Hey everyone,

We kicked off this week's Roundtable comparing Fourth of July stories before diving into a room packed with new faces and some great cross-pollination between financial literacy, franchising, AI, and veteran resource navigation.

We started with a few new introductions. Virginia Cruse (combat veteran, LPC-S/NCC, and author of "The Soldier's Guide to PTSD" and "Acknowledge & Heal"; militarycounselingsa.com) is finishing a neuropsychology fellowship at the Dayton, Ohio VA and heading back to South Texas within two weeks. She's a 2025 Pat Tillman Scholar and will be speaking at the Pat Tillman Leadership Summit in Chicago this month, and she'll be the lead trauma clinician at the Uvalde Together Resiliency Center along with a postdoc at Strong Star, the PTSD Center of Excellence ? her focus has been military mental health and trauma work for the last 20 years, and the 2022 Uvalde shooting is what brought her home to do that work in her own community. Vince Lindenmeyer (retired Army Colonel; Principal, Beacon 4sight Group, a nonprofit advisory firm) clearly already knew of Virginia's Tillman Scholar status before she explained it to the group, and gave the group a quick overview of his emergency-planning work relevant to school and community safety.

Bill Haase (Founder, Money Mindset Media ? author of "Our Mindset on Money," 38+ years in finance, formerly 20 years in the Chicago trading pits) gave us an update on his financial-literacy program moving into the Indiana State Prison System, with a pilot starting in a few weeks and nine more states already reaching out. The same program is expanding into community colleges and ? his real goal ? the military, including a planned event in Oahu. That sparked a good back-and-forth on how to find a trustworthy financial advisor, with Jim Mills (Co-Owner, EnCompass Background Screening Solutions ? 21+ years Navy submariner) sharing a personal story about the cost of not knowing where to turn, and Todd Mitchell (Owner/Consultant, CyberSecurity4biz ? Navy veteran, author of "The Small Business Owner's Cybersecurity Guide") and Joseph Wexler (recently partnered with Gatherly, a virtual event/exhibitor platform he thinks could work well for VOB speaker series and virtual meetups) both weighing in on fiduciary standards and finding advisors who ask about goals before assets.

Marc Cole (Senior Franchise Consultant, The YOU Network ? not a vet himself, but his father, stepfather, and father-in-law all served) introduced himself to several people meeting him for the first time and offered to help anyone exploring franchise ownership evaluate fit and process. Dr. Di Nola (?attending in place of her husband?; Founder, Danila Consulting/Veterans One Source, a growing nationwide directory of veteran events and resources; also a PMI-authorized training partner and founder of Military Spouse University) walked us through both sides of her work ? helping transitioning families find community and helping military spouses translate their experience into project-management careers. She also flagged a San Diego Stand Down on July 17 for JR Bilbes(U.S. Navy veteran; owner, SUM DUM GUY LLC trucking ? San Diego-based) to pass along to the homeless veterans he's been working with.

Brandon Schmidt (AI engineer based in Germany supporting Palantir contracts, currently pursuing his dissertation) introduced himself as he starts building out his own AI consulting LLC to help small and mid-sized businesses that can't afford enterprise-scale AI vendors ? with a plan to train clients' own teams rather than create long-term dependency. Alexander Snyder (financial advisor, Kaplan Family Financial/New York Life; five years Army, 82nd Airborne) jumped in with some quick, practical advisor red flags before he had to head out. Steve Ferman (Founder & Chief AI Officer, 4 Pillar Coach; also CEO of eTegrity; U.S. Marine veteran) added his own perspective on spotting advisors who lead with "how much do you have" instead of "what are you trying to accomplish."

Ryan Ballou (U.S. Army intelligence/operations veteran, pivoting from drone photography toward website and small-business tech support) gave an update on that pivot. That led into a strong resource-sharing stretch: Rameses "Ram" Yebra (Founder & President, QRFup  a crisis-intervention app and support network for veterans and first responders, now with roughly 400 housing units including 220 in Florida) offered free, rent-free transitional housing for veterans ready to relocate, plus a connection to Onward Ops for SkillBridge transition support. JR Bilbes (San Diego-based, running a small trucking company and personally employing several homeless veterans out of his own pocket) asked about wage-subsidy programs to help him hire more. The two clearest paths worth him chasing: the VA's VR&E Special Employer Incentive, which can reimburse up to 50% of a veteran's wage for six months for employers like JR, and the Department of Labor's Homeless Veterans' Reintegration Program, which funds nonprofits and workforce boards specifically to place homeless and at-risk veterans into jobs ? exactly the population JR's already hiring. On the housing side, the VA's Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) program funds rapid rehousing and rental assistance directly for veterans experiencing homelessness. Deb Plennert (Founder, Precision With Honor Bookkeeping; Program Director, QRF Up; Gold Star widow) offered to help JR track down the right local contacts for these.

Rounding things out, Chris Hunt (Navy veteran; President/CEO, Blue Prairie Synergy Solutions ? program/project management and technical integration for government and commercial clients) has been quietly running between commitments but wanted to flag a possible connection: a woman who helps veterans find housing loans that he's followed but hasn't formally met, and offered to send her info along to Kevin and Deb. He also loved seeing how organically the group has grown and is looking forward to a deeper conversation about referring between VOB and the live-events network he's part of through the Fort Worth Chamber. (btw I reached out to Gretchen Smith, Founder of Code of Vets (COV) Inc. this afternoon. Thanks Chris.)

On the VOB side: we're building out the back-end platform with member profiles (LinkedIn-style), direct messaging, and a coaching course platform launching the third week of July. Community News is part of that same build, and where this recap lives now.

Everyone is encouraged to complete their free VOB Member Profile. I can see that several people have registered but have not yet finished setting up their profiles. If anyone runs into difficulty completing their profile, adding a business listing, posting Community News, or navigating the site, please reach out ? I'm happy to help.

Thanks again to everyone who joined, shared, asked, offered, and connected. This is exactly what we want the VOB Roundtable to be: veterans and supporters helping each other find the people, tools, services, and opportunities that move missions forward.

Mahalo,

Kevin 🍍🇺🇸