SYRACUSE, N.Y. – NCC NEWS – There is more to November than just Turkey Day. It’s also a spotlight month for Veterans.
National veterans Small Business Week runs the week prior to Veterans day. Events are hosted honoring and connecting America’s 2.5 million Veteran owned small businesses to entrepreneurial resources.
This is a national initiative put on by the Small Business Association, but the the Institute for Veterans and Military Families at Syracuse University always does their part.
They give veterans with small businesses local resources to expand their brand.
The director of entrepreneurship at the Institute for Veterans and Military Families, Misty Fox, helps small businesses learn about the beneficial resources
“You know a Veterans service isn’t over and they come back and serve in their communities as business owners,” Fox said.
Fox said often people don’t realize what resources are out there, that’s the number one challenge for Veteran entrepreneurs. These small businesses are the back bone of the country, so wether it’s a Veteran or anything else, these are the back bone.
Ahead of Veterans day meet this retired Marine, Chris Dambach, whose business started off as a small landscaping company.
“He’s an awesome example right,” Fox said.
Dambach is a successful graduate of the Institute for Veterans and Military Families at Syracuse University who took those resources and now owns and operates a multi-million dollar construction company
In fact he has done a lot of the work on the university’s new National Veterans Resource Center on campus.
” I Came in, I think I was mowing 30 residential lawns,” Dambach said.
Dambach said the program gave him the confidence to go head and to get out of his comfort zone and grow his company to what it is today.
Dambach is working on a space for other small businesses to rent out, because he didn’t have nothing like that starting out. He was instead working out the the back of his Uhaul.
Chris encourages all veterans with a small business to <em>just do it </em>.
