Civilians are concerned about the upcoming deluge of returning soldiers. Reports of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are on the rise. How will they assimilate into our communities? Can the work force, already hurt by the recession, absorb even more unemployed men and women?

We were recently in Upstate New York speaking at Syracuse University to the Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities and their Families (EBV-F). During our visit we heard about a new and exciting project called Clear Path for Veterans, founded in 2011, that provides veterans and their families with support services to help them successfully reintegrate into civilian life.

We were hosted onsite by Melissa Spicer, President and Co-Founder, with whom we spent a lovely afternoon learning more about Clear Path. Melissa, a successful entrepreneur in her own right, has created and sold many businesses. She has demonstrated a level of risk tolerance envied by even the most seasoned entrepreneurs. But now she has literally bet the farm on a new type of enterprise, a non-profit social enterprise. She believes that the right environment, services, and community support can provide the bridge veterans and the community needs to work and live together to their mutual benefit.

Located on a beautifully forested hilltop, with bucolic panoramic views, the setting is peaceful and calming. A graciously rustic lodge provides the heart of the estate surrounded by gardens, strawberry farms, dog training facilities and a 9-hole golf course. Inside the main lodge are classrooms, project rooms, training facilities, with a lounge, library, dining hall and kitchen. Much of the work is done by volunteers and all of it is supported by donations. And as much as it seems Clear Path should be a government project, it isn’t. What about the USO? It’s mainly a lounge in airports these days.

Clear Path is really a first of its kind “transition facility” where the community can come to buy products and services produced by the vets, and vets can decompress and receive the training and connections they need to get on with their lives.  More importantly, it’s a place where the vets can experience support groups, learn skills needed in civilian life, and meet, get hired by, and return to the community.

Clear Path is strategically located within an hour of several military facilities and on the northern outskirts of the greater Syracuse metro area. This enables easy access by the vets and immediate adjacency to customers, housing and jobs. The center currently offers a Dog2Vets Program, an Outreach Program (for employment, legal, housing and other assistance), a Wellness Program including complimentary alternative medicine, a Wingman Program that provides peer support to “navigate” the civilian system, a Recreational Program which offers a wide variety of outdoor sports (including hiking, picnicking, horse shoes, basketball and golf), and a Culinary Program that offers lunch and culinary training. All of these offerings along with many other services are free to the veterans.

We discussed several future initiatives with Melissa, including speakers from the local business community to enlighten and encourage the vets and provide vital connections, a new green house project to provide fresh vegetables during the winter to local restaurants, and a residential volunteer initiative to provide immediate temporary housing for vets who volunteer to help out at the center.

Melissa was the initial investor and catalyst for the Clear Path concept in Upstate New York, but her vision is much larger. She views this as a pilot project to develop best practices and create a model for other communities throughout the country. Do you need a Clear Path for Veterans in your community?  For more information, check out www.clearpathforvets.com .

Who We Are

Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey co-authored the New York Times bestselling business book, The Barefoot Spirit: How Hardship, Hustle, and Heart Built America’s #1 Wine Brand. The book has been selected as recommended reading in the CEO Library for CEO Forum, the C-Suite Book Club, and numerous university classes on business and entrepreneurship. It chronicles their humble beginnings from the laundry room of a rented Sonoma County farmhouse to the board room of E&J Gallo, who ultimately acquired their brand and engaged them as brand consultants. Barefoot is now the world’s largest wine brand.

Beginning with virtually no money and no wine industry experience, they employed innovative ideas to overcome obstacles, create new markets and forge strategic alliances. They pioneered Worthy Cause Marketing and performance-based compensation. They built an internationally bestselling brand and received their industry’s “Hot Brand” award for several consecutive years.

They offer their Guiding Principles for Success (GPS) to help entrepreneurs become successful. Their book, The Entrepreneurial Culture: 23 Ways To Engage and Empower Your People, helps corporations maximize the value of their human resources.

Currently they travel the world leading workshops, trainings, & keynoting at business schools, corporations, conferences. They are regular media guests and contributors to international publications and professional journals. They are C-Suite Network Advisors & Contributing Editors. Visit their popular brand building site at www.consumerbrandbuilders.com.

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

The post Clear Path for Veterans – Supporting the Journey Home appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

John Francis, being a horseman by trade, was able to secure a job cleaning the recently constructed Sutro Stables in San Francisco, California. That’s where the newly created San Francisco Police Department, which replaced the Vigilante Committee, kept their horses and those of the mayor and other public officials. Then, after two more months of correspondence he was finally able to secure a job for Nelly as a washerwoman and cook in a rooming house on Fell Street in San Francisco across from acres of sand dunes that would later become Golden Gate Park.

Nelly and John were married in the 1890s shortly after they moved to San Francisco. They both worked very hard to save enough to make a down payment on a flat in the then Irish ghetto of San Francisco known as the Mission District. Nelly did laundry and John was promoted from cleaning stables to Head Stable Keeper. In 1906 a terrific earthquake hit San Francisco and broke the underground gas mains, causing many huge fires, including one that destroyed Sutro Stables. John Francis, being a resourceful Irishman, only had time to save a few horses from the flames, so he chose to save the mayor’s prized Percherons. The mayor was so grateful that he asked John what he could do to show his appreciation, to which he replied, “I want to be the police officer who walks the beat in my own neighborhood,” and that’s what he did until he retired in 1941. During those years he watched the ghetto change, from Irish who had lifted themselves up by their own bootstraps into civil service jobs, to Italians who were refugees from WWI.

John Francis knew everyone in the Mission, so when Prohibition came to America, John was quick to make peace with the Italian families who brought their family tradition of winemaking with them from the Old Country. He saw the Great Depression and both world wars. He spoke with a thick brogue ‘til the day he died at the ripe old age of 98, surrounded by his wife Nelly, his only son John Charles and his four grandchildren, John, Michael, Mary Ellen, and William.

John Francis and Nelly used their savings to give their only child, John Charles, the best education possible. He graduated from the University of San Francisco School of Law and married Emily L’Heureux, third generation Californian. John Charles went on to have a brilliant legal career and was instrumental in the development of containerized shipping. He helped build the Port of Oakland, which was one of the first container ports in the world. Shipping containers revolutionized world commerce by cutting losses and insurance costs to a fraction of what they had been when cargo was loaded and unloaded by hand. They go from factory, to truck, to ship, to rail, sealed and safe. John Charles traveled throughout the world promoting the idea of containerized shipping ports, and today these containers are a part of our lives.

One of John Charles’ sons, Michael, got into the wine business with Bonnie Harvey in 1986. They were put off by the snobbery and the pretension of the wine business and wanted to create a product that had a more friendly and approachable image. They named their winery “Barefoot Cellars” in memory of the way grapes were originally crushed, barefoot, by those Italian families in their bathtubs in the Mission District. Plus, in California, being barefoot was a sign of fun and freedom. It meant you had the day off, the weather was fine, and you were relaxed and happy at the beach, enjoying life. Barefoot Wines became very popular in California especially with the young at heart.

By 2005, Barefoot Wines were being sold across the U.S. and in 28 foreign countries. When the wines finally made it to Ireland, they came in through the same port Michael’s grandfather left as a young man, and in the same shipping containers Michael’s father, John Charles, helped to promote.

… And That’s How the Irish Got Barefoot! Cheers!

Who We Are

Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey co-authored the New York Times bestselling business book, The Barefoot Spirit: How Hardship, Hustle, and Heart Built America’s #1 Wine Brand. The book has been selected as recommended reading in the CEO Library for CEO Forum, the C-Suite Book Club, and numerous university classes on business and entrepreneurship. It chronicles their humble beginnings from the laundry room of a rented Sonoma County farmhouse to the board room of E&J Gallo, who ultimately acquired their brand and engaged them as brand consultants. Barefoot is now the world’s largest wine brand.

Beginning with virtually no money and no wine industry experience, they employed innovative ideas to overcome obstacles, create new markets and forge strategic alliances. They pioneered Worthy Cause Marketing and performance-based compensation. They built an internationally bestselling brand and received their industry’s “Hot Brand” award for several consecutive years.

They offer their Guiding Principles for Success (GPS) to help entrepreneurs become successful. Their book, The Entrepreneurial Culture: 23 Ways To Engage and Empower Your People, helps corporations maximize the value of their human resources.

Currently they travel the world leading workshops, trainings, & keynoting at business schools, corporations, conferences. They are regular media guests and contributors to international publications and professional journals. They are C-Suite Network Advisors & Contributing Editors. Visit their popular brand building site at www.consumerbrandbuilders.com.

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

The post How the Irish Got Barefoot appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.

Unlike EBV (Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities), the group we addressed last year that was made up of disabled veterans aspiring to become entrepreneurs, this group was predominantly made up of the wives of veterans who aspire to become entrepreneurs. These women are supporting their disabled husbands physically, emotionally, and in many cases financially. Many of them have husbands who returned home with post-traumatic stress or severe brain injuries. By therapeutically focusing on their new passion (their entrepreneurial venture), many disabled veterans are more able to cope with their new circumstances and develop a sense of pride.

But who runs the back office and the front office? Who keeps the books, collects the receivables and pays the bills? Who makes the sales? Who researches and fights to get the benefits to which their family is entitled? Who fills out the endless forms and jumps through the time-consuming bureaucratic hoops necessary to receive them? And who raises a family at the same time? Most of the time, it’s the wives of the returning disabled veterans. This is demanding triple duty few ordinary people could survive, let along excel at.

EBV and EBV-F are a part of The Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF). On their website, it reads: IVMF depends on support from people like you to help carry out our mission, “In service to those who have served.”

This non-profit organization is primarily made up of former military folks who recognize the need for entrepreneurial education for families of disabled vets who want to start their own businesses or support the disabled vet’s business. This one-week intensive “boot camp” of how-to’s and tips from successful entrepreneurs is sandwiched between a month of online support and a year of mentoring to help these students become successful.

The students stay on the Syracuse University campus and attend educational events from 7am to 10pm daily. Beyond the education, however, we witnessed an additional and significant benefit. The attendees met folks with similar challenges and found out that they were not alone. They not only had a forum but found a support group. Emotions flowed as we heard over and over the demands under which these women have been placed that they never signed up for, or ever expected. Their lives have been drastically changed by the human costs of war.  They have been called into duty and have risen to the occasion, loyal to their husbands and doing what they have to do for their families. These wives and families are the true unsung heroes of the war.

We went to encourage, empower and inspire these brave folks, but they inspired us. Their stories really bring home the price our veterans paid, but also the price that their families continue to pay.

Since the end of conscription that drafted our young people into the military, often against their will, we have had an all-volunteer army. Many families were relieved that the dreaded draft had finally ended and that their children were finally safe from being drafted into the war. For most of us, since the end of the draft, war and its casualties seem less close to home.

But now they are coming home and we all have a responsibility to help these brave soldiers and their families become successful and productive civilians. One way we can show our appreciation to these veterans and their families is to support their businesses in our communities. What better way to say “Thank you for your service to our country.”

To learn how you can become involved, contact Raymond Toenniessen, IVMF director of new initiatives & external relations, at 315.443.0256 or rmtoenni@syr.edu.

Who We Are

Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey co-authored the New York Times bestselling business book, The Barefoot Spirit: How Hardship, Hustle, and Heart Built America’s #1 Wine Brand. The book has been selected as recommended reading in the CEO Library for CEO Forum, the C-Suite Book Club, and numerous university classes on business and entrepreneurship. It chronicles their humble beginnings from the laundry room of a rented Sonoma County farmhouse to the board room of E&J Gallo, who ultimately acquired their brand and engaged them as brand consultants. Barefoot is now the world’s largest wine brand.

Beginning with virtually no money and no wine industry experience, they employed innovative ideas to overcome obstacles, create new markets and forge strategic alliances. They pioneered Worthy Cause Marketing and performance-based compensation. They built an internationally bestselling brand and received their industry’s “Hot Brand” award for several consecutive years.

They offer their Guiding Principles for Success (GPS) to help entrepreneurs become successful. Their book, The Entrepreneurial Culture: 23 Ways To Engage and Empower Your People, helps corporations maximize the value of their human resources.

Currently they travel the world leading workshops, trainings, & keynoting at business schools, corporations, conferences. They are regular media guests and contributors to international publications and professional journals. They are C-Suite Network Advisors & Contributing Editors. Visit their popular brand building site at www.consumerbrandbuilders.com.

To make inquiries for keynote speaking, trainings or consulting, please contact sales@thebarefootspirit.com.

The post The Families of Disabled Veterans Have Double and Triple Duty appeared first on The Barefoot Spirit.