Scuttlebutt Podcast: Veteran Owned Business Growth

In this episode, Brock talks with Dan Blackmon. Dan is an active duty army artillery colonel so expect to get a real time pulse about some of the biggest issues facing today's military, tomorrow's military, and what he spends his time thinking about. We spend a bulk of this conversation dispelling common narratives - we get into problems with the diversity conversation in today's milit...

In this episode Brock speaks with Mark Holden. Mark is a former Navy Corpsman and today is the founder and CEO of Holden, a consultancy business that assists with prototyping, productizing pricing and advising in the defense technology space. Expect to hear about the current and desired future states of defense tech. We talk about what's missing in our defense tech portfolio as a country and t...

In this episode Brock talks with Bill McNeely. Bill is a former Army logistics officer and the founder and CEO of Wharphy, a logistics startup aimed at floral delivery. Expect to learn some of the history behind the logistics industry and how it was once not the sexy data driven industry we see behind companies like Uber and DoorDash. Bill talks about Walmart's early jump to streamline supply...

In this episode, Brock talks with Hal Fischer. Hal is a former recruiter in the Air National Guard, a serial entrepreneur with several exits, and is one hell of a salesman. Expect to hear how his sales expertise helped to build one of the first military career fair expos which ended up being acquired by private equity. You'll get a discussion on when it's time to exit a company and how to...

In this episode, Brock talks with Kieran Carroll. Kieran is a former surface warfare officer in the Navy and now the Chief Strategy Officer at ZeroEyes, a software company using computer vision to detect weapons on video feeds and stop active shooters. Expect to learn what exactly computer vision is and the problems that faces today which hinge around quality of data. We hear how ZeroEyes started...

In this episode, Brock talks with Greg Fischer. Greg is a former Marine Corps infantryman and currently running Burn Pit BBQ, a sauces and rub business he started from a recipe blog. Expect to learn how to instill an ownership mentality in your employees when starting a business. We talk about the cohort of men in the world today putting their job ahead of their family. Greg found himself drowning...

In this episode, Brock talks with Shamus Flynn. Shamus is a former Marine Corps officer and now a partner at Flynn Giudici, a law firm he co founded where he specializes in small and medium sized businesses, particularly litigation. Expect to learn how the changing world we live in today on the heels of a global pandemic and the advent of artificial intelligence is influencing our court systems. W...

In this episode, Brock talks with Troy Peterson. Troy was a PYSOPS officer in the Army and is now working on product policy and trust and safety at OpenAI. In this conversation, we talk about the value of information and how the control of access to information can be used as a weapon. Troy shares a story of providing radios to locals in Afghanistan in an attempt to build trust and encourage parti...

In this conversation, Brock speaks with Joe Heieck. Joe was an intelligence officer in the Navy, where he spent time on SEAL Team Three as part of the Naval Special Warfare community, and is now the CEO of gWorks, a software company serving state and local government. In this conversation, Joe talks through why leadership of the NSW community is different and the do's and don'ts for implem...

In this episode, Brock speaks with Jonathan Gensler. Jonathan spent a career worth of time working in the clean energy sector. In this conversation, you hear about some of the problems facing renewable energy today, from someone who grew up in coal country. We also get into an underrated mindset veterans don't take advantage of as often as they should and that's our unique ability to endur...

In this episode, Brock speaks with Rob Wynkoop. After his time in the Marines, Rob went on to start the first franchise of Gyrene Burger, a delivery focused specialty burger chain started by Tom Monaghan, the founder of Domino's Pizza. Rob shares what he learned from Tom and the economics of food delivery before Uber Eats existed. We also talked about government contracting, specifically servi...

In this episode, Brock speaks with Josh Kristoff. Josh is a former surface warfare officer and is now the managing partner at Nomad Capital Ventures and Kristoff Real Estate Investments. In this discussion, Josh talks about the stark differences he saw leading a manufacturing company compared to working inside of a tech company in Silicon Valley. We talk about how the military develops you as a ge...

In this episode, Brock speaks with Susan Maly. Susan is former Air Force and Booz Allen now working as a fractional Chief Strategy Officer for small technology companies. From this conversation, expect to learn how to structure your writing and how to speak more eloquently. Susan was a speechwriter during her time in the Air Force and has several simple ways to get your thoughts down on paper and...

In this episode, Brock speaks with Josh Thompson. Josh is a former Army medevac pilot and now a fractional CFO. In this conversation, we talk about the family dynamics of the military, and how to live for your legacy and not your resume. We hear about Josh's experience in command of several field hospitals in the army and how he managed finances for several struggling activities. He also goes...

In this episode, Brock speaks with Josh Smith. Josh is former EOD tech and now the owner of a large welding and fabrication business. We talk about how his business is looking to adopt e commerce strategies and the pros and cons of customization versus mass adoption. He walks us through his first acquisition, everything that went wrong with it and how to avoid some of those pitfalls. And we talk a...

In this episode, Brock speaks with Nolan Gore. Nolan operates a landscaping company that's going to do over 5 million in revenue this year, which is more than 2x Since he bought the company back in 2017. In this conversation, you'll learn why work life balance doesn't exist and why if you're an entrepreneur striving for work, life integration is much more effective. You'll lear...

In this episode, Brock speaks with Ryan Kilkenny. Ryan is the founder and CEO of Atomic Planning, a virtual retirement planning financial services company. Ryan is former Marine Corps and after a few years learning financial advising at Edward Jones started his own practice with a focus on retirement planning specifically. Expect to learn the must dos for your money while in the service, the diffe...

In this episode, Brock speaks with Mike Jones. In this conversation, Mike talks about how to do targeted networking with a particular focus on raising money for a business, as well as running effective meetings with people. We talked about him launching one of the first Crossfit gyms in Minneapolis back in 2009. And how we use learnings from that to co found his own fitness company, Alchemy 365, a...

In this episode, Brock speaks with Rodney Adams. Rodney is a former Marine Corps infantry, both enlisted and officer and is now the CEO and founder of Mr. Home Repair of Tulsa. We get into why the title of veteran means different things to different people and the good and bad application of it in the workplace. We talk about his journey from his time working at Goldman Sachs Investment Management...

In this episode, Brock speaks with Jeremy McCool. Jeremy is a former Army infantry officer, and currently the founder and CEO of HEVO, a wireless electric vehicle charging company. We talked through Jeremy's inspiration for HEVO, a story recounting restoring power to a village in Iraq while deployed. He explains the barriers to wireless charging and how they're combating both the innovatio...

In this episode, Brock speaks with Doug Pugliese. Doug is a former naval aviator and translator as well as the former managing director at Bear Stearns, where he rode through the dot com bubble and the GFC. Today he is head of 1042 QRP strategies at Alpha Architect. In this conversation we start with a bit about Doug's time in the Navy. Doug was a translator for an admiral and the president of...

In this episode, Brock speaks with Wes Gray. Wes is a former Marine intel officer and currently the founder and CEO of alpha architect. This episode might double as an intro to financial markets. We talk about what quantitative investing is, and how that differs from the famous stock pickers, like Warren Buffett. We talk about systems based thinking, where and why that's relevant. And we also...

In this episode, Brock speaks with JD Modrak. JD is currently a director at Kasa and is as close to a VA loan expert as I've found. We talk about MBAs and how the value of an MBA could be offset with drive and experience, his time stacking VA loans and why now may be the best time to use a VA loan despite where interest rates are, and the state of short term rentals - why or why not they may b...

In this episode, Brock speaks with Christian Ruf. Christian is a former Army helicopter pilot and now operating a home services business. We talk about what we can take from aviation and how to apply that in our lives. We talk about why ETA or entrepreneurship through acquisition may not be as sexy as most make it out to be. And we talk about an interesting business he's starting, jumbo mail,...

In this episode, Brock speaks with Joe Parker. Joe is a former Army officer worked as the head of capital markets at USAA, a product manager at Amazon and now is the COO at positive some of venture stage investment fund. In this conversation, we talk about how you can lead from the front by willing to get dirty and how that drives retention and greater buy in from your employees. We talk about the...