service dogs. So those two programs are not vocational per se, but they’re part of what we offer the business, the the woodworking, the metalworking and the culinary are our, our main kind of the four, four sections of the program.

[00:10:48] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And I think that is definitely something that, that’s necessary because I, I, I can’t even tell you how many people I’ve, I’ve spoken to who are transitioning outta the military, [00:11:00] they maybe had, you know what, whatever their MOS was, they don’t want to do that on the civilian side, but they joined the military right outta high school and they don’t really have any other training to do anything else.

[00:11:14] And so. What’s next for me? What, what do I, where do I go from there? And then they, they’re, they’re applying for jobs that they realize, oh, I don’t have these qualifications or certifications or, or, I just have no experience in these different areas and where do I get that from? And, and that, that’s not always easiest answer to get depending on what the, the career field is.

[00:11:40] So having an organization like this, that. Offers that type of training to folks who can use that to then go and turn around and get a job in, in whatever those areas are or you know, like you said, even the. You know, the animal, you know, therapies and, and service dogs and those types of [00:12:00] things. That might just help somebody kind of get over the, the hump of whatever it is that they might be going through.

[00:12:06] Because everybody’s a little bit different with the, the stuff that they come out of the military with. And, that, that might just be the thing that they need to, to get them on the right track. And so, you got a lot of, a lot of programs going on, and, and you’re absolutely right as far as like the vocational jobs.

[00:12:23] You know, like all those things are are definitely necessary. I mean, I can’t tell you how many times we’ve you know, just at home here called for, you know, whether it’s a plumber or electrician or you know, someone like that to come out and it’s just. It’s gonna either take forever or it’s, it’s gonna be way more expensive than I thought it was gonna be because you know, they’re just in such high demand that, you know, supply and demand that that’s where the money’s gonna.

[00:12:49] Marty Strong: yeah. It, it, we had, we were validated about a month ago. We were putting the wiring in the 1200 square foot shop so we could put [00:13:00] high speed microphones, so for recording in the ceilings. And the electrician that was working on it was wearing an $8,000 Rolex.

[00:13:08] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:13:10] Marty Strong: yeah, enough said we, both, both me and Pete noticed that, and we’re like, yeah.

[00:13:15] And that’s, that’s the mythology of American culture. That’s, that’s part of the problem. I, I’ve found that I’ve talking about this more and more that the American dream, the way it was originally envisioned, was all about. Go make your way. Find your way, experiment, try things. If it doesn’t work, go to the next next town, the next state.

[00:13:35] Be very entrepreneurial. Try multiple things. Maybe have three or four different ways of, of earning a living. And that shifted in the 1940s and fifties to, there’s only one way. And the American dream is get good grades. Get into a good college, get good grades, get a good job. Stay there forever. Retire right.

[00:13:54] Scott DeLuzio: Right.

[00:13:56] Marty Strong: And so that’s what, that’s what’s been touted by institutions [00:14:00] and by the culture, reinforced by you know, the, the media, movies, TV and all that. And, and really there’s kind of an, there’s been an explosion, probably the second explosion was probably after the 2008 financial crisis. Every time there’s a financial crisis or depression or whatever in the United States, there’s this huge explosion of.

[00:14:21] Cottage industries that become behemoth corporations within 10 years. You, you can trace ’em all the way back to, you know, the, the five years after the, the 29 crash or the, you know, there’s just, it just happens ’cause people lose their jobs and they have. Maybe not ambition, but they’re paranoid or they’re afraid they’re not gonna be able to make, make ends meet.

[00:14:43] And so they take risks and they try all kinds of crazy ideas. They leapfrog past the, the standard conventional, whatever their industry they were in, whatever the, the vocation was that they were practicing, and all of a sudden they burst through with this, this new thing. So, I think that’s the same [00:15:00] thing we’re seeing with the trades.

[00:15:01] There’s. If anything, most of the guys I’ve talked to, they’re having difficulty scaling because they are really good as that solo artist. But you know, who’s taught them how to manage five of them, you know? And then how much do you have to pay the other four? Right? And then how much business do you have to get, get on a regular basis to float that kind of a payroll?

[00:15:25] And why do we want to do that? I’ll just stick with being a solo artist. And, and that’s because there’s just so much opportunity, so much demand, and so few, you know, on the supply side of the, of the talented people that can do the work.

[00:15:37] Scott DeLuzio: Well, and another thing that I’ve noticed too in a lot of different fields is that someone might be really good at whatever the. The industry is whatever the, the job is, they, they might be a great carpenter, they might be a great electrician, they might be a great, whatever, may not be so great at managing [00:16:00] people and taking, taking it out to that, that next level of maybe they’re, they’re running their own business and then they have the people under them who are going out and doing the work, going out to, you know, job sites or doing, doing whatever it is that they do.

[00:16:16] But. They struggle when it comes to the management side of things and, and stepping away from the day-to-day work of getting your hands dirty and doing, doing all those kind of things. So, so sometimes you might be the best, fill in the blank, whatever it is in, in your industry. But. When you, you go outside of that and you, you end up now having to manage the people that, that’s where people kind of get stuck and they, they kind of feel like they, they’re struggling a little bit.

[00:16:45] So having some sort of training in that is particularly important as well because it, it’s, it’s more than just, how do I. Do this particular job. It’s, it’s that next level too. How do, how do I move up in [00:17:00] advance and you know, like you said, how do I take a risk and, and venture out on my own to. Do this in, in as my own business.

[00:17:10] And you know, now I gotta manage people and I gotta manage payroll, I gotta manage all the things. As a business owner, you have a lot of places to be spinning. You know, whether, whether it’s marketing, you know, hr you know, all the, all the things that you have to do that you have to take care of.

[00:17:26] And, and it really helps when you have a good team of people who, who definitely know, know their stuff in that, their respective areas, whatever it happens to be. So that way you can kind of lean on them and say, okay, what is it that I need to do for this area, that area. And, and tho those people can really help out.

[00:17:42] But you know, sometimes getting started, the, the budget’s a little thin and, and you need to be able to wear a lot of hats as, as that business owner, right?

[00:17:49] Marty Strong: And, and quite frankly, not everybody’s psychologically cut out or emotionally cut out to be a leader of an organization. They’re, they’re actually [00:18:00] great technicians. They’re whatever the, fill in the blank. I don’t care if they’re writing software or they’re repairing jet engines, whatever, they, there’s a, a therapeutic and cathartic.

[00:18:10] Aspect to doing work with your hands and creating or, or repairing. And unless you’ve done it, I mean, I’m not that guy. I’m not a mechanic, I’m not a woodworker or anything like that. I write books that that’s creative, but it’s, it’s not the same as spending hours and hours and hours trying to get a particular aspect of a piece of furniture that you’ve been building.

[00:18:32] Perfect. Or a boat. I mean, I, I, there’s a guy that I know, a SEAL and he is been posting, he’s been building this boat. From scratch and it’s beautiful. And he must obviously had some experience of doing that, but he is showing it in stages, right? I’d go nuts. I I couldn’t, I, I don’t have the patient, I don’t have the patience, you know, to, you know, I, I never even used clamps, right?

[00:18:53] If found, if I, now I’m around this stuff all the time. I’m supposed to use clamps with the glue. I always put the glue in it, fill off. Ah, this wood glue doesn’t work. [00:19:00] They lied. So it, you know, we aren’t trying to, persuade anybody to do any particular thing. We’re trying to get them to open their eyes and open their minds a little bit to other possibilities.

[00:19:11] And you know, so we’ve got the three levels. The first level is therapeutic. It’s a one day program. So I already mentioned the canine in the, in the equine, but we also have one day program for woodworking, metalworking, or culinary. Just, you know, kind of dip your toe in. Okay. That was interesting. That was kind of fun.

[00:19:30] But if it, if it kind of strikes you as something you might wanna get interested in doing more. Level two is anywhere from a week to a month of training. This isn’t an experience, this is training, it’s not exposure in awareness, it’s actual training. So, you know, if you wanna learn how to, to run the, the 3D printer, we’ll teach you how to run a 3D printer.

[00:19:50] You wanna learn how to run a, a laser or, you know, a particular cutter or a lathe or whatever it is. If, you wanna know how to make a knife, okay? That’s the project we’ll teach you how [00:20:00] to make. So you’ll walk away with an actual skill, the ability to use certain kinds of tools and certain kinds of technology.

[00:20:06] And in the kitchen area, you’ll learn kind of the basics of all the tools in the kitchen, the, the basics of all the machines that are in a, in a modern kitchen and a restaurant. And also the, I’ll call it the, the tactics of the kitchen. What’s the workflow look like? You know, what’s the normal workflow, what’s the worst thing you can do?

[00:20:25] What’s the standard operating procedure for the, for the the kitchen That’s somewhat consistent and, and you learn how to make at least one or two or three meals in that timeframe that you wanna make you like Italian food, teach you how to make a bunch of Italian food. And if you walk away with nothing more than having a great experience and you know how to do some things you didn’t do before then that’s, that’s been, that’s the achievement we’re looking for.

[00:20:49] Level three is an apprentice program. It’s an onboarding to a paid apprentice position. So we started out just in the South Florida area, reaching out to [00:21:00] corporations of all kinds. We’ve got two or three Michelin. Level restaurants that have already volunteered. And not only did they volunteer to take on the veteran that had gone through some kind of a two to three month block of training that we would provide them, so it’d, beyond what I explained in level two, they’d actually be able to come into a kitchen and contribute.

[00:21:19] Scott DeLuzio: Okay.

[00:21:21] Marty Strong: They’d be, they’d be able to come in like a true apprentice and start to, to contribute and start to be a, a positive impact in that environment. And they know which way. The door swings and all that kinda stuff, which, which way, which way is, which way is the pointy end of the knife? And depending on what restaurant is looking for somebody or willing to take that person, it may be actually tailored to that specific restaurant’s game plan.

[00:21:45] So what they get is they get a veteran with always great, you know, attributes, shows up on time, very trainable. Smart great work ethic. Probably can communicate really well, handle stress really, really well, works in teams really, really well, [00:22:00] and they’ve got this other aspect, so at least they can do something when they get there.

[00:22:03] And then all of those veteran attributes just make them that much more powerful as they start to grow and learn. Same thing with we’ve got Stanley Steamer of South Florida, so they, Stanley Steamer does huge array of different trades involving what their, their businesses do. Much, much more than what somebody would think.

[00:22:19] They don’t just clean. Carpets are something they, they do all kinds of industrial and commercial type work building, repairing all kinds of different things. So they’re standing by for people. If you know, if you know how to cut tin and, and create hvac systems, if you know how to do basic electrical wiring, you know how to do certain other tasks that they’re looking for, they’ll take you and they’ll pay you and you’ll be an apprentice and you’ll be off and running.

[00:22:44] So. That’s kind of what the level three is. And even then, maybe somebody doesn’t really wanna work in that. They just are having a great time getting deeper and deeper into this thing. So, and that’s fine too, ’cause you can use all these skills [00:23:00] in your home,

[00:23:01] Scott DeLuzio: Right, right. I mean, absolutely. I mean, like, like I was saying earlier, I mean, all the time you, you’re. You’re gonna end up having you know, homes are a money pit, so all the time you’re gonna end up having, you know, some sort of repairs that you need to do, whether it’s you know, electrical or, or plumbing or, you know, whatever it is.

[00:23:20] You, your wife wants a, a new shelf in the, the kitchen or something like that. And you, you gotta go figure out how to, how to do that. And you know, I, it’s actually something I, I did myself. I, I, I brought that up just as an example, but, there, there were so many scrap pieces of wood that I screwed up and, and threw across the, the garage as I was, as I was getting frustrated at it.

[00:23:40] And, and you know, kept, kept trying and trying and trying. Eventually I figured it out and I, I got it, got it all working, and it looked, came out looking, looking okay. But you know, had I had a little training and some skills and more, more than just the YouTube videos that I was watching. You know, it probably would’ve, would’ve had a much easier time doing it.

[00:23:57] But you know, that, that’s definitely something that you, you can [00:24:00] use just in your, your day-to-day life. Nevermind you know, making a career.

[00:24:04] Marty Strong: Yeah, knowing, knowing how to use the gear and having the gear. My wife and I did adventure racing and long distance racing for a long time and, and some kind of trail biking and things. And when we first started off in each one of those things, you know, we were the nerds. We showed up with, you know, clunky bikes or you know, the wrong shoes or we didn’t have the.

[00:24:25] The cool high speed camelback combination wrap around belt with all the places for all your electrolytes and you know, and we went out there and all these other people were, you know, were prepared. We go, where’d you get that? How’d that happen? Or the special nav board that, that sits with a Velcro piece on your, on your bike so that you can navigate while you’re, but by the, you know, the second or third year we did it, we had all the gee whiz stuff that mattered and, we were, we were, you know, we were cooking with gas. It was great. My problem, I think, is that I’ve never had somebody explain the tool, so I’ve never [00:25:00] bought the tool. So I’ve never created like a shop or the garage, because I’ve watched Pete, who’s his family, was in construction in Rochester, New York, and he’s, he’s a wizard with all this stuff.

[00:25:10] We’ve got at least half a million dollars worth of, of tools and, and machinery right now. And he knows how, he knows how to operate every single one of them. And he’s just doing it like, it’s like it’s no big deal. So

[00:25:23] Scott DeLuzio: Well, and it’s good too to have somebody like that there who. Knows what’s going on, knows how to use those things. Especially that type of equipment. Knowing how to use it safely is, is definitely important. ’cause you can definitely walk away with a few less fingers if you’re, if you’re doing something wrong.

[00:25:39] And so, you know, having someone there who you know, whether he’s doing the training or not, is you know, maybe not, not super important. But if there’s somebody else there who’s doing the training, he can at least know, does this person know what they’re talking about? You know, so that way they are teaching the people the right way.

[00:25:54] Marty Strong: the other kind of overlay that we don’t really talk about on our [00:26:00] materials of the website, but it’s gonna be there. Pete and I were both enlisted guys. I did 10 years enlisted guy that became an officer in the SEAL teams. So, you know, we can relate to a lot of the, a lot of the veterans, we’ve both become successful businessmen and we don’t have a perfect linear track record.

[00:26:18] So we can explain that too. You know, it’s, there’s, there’s bumps and failures along the way, but that’s part of, that’s part of the journey that, that veterans haven’t seen close up, close and personal unless they had parents that had that kind of a, a business experience and. Part of this is to, to dispel the, the, I talked about the American dream.

[00:26:39] The other one is to dispel that if you don’t have a college education, you can’t get get anywhere. The third one is that, is that people who are successful are always successful. The success is linear. It’s a progression of, of it know wins. And that can’t be further from the truth. When I was managing money for United Bank of [00:27:00] Switzerland, 60% of my high net worth clients were high school graduates.

[00:27:05] Half of them had blue collar type businesses, and I’d say at least half of them had all been bankrupt at least once.

[00:27:13] Scott DeLuzio: Wow.

[00:27:13] Marty Strong: So, you know, it was like, it was like Stanley’s millionaire next door, you know, personified. And, and that’s the reality again, not expressed in the culture, therefore it has to be communicated and it has to be a part of your over overall kind of messaging and.

[00:27:31] Then we’re there all the time, so we can, we’re gonna, we’ll be there to introduce the program. We’ll be there for different talks at different points in time. We are networking with all kinds of other veterans groups that do things. We don’t. So, you know, organizations that actually will put a family up with the veteran in a hotel to go through a weeks long, you know, traumatic brain injury.

[00:27:56] Protocol. So, you know, the whole sleep program and then the whole mind brain [00:28:00] mapping piece and all that. There are, there are places around the country that, that are self-funded. They’ll do that. So, you know, that’s, if that’s what you’re looking for, you need that. We obviously aren’t gonna do that where we are, but we will then connect you kind of hand in glove and make sure that you get to the right people.

[00:28:15] Same thing with scholarships. A lot of the programs are giving out scholarships. The scholarships are to go to college to get. You know, a degree. Got it. Thousands of grants, thou, I mean, tens of thousands of grants across the country, state, and federal grants for veterans. I’d say almost all of them when you look at education, are checks to help you get tuition to go on that same path.

[00:28:41] Right. That’s why this particular aspect is kind of underserved. There’s not a lot of there. I, I’ve been trying really hard to find a, a. Grant of any significance more than say four or $5,000 that says, you know, take this money and learn to have, you know, do a vocation that has something to do with other [00:29:00] than a white collar degreed position.

[00:29:03] Scott DeLuzio: You know, one of the things that you, you mentioned. Sort of unique based on some of the conversations I’ve had with other veterans who’ve reached out to nonprofits, other organizations that, that claim that they’re, they’re there to help the veterans but they are very narrowly focused. They, they do this one particular thing and if that’s not a thing that you’re looking for. there’s a door. And, and that’s kind of the, the message that they’ve been given it. Whereas based on what, what you’ve been saying, you know, it’s not that you necessarily are the jack of all trades, that you do everything and, and everything’s in house with you guys, but you collaborate with other organizations and, and if somebody is looking for something like like a service dog or, or you said like the TBI stuff or, or any of those other things.

[00:29:55] Hey, it only makes sense if you have that connection and you, you can make that [00:30:00] happen. Why not help that person you know, get in involved with that? I mean, again, you’re not gonna be the one necessarily doing all of the, the, the stuff for them. But if you can make that connection and make that, that veteran’s life that much better you know, why wouldn’t you do something like that?

[00:30:16] Something I think is missing in a lot of these organizations that, that serve veterans. And yes, it’s absolutely great that they do what they do, but if that veteran doesn’t fit into that particular category of whatever the, the services that they’re offering it’s almost, they, a lot of times they feel like they, they’re just left to fend for themselves and they don’t even know where to turn.

[00:30:38] It’s like, we already turned to this, this one place, why can’t I get more support? And, and this is exactly what we’re looking for, you know?

[00:30:45] Marty Strong: So we’re trying to set up an online, as part of our website and an online veteran networking mechanism. The, the important part for both me and Peter, that, that we vet these organizations. We could put a ton of names up there and just check the [00:31:00] box, but we’re actually calling, I mean, I, I talked to my third canine therapy type company.

[00:31:07] This week they’re in Denver. And I’m, I’m, I’ve heard about ’em, I’ve heard about ’em. So I said, okay, I’m gonna reach out to them. And, and they’re, they’re really switched on. There’s another one up in, in Virginia that’s really switched on there. There are a lot of them and you probably only need a couple regionally.

[00:31:24] ’cause then they knew everybody else in the states adjacent to ’em. So that becomes its own networking kind of connection. And the other thing is you talk to ’em. If, if you talk to ’em, they don’t. I really want to be at the other end of a referral chain, or if they don’t seem to really be interested, okay.

[00:31:40] You know, maybe they’re overwhelmed. Maybe they’ve, you know, a lot of times somebody will get one horse, let’s do equine therapy and 45 people line up, oh no, I can’t afford a second horse. You know, and, and I talked to somebody that, that ran into that problem. You call out and everybody shows up and you didn’t think of it as a scaling operation.

[00:31:58] So, so what we’ve [00:32:00] got. We’ll be breaking ground in the first quarter of 2026 on a 9,000 square foot two story vocational training center. So we’ll keep the 1200 square foot one we have now, and we’re gonna turn that into a kind of a video training. Environment like a studio, but with all the, all the different machines and the shop ready to go.

[00:32:19] So we can expand our media outreach and put clips in to explain what we’re doing and, and bring in some, you know, celebrity or VIP people to come in and maybe teach something. But the, the main center it’s called the Harry Sergeant veterans Vocational Center, that’s gonna have a second floor that can.

[00:32:38] It’s a lodge. 18 veterans, they can stay there. There’s, there’s rooms, and on that same second floor, there’s a there’s a deck out in the back and then there’s a in the front part of the building, there’s a recreation room, there’s a laundry room, there’s a small kitchen, there’s a, yeah, that’s it. And then downstairs we [00:33:00] have a large conference room that may or may not be.

[00:33:04] Occupied with the business academy, or it may be where we give initial briefings or maybe, you know, for any other use we can think of. And there’s also gonna be a full, a fully modern TV studio. And then we’re gonna have the three sections, the three main sections. One’s gonna be wood working, one’s gonna be metalworking, and then the culinary.

[00:33:23] So three main big shops with the capacity in the room to train anywhere from eight to 10 veterans in each of them. And then at a meditation center outside. So this is all laid out, the blueprint’s all ready to go. We’re starting to do fundraising on it. But so we were already thinking that if we do this right and we get the word out, we’re gonna, we’re gonna have a demand that comes in and we want to be ready to scale up to that level.

[00:33:48] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, no, absolutely. And I, I think that’s, that’s good that you guys are thinking that way too, to, to scale because, you know, just like that guy with the, the one horse who has 45 people lining up and then [00:34:00] thinking himself, oh crap, now what do I do? You know, you don’t want to be caught in that kind of situation where you feel like, well, either there’s gonna be a long wait list, or I gotta start turning people away.

[00:34:08] And, and that’s, that’s not a great place to be in either. You know, what, what you’re doing now, kind of being proactive and, and getting those you know, the, those facilities set up so that way you, you can take care of all these, these folks. And that’s, it’s not an insignificant number of people either.

[00:34:25] Like that, that’s a, a pretty good size you know, group of people. And, you know, it’s not like they’re gonna be there forever. You know, it’s gonna be another group of, you know, eight to 10 people for each of those you know, those three areas. So, you know. You’re gonna be able to take care of quite a, quite a few people in, in in this.

[00:34:42] And so, I think it’s, it’s, honestly, it’s a great thing that that’s out there because. It’s gonna be able to take care of you know, all sorts of needs that are out there for, for veterans. And you know, I, I know there, there’s probably gonna be some veterans out there who are listening to this, who [00:35:00] are saying like, all right, you know, shut up about this and let’s, you know, tell me how do I, how do I get involved?

[00:35:05] How do I, how do I get out there? How do I, how do I do this? And you know, how do I you know, sign up? Where, where do I go? And so, so where do they go? What, what do they do to kind of get involved?

[00:35:14] Marty Strong: So they can go to the, our website, warrior shaven usa.com. There’s a contact sheet on there, which comes straight to me. There’s also a a program kind of a, a indication of interest and you can pick one program or more than one program, and then that also comes straight to me. So that’s one aspect of it.

[00:35:36] And you want to, you think you might be a good candidate for the program. The other one is volunteering to help. So. And you don’t have to be a veteran to volunteer to help. If you are a patriot, patriotic American, that feels strongly about helping veterans it doesn’t really matter what you do for a living as long as you’re willing to kind of help, because we’ll find somebody.[00:36:00]

[00:36:00] A lot of this is gonna eventually be a lot more activity going on outside of the, of our eight acre farm in, in horse ranch rather than on it because you’re, you’re, you’re pot bound by. Physical constraints, right? But let’s say you want to you wanna become a fire, a fireman in the, in the greater Chicago area, and you have no clue on how to do it.

[00:36:23] You’re a 34-year-old army veteran, and, and you, you say that, that’s, I’m trying to figure this out. Okay. What if I have somebody who’s, you know. A retired Chicago fireman or two, and they would mentor that person, connecting with somebody that’s training other guys to get ready for the, for the test, the physical test, all the rest of it.

[00:36:45] See what I mean? It doesn’t have to be just business or just the, the end to a job of, of our choosing.

[00:36:51] Scott DeLuzio: Mm-hmm.

[00:36:52] Marty Strong: I’ve got, I’ve got a submarine commander who, has taken woodworking on as a hobby to where he turned a [00:37:00] two car garage into his own shop and he’s got a lot of high speed stuff and he’s, he’s making furniture and everything else.

[00:37:06] He contacted me and said, I’d love to come down Florida on my dime and volunteer as a, as an instructor. Gotcha. Say so. Yeah, it’s, it’s kind of anybody and everybody that wants to help and, and the veterans that think that they need something. At least they can ask the question. And if you know, we don’t do veterans housing, but we know groups that do.

[00:37:29] We, we don’t do scholarships for kids of veterans, but we know groups that do. And it doesn’t take, it takes like one or two phone calls. I can call probably three major veteran groups right now that we’ve connected with and they know 20,

[00:37:41] Scott DeLuzio: Right.

[00:37:42] Marty Strong: so, so yeah, everybody and everybody’s got the same kind of point of view, you know, just pa pass it forward, help ’em out.

[00:37:49] And

[00:37:49] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And that’s, that’s a great thing too about the, the veteran community is that everybody starts to know who the, the, the good [00:38:00] people are, who, who are the people you might wanna stay away from and, and all that kind of stuff, kind of bubbles to the surface. We have a good BS detector. I th I think we can, we can start to figure out who, who’s good, who’s not, and, and and, and then.

[00:38:13] Again, you may not be the guy who does all the things, but you know, the people who, who do some of the things that people might be looking for, and you could point ’em in the right direction. And so, you know, at a minimum, you know, reach out, reach out to, to somebody who, who can help point you in the right direction for any of those things that you just mentioned, you know?

[00:38:32] Marty Strong: Yeah, I mean our, our motto is we is believe in you. So basically it means. We understand that you focused on everywhere, everybody else in your unit, you focused on the mission, you focused on God and country, and the longer you were in, the more you were focused and set up that way. Right? And then one day, because I did it, you get your, I got my retired ID card, marked to my, my vehicle.

[00:38:58] I drove out the gate and I’m like, [00:39:00] like who am I now? Right. Being a seal, you know, executive commander, executive officer of a SEAL team. To just being Joe Schmo driving down, down the road. Right. That’s how it felt. And I knew I was going to try to get into the financial services industry and I had an opening to go in, but you could get dropped during the four months of licensing training.

[00:39:22] If you fail at one of the licenses, they just let you go. And so it wasn’t a, it wasn’t a for sure thing, and I had lots, you know, I have five kids, so, I’m like. I went from being like, just to say this, like hero to zero, you felt like I’m on top of the world. I, my self-esteem is in the right place. You know, I, I’m really good at what I do, and all of a sudden you’re just a goofball driving around.

[00:39:45] So part of, part of what we try to tell veterans, and I’ve done this with other transition groups, is you have to, you have to humble yourself. And if [00:40:00] possible, at least six to eight months before you get outta the service, maybe even longer. You have to start investigating areas that you might be interested in and, and do it seriously.

[00:40:09] Do it, do it. I guess, honestly, I’ll give an example. Navy Commander. Comes into a company that, that I was a part of. I was a senior vice president, and he was assigned to me and I said, great. Then he comes in, sits down and we talk a little bit, and then he goes, so where’s my office gonna be? And I said, well, you’re not gonna have an office.

[00:40:32] You’re gonna be in a cubicle. And he says, well, you have an office now. He was a seal, so he knew me and he was a commander, so he knew he was senior to me, but I’d been out for six, seven years at that point. So it was irrelevant, right? It was a whole this, this wasn’t the same pecking order. And I looked at him, I said, okay.

[00:40:52] And I knew, you know, friendly enough. I said, alright, I’ll tell you what. I’ll give you an office if you can [00:41:00] tell me what this is. And I got up and it took a dry erase pen to put EBI E-B-I-T-A ebitda. On the board and I put the thing back in the tray and I sat down and said, you can explain what that is.

[00:41:11] I’ll give you an office. And he goes, is this some kind of a trick? And I said, no, it’s an acronym. And he goes, I, why is that? Why does that matter? I said, because that is what kills a company or makes a company thrive. So you’re not ready for an office. You need to apprentice yourself to the business. You need to learn from the bottom up.

[00:41:34] Eventually, all your skills from the military will kick in at the appropriate time. If you don’t know how to bake the bread, nobody’s gonna let you boss anybody around in the bakery. So you need to learn to bake the bread first. So, and, and then I’ll say things in to groups. I’ll say, you know. I’ll point to people and say, how many years was it before you were a an accomplished fighter pilot?

[00:41:54] Or, how many years was it before you were an accomplished whatever? And they’ll say, four years, five years, whatever. Before I was really on top [00:42:00] of my game, I said, okay, why would it take a week and a half for you stepping outta uniform? You, you think you’re gonna get a C-suite office or you’re gonna get some huge paycheck, and even if somebody gives it to you because they’re, they’re patriotic, if you can’t sustain value.

[00:42:16] They’re gonna have to ask you, you know, regretfully to leave someday, which happens a lot. So, so just, I’ll tell people that. It’s kinda like a scared, straight presentation. I, it’s, call it, thank you for your service. Now what and that’s the kind of, that’s kind of straight talk that they would get from us also, whether they’re calling in, writing in, or, or actually showing up for, for what we’re providing.

[00:42:38] Scott DeLuzio: Right, and to your point. A lot of times people who, especially were in a, a senior leadership, you know, senior NCO or you know, high, high ranking officer position getting out, they, they feel like they are owed that same level of of, of role in whatever organization that [00:43:00] they, they go into. But you know.

[00:43:02] This company that, that you were just talking about, like that wasn’t the seals that, you know, where, where that person was qualified to be a leader of, of seals. They may not be qualified to be a leader of people in that particular organization because it’s a whole different culture. It’s a whole different set of rules, a whole different it’s a whole different job for, for crying out loud.

[00:43:24] Like you, you just have totally different things that you, you are gonna be expected to do and you kind of have to. Learn that before you, you just kind of jump into that leadership position. Make an ass of yourself, right?

[00:43:36] Marty Strong: it makes perfect sense and logic when you explain it to him, it, it’s like, why did I think of this already? I mean, obviously if I wanna own a restaurant, I don’t really think about the restaurant business. I should. I said, a person said that to me one time and I said, well, why don’t you just go in and talk to a restaurant owner?

[00:43:54] Say you’d like to come in and work for free, like, like an intern and you want to, you want to, [00:44:00] you know, do two weeks, the hostess stand, then you wanna do two weeks waiting busing tables. Then you wanna do, you know, learn a little bit about being a waiter. Then you wanna do, you know, a month being a waiter and then you wanna.

[00:44:11] Go back and help in the kitchen. You wanna offload, you know, food from the trucks when they come in, you know, whenever they come in. You wanna, you wanna, you wanna see all these different things. ’cause that’s all part of the business of owning a restaurant.

[00:44:23] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah.

[00:44:23] Marty Strong: It’s just not sitting at the top saying, I’m the owner of the restaurant.

[00:44:27] And suddenly you just know everything. It, it’s the Transition Pro programs are out there, unfortunately. Have it backwards. They try to take their current status, their, their current strength in all these different categories, and they try to convert it to a, a civilian term on a resume. You know, you, you managed a hundred million dollars, a hundred million dollar budget.

[00:44:51] Okay. No, you didn’t. You didn’t actually manage a budget. You’ve never hired an accountant in your life. You don’t know anything about Gap. You don’t know anything about [00:45:00] anything about this stuff. You were a bureaucrat and you had bureaucrats that were managing that for you, and you were just responsible and accountable for that, for that structure.

[00:45:08] You weren’t the, you weren’t like a normal entrepreneur or business person, and yet they tell ’em to do that, and then they go out and they shop themselves. And the, the people, maybe an HR person look at it and go, Hmm. But anybody that’s worth their salt’s gonna say, oh wow, this, this sucks. ’cause I’m sure he is a good guy and all that.

[00:45:28] You, you should flip it on your head. Don’t, don’t lead with all those things you’re good at now. Lead with your humility and your willing to learn, willingness to learn. And you get into an organization, 95% of every, every one of the veterans that get into an organization. Once they understand what’s going on and start to contribute, they become force multipliers.

[00:45:48] They become, and any owner or bosses are like, holy crap, this guy’s worth five people. Right? But you can’t just be the, the token veteran sitting there wondering what the hell’s going on around. [00:46:00] You have to learn a little bit about it first.

[00:46:02] Scott DeLuzio: and you definitely can’t be the guy who’s sitting there with a pissy attitude because like, oh, I don’t think I have the, the job that I’m, I deserve. Or, or anything like that. Like, again, humble yourself and and, and learn the job. Learn, learn what you need to do. And, and there’s a lot that goes into that.

[00:46:18] And, and once when you’ve, you’ve learned that and, and you kind. Have grounded yourself a bit into, into the organization, into the industry, what, whatever role it might be, I don’t care what industry it is, then, like you said, then you, you start to you know, see where, where you fit in and, and where you can really contribute and add some value to the organization.

[00:46:41] And, and that’s when you’re gonna start moving up and, and you’ll, you’ll start exceeding probably your, your, your peers and, and things like that. Who, who don’t have the same experiences that you have that, that, you know, you know, you, your experience is valuable for sure, but you, you also need to. Figure out where, where you fit in in the [00:47:00] organization too.

[00:47:00] So,

[00:47:01] Marty Strong: if it doesn’t work out, try something else.

[00:47:03] Scott DeLuzio: yeah, and, and,

[00:47:05] Marty Strong: Unless you’re dead, you, you always have time to adapt and learn and modify and evolve.

[00:47:11] Scott DeLuzio: and that’s one of the things that I think everybody, I don’t care what you did in the military, we all have this. Ability to learn something. I mean, we all were broken down and built back up into, you know, the way the Army wants you or the Navy wants you or the Marine Corps, you know, whoever, you know, you, you were, you were trained to do a particular job in the military and, and maybe even more than one particular job in the military.

[00:47:39] And, and there’s advanced level training for all of those things. So you are able to learn. So. Why not learn you know, this other job. You know, think of it just like another set of training. I, I’m, I gotta go and learn this thing and, and then, then I’ll be able to go and, and apply my skills my, my full set of skills after I learn, you know, [00:48:00] the basics of, of whatever it is that I’m getting into, right?

[00:48:03] So.

[00:48:03] Marty Strong: absolutely.

[00:48:05] Scott DeLuzio: So this, this is, this is great and definitely something I think is, is needed in the, the military, the veteran world you know, folks getting outta the military. Again, like you said, few months you know, six, eight months, even longer, maybe even you know, start considering what you want to be doing on, on your way out and, and, and start reaching out to people like you and, and getting involved with whatever that next step is.

[00:48:30] So you’re not the guy who’s driving off base on your, on your last day. Like, like you said, you were just kind of wondering, okay, what do I do now? And you know that that’s a tough place to be, right.

[00:48:40] Marty Strong: the feeling I had, I had actually forgotten it until I started. Helping with people that were doing transitions outta the military, and I kept hearing it over and over again. I go, shit, that’s what happened to me. I had that same kinda hollow also that that false hero thing where I gotta go face my family and pretend like I’m just as, [00:49:00] just as powerful as a breadwinner and as a leader of the family as I was 20 minutes ago.

[00:49:05] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. Right, right.

[00:49:07] Marty Strong: not sure if you’re, yeah, so there’s a lot of stuff you gotta mess. It’s in your head, but. But the training thing is really important, and the longer you’ve been in the military, the more you expect it. And if you don’t get it, you seek it yourself because you know, that’s the key to success.

[00:49:24] That’s the key to growth. That’s the key to, to execution and excellence and performance. So when I floundered, when I got out in the, in the first couple of months I had a couple low points and then I thought, okay. I just gotta find somebody that knows what the hell they’re doing and listen to ’em.

[00:49:42] And so I started calling all kinds of people in the company. There was a success magazine. I started calling guys in Texas. I was in Maryland. I was calling guys in Texas and all the like, hi, you don’t know me, but I saw this article. So tell me about annuities. And every one of them helped. Every one of them gave their time.

[00:49:58] Every one of them gave me an [00:50:00] insight. Sometimes it was, it’s terrible, but I’ve been in it too long. I can’t get out. Get into some other part of the business. But I did it because I was used to doing it. I was used to being in the military and either being fed really great training or being frustrated and, and creating my own source of information and, and insight.

[00:50:17] Scott DeLuzio: And that’s, again, that’s, that’s what we need. We need more, more folks like, like you guys. And you know, I, I think what you’re doing is, is awesome. So I definitely, like I said, I, at the beginning of the episode, I, I definitely wanted to get you on to talk about what, what you guys are doing at, at Warrior Haven and, and you know, all the you know, great programs that you talked about I think are, are definitely incredible.

[00:50:37] You’re definitely gonna be helping out quite a few people you know, go going in the future. But, you know, and, and we’ll have links to all of your, your stuff on or in the show notes for this episode as well. So, you know, for any of the listeners who are interested in, in learning more either how to volunteer to instruct folks or, or mentor people or or wanna [00:51:00] get involved because you need the training yourself you know, that just reach out and I’m, I’m, I’m sure, I’m sure you guys will be able to, to hook ’em up and, and get, get them set on the right path. So, so Marty, I, I’m really grateful that you, that you were able to come on the show and, and tell us about what it is that you guys are doing and looking forward to see the, the great results that you guys are, are producing down the line.

[00:51:22] You know, as, as folks progress through your, your, your program. So thanks a lot for, for coming on.

[00:51:27] Marty Strong: Well, thanks for having me. It was good seeing you again.

[00:51:30] Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, absolutely.