Telephone Conference with Urban Miyares Part 1 Hello everybody. It’s a pleasure to be talking with you here today. We are going to cover disabled veterans and self-employment. My background is that I came back from Vietnam 47 years ago as a disabled vet. I was told that I was not suitable for vocational rehabilitation. I was too disabled. I did not have a very long life expectancy, and I had no education. So, I started a business, and I’ve been self- employed ever since. It has been quite an exciting career. I’m starting another business as we speak right now. One of the areas I do specialize in is self-employment of disabled veterans. I first started this in 1985, working with the VA back then as a pilot program. It became the National Disabled Veterans Business Center, which today is under the Disabled Business Persons Association. We mostly focus on those veterans who are severely, catastrophically disabled- both physically and psychologically. And, we focus on those veterans who are disenfranchised or out of the norm; such as disabled veterans who are homeless or disabled veterans who are incarcerated or ex-offenders; or those having other issues that really create barriers to employment and self-employment. What I would like to talk today about, in this first session of three sessions, is to break it up into three categories, much like a veteran who has been in the military. I will start out today with basic, as if you are going to basic training. Then, the second session, on another date will be more advanced or advanced infantry as military people know it. Then, the third one, I look at it as combat—going into combat or going into business. What do you do in those three stages? In this one session, we are going to do a basic training. As a former drill sergeant in Fort Polk, Louisiana, when you get troops that come into basic training, you’ve got to break them down. You’ve got to make them feel like they are really worth nothing, so you can build them up again in a military way. It is pretty much the same way in the self-employment. Too many people jump into business right away with the preconceived notions, not understanding the world of business, which is often a different world than they are used to. When you deal with disabled veterans who are starting business, they have a lot of misconceptions, assumptions, and expectations that may or may not be realistic. The reason they get into business is a little different. The transition from someone from military service with a disability into society again, especially into the business world, is quite a dramatic change. Anyone who has been the military-- whether they have been in 90 days, hurt themselves and got out while in basic training, or they are “lifers” and they have been in there 20-30 years and got out and retired, or someone who has been in the military, National Guard Reservist, and go overseas and gets injured in a combat or non-combat situation, we all come back different from military service regardless of how long we have been in there and what we have been exposed to. We have also gone through training that in many cases we don’t feel suitable for us in real life. However, it is all applicable as we get active in the workplace today. The big thing right away is understanding the disabled vet and where they are coming from. Many of the vets coming back, especially today, have the trauma of war either physically with the disability or psychologically due to direct combat or some related occurrence that happened in the military, which is traumatic to them. So, we are talking about the transition of veterans from the military service into society. This transition happens not only with those who are just getting out of the service, but sometimes you will get a veteran who has gotten out of the military or recently out of the military, and is disabled and there is a delay before they try to get back in society. Sometimes it is months, and sometimes it is actually years. They are still living, thinking, and even acting as though they were still in the military. This is another area that has to be a concern to anybody working with disabled vets. I remember this specifically during the Vietnam War where guys were mostly still wearing their jungle fatigues and all in civilian life walking down streets and that was years after they have been back in the country. They just haven’t been able to release from that. These are some of the transition challenges you are going to have. What I am trying to bring up is that being disabled and being sick are two different things. Before a disabled veteran even thinks about going back to work and starting a business, they have to take care of themselves physically. If they are under medications, make sure they are under control. The sign of a healthy business is a healthy business owner. You can be healthy and still be disabled. So getting their medical condition is critical. We are quite active with this and working with the vets. Now if a veteran has epilepsy, as an example, due to a traumatic brain injury we ask: How often are the seizures? What medication are they on? Are the seizures controlled? If there are psychological problems, PTSD or some other form of psychological problems—could be bi-polar could be severely depressed, what are they doing to correct that, or control or manage that medical condition? And, if a veteran has diabetes, we want to know what their A1c is. A1c is a blood test that gives the average blood sugar level over the previous 90 days. We want an A1c to see at 7 if they are at 9, 10, or 11. Generally, that is an indication that they have not controlled their diabetes. If they are starting a business with blood sugar levels at that level, that just brings more challenges for the business. We have to compete in the business world as if we were able-bodied. The business world is an able- bodied world. We get heavy into people on their medical condition. It is a criteria you may or may not want to get into. Just for you to know that, it is so much easier once a veteran is under better health or managed control of a medical condition than it is if they are still not controlling their health. If they cannot control their health, they are not going be able to control their business. That is our attitude in that area. It is responsibility that they have, not only to themselves and their business, but to their customers, employees, and vendors. So, health is a critical issue. Next, each veteran is different. Their background, their experience both before the military and in the military, even their culture—what part of the country they come from—will determine how the veteran will be productive in the world of self-employment or business ownership. There is not one cookie cutter method. You have officers that are disabled and have a different mindset, attitude, and all. Non-commissioned officers are those who were not officers while in the military. How long they have been in the military as I said before is often a critical thing. Their age, their marital status, where they live—these are all factors that need to be considered in the self-employment area of anybody, especially veterans with a disability. Also, their interest in activities is an area that we focus on quite a bit. One area that has shown in a study by the Kaufman Foundation in 1996 on 324 individuals we helped in business was that those who were successful in self-employment tend to have an active recreational or athletic lifestyle. This was a shock to us. We didn’t realize that this would come out. Since then, we have been checking with those that we have helped in business, veterans and non-veterans, and discovered that those who tend to do better in business are also those who are very active in sports or recreation whether it is bowling, fishing, or skiing. We have one person doing quite well, and he loves poker. So, I guess that is a recreational activity. They tend to do better. Scientifically, I do not know the reason why. I can only guess. I, myself, have always been athletic and involved with sports, so I am personally not surprised by that finding. So these are part of the issues with dealing with disabled vets and their background. Next comes their personality. It is really that business is all about you, the business owner. You have to have the personality that people want to do business with you. There are three reasons someone won’t buy from you: 1) they are not looking to buy, 2) they can’t afford what you are selling, or 3) they don’t like you. The main reason people don’t buy from anybody, maybe some people won’t hire you or whatever it is, there is something about you that turns them off. So, personality evaluation of the veteran is often needed. Not a self-evaluation by the vet, because most of them don’t think anything is wrong with them. This covers everything from their communication to their presence; how they dress, look, stand; and their eye contact. Even veterans who are blind or have severe disabilities, how they look or position themselves is an image. It is almost a resume—a floating billboard. The self- evaluation is critical, especially starting out in the world of business. We suggest many get with clothing consultants, and women with makeup consultants. A lot of these shows on TV, like What Not to Wear and all are great examples as to how peoples’ personality and attitude change. Because success in self-employment—bottom line, is all based on self-confidence. You really don’t need to know much about your product or service to be a business owner, which is completely different from employment. In an area that most people do not realize, product knowledge is not critical to being successful in business in many areas. In the business itself, it is one in which the owner intends for the business to grow. If it is a sole proprietorship where the business owner has really bought themselves a job, yes they need to know their product or service and know it very well. For many, especially those with severe disabilities quickly discover that in business it is all about managing others. To be able to manage others takes more than paying them a salary. These employees, or people who you work with, are going to work with you and share a common goal for the business’ benefit. The personal assessment or evaluation of the individual is critical. This will constantly grow and improve the longer the person has been in business. It is really easy to identify someone successful in business from someone not successful from a distance just by how they look and appear; where they position themselves amongst others; and of course their communication skills. Again, this is an on- going development. Self-employment is something that you never know it all, and you should always be improving. For a person with a disability, they never finish their rehabilitation. Self-employment is also a wonderful rehabilitation tool in this area. Now we have the veteran who is ready to start business as self-assessment, controlling his health and medical condition, realizes his strengths and weaknesses. In self-employment, we like to focus on the strengths and not the weaknesses. If you have an identified weakness, you put that in your business planning to hire someone who can pickup that weakness. For example, I’m totally blind, I would not consider going into the driving business, owning a truck unless I could find someone who could drive either as a partner or an employee. I would not want a two person job to be with me who is also visually impaired. As an example, we are going into the trucking business. There are many people who are totally blind and own trucking companies. The major one in the United States is England Trucking. Bill England is a blind Korean War veteran out of Salt Lake City of Utah. There’s an example of knowing your product or services is not really that critical as long as you understand business and can manage others. Bill doesn’t do the driving evidentially, but he has quite a fleet of trucks that go around the country. If you ever see England Trucking, I believe they are silver trucks with red and yellow gothic lettering on them. That’s Bill England who is a blind veteran. The lifestyle again is a critical thing and the background, and then work from there. Now you have the veteran who is thinking about going into business. To me, the biggest issue right upfront is their disability benefits. They may or may not be receiving disability benefits from the VA. You have two types of veterans that are disabled. Those that are service connected, meaning that their disability occurred while they are in the military; was caused by the military; or they had a preexisting condition when they went into the military. It was undiagnosed by the military, and thus it becomes service connected. The VA in a way, or the military in a way, assumes the baring of responsibility for that disability. For a number of veterans, however, the majority of veterans who receive a service connected disability are those that their disability happened during or because of their military activity. Just for your information, of all service connected veterans, only less than ten percent of them are service connected due to a combat situation. Most service connected disabled veterans are not combat related disabled. There tends to be a misunderstanding about this. I just wanted to bring that up. I am a combat related as an example. The other type of veteran who is service-connected is a veteran who after the military service, was honorably discharged, and then became disabled. They are out of the military a year or two years, and they get in a car accident or diagnosed with something later. There is a possibility in many instances; a non-service connected veteran can relate their medical cause to a military activity from years previously. We have had veterans at 37 years after their military service, all of the sudden get service connection. For example, one veteran in Cheyenne, Wyoming had Retinitis Pigmentosa, which is an eye disease that is hereditary, and after the Korean War (17 years after the war) started getting the beginnings of RP (Retinitis Pigmentosa). His sister also has Retinitis Pigmentosa, a hereditary disease. It was 17 years after the service. I met this gentleman 37 years after the service. He told me about it. I said, “Let’s look at your records.” While he was in the military, he was diagnosed as having night blindness, meaning he could not do guard duty. That is a precursor to Retinitis Pigmentosa and as a result of that, he was considered service connected for his blindness. I am working with a 100 percent service connected veteran right now. She is a young lady, who a year and a half after military service was diagnosed with Lupus. We were able to look at her records and identify that she had the beginnings of Lupus while in the military. It was undiagnosed and as such, she is now a 100 percent service connected disabled vet. If you are working with a disabled veteran who is not service connected, please do not discount them. They may be service connected one day and might even also get enough back pay to start their own business or actually retire, which has happened in some cases. To me, a veteran is a veteran, whether they are disabled or not and whether they are service connected or not. As we say, live long enough, you will be one of us, meaning disabled. That happens sometimes to veterans who are in the military and then they get out without a disability and years later become disabled. Such was the case as the gentleman with Retinitis Pigmentosa and non-service connected then and then all of the sudden due to checking of the records there is an association. This is happening a lot now with Vietnam veterans and Type II Diabetes. After 40 years plus the war, some of these vets are being diagnosed with Type II Diabetes. That is now a service connected disability, due to exposure to agent orange even though the veteran may not have seen combat. That has no relation to combat. So that is one of many occurrences. I just wanted to bring that up. Now with the benefits under the Department of Defense, when a veteran gets out of the military active duty and has a disability the Department of Defense will often designate a disability rating. A veteran should try to get at least 30 percent. With a 30 percent Department of Defense rating, he then can be considered military retired, meaning that he and his family (family members, spouse, and children) would be able to receive medical benefits and other benefits at military hospitals. A disability rating from the military of less than 30 percent is strictly a cash benefit with no other benefit such as dependency benefits. There are some issues going on right now because when that veteran gets a Department of Defense rating and then goes to the VA, the VA rating is different. As we speak right now, only the Army is now (or plans to) recognize whatever the VA rating is as the same. So the Veterans Administration or the Department of Veterans Affairs gives the veteran a rating of 40 percent, the Army will hopefully also rate that veteran at the Department of Defense at 40 percent. A veteran or a military person getting out of the military can get a VA rating, before they are discharged for military service. When we find a vet that is disabled and planning on getting out, we ask him to apply for a VA rating right away. The dollar amount is different in that under the Department of Defense, that the retirement pay is often taxable income. It is a taxable income. The Veterans Administration rating or compensation is non-taxable. Although the Department of Defense may give more dollars for the same rating as the VA rating, you will have to pay taxes on those dollars in most cases. I believe it is considered retirement in that area. So, the veteran gets out with the rating. There is a concern about starting a business. How will this affect their rating? The VA system is totally different from Social Security. The VA system is a graduated system. So, based on your percentage or rating, that will equate to how much income or compensation you will get. At 10 percent, the service connected veteran would get a different dollar amount than a 40 percent service connected veteran. On the other hand, with Social Security, there is one payment and one payment only. There are some changes or variations. Dave Hammis will get to those other issues as to how much earnings you get without loss of benefits and all under Social Security. But, under the VA system, the way the system is now, (it is currently being considered for review) is that the worse you take care of yourself, if you don’t take care of yourself well, your disability can increase dramatically. This is the negative of the system. Those veterans who find out about it, can give themselves a paycheck by not taking care of their health. You might say, why would someone want to do that? It happens more than people think. Again you are talking about a different mindset from many of the veterans, a different background of cultural and their military lifestyle. This is one of the issues that I have all the time with veterans who are not taking care of themselves. For example, the VA veterans has the highest occurrence of diabetes per population of any group, have the highest occurrence. They are saying now that more than 25 percent of all veterans in the VA healthcare system have diabetes. Of that percentage right now, the average A1c blood test of veterans in the VA system is over 10 in the last rating, meaning their diabetes is out of control. I mentioned A1c earlier, that is your average blood sugar over the past 90 days. Why is it so high? Because the veteran who is not taking care of himself requires more medication or more insulin and will get a higher rating than a veteran who is taking care of themself. This also happens with spinal cord injury and other medical issues. There is an incentive for not taking care of yourself. Too often the veterans will use that, especially when they are younger, because you are infallible. You just go on and go on, and you think you can get away with it. The other thing is that if you have been able to overcome your disability to lead a productive life under the VA system, you may not get a percentage rating or cash compensation for your disability. As an example, in my case, I have a number of disabilities, but because I work, I get a zero percent rating. You can get a rating in the VA system from zero percent, meaning they recognize the disability but you get no cash compensation, to that of 100 percent. You can actually go above 100 percent. That goes into letter ratings. They have O, R, and it just goes up from there depending on your disability, the severity, and how it has affected your lifestyle. That’s a critical thing. Under the VA system, the benefits are not based on the disability alone, but how has that disability impacted your ability to work, as an example. The VA system is a complicated system. Once veterans know the system, I find that the majority of them use the system to their benefit. This is a reason why there are many service disabled and non- service disabled veterans who are in business , but they are not being recorded in business. They are doing business under someone else’s name, usually a spouse’s name, a family members’ name, or a friend’s name. So that when compensation does come, it does not show that they are able to work, or they are able overcome their disability. Another area is that if a veteran is seeking a service, he can go in for a claim with the VA, saying his medical condition has worsened. Or, he is applying for a new disability claim, such as they have just been diagnosed with kidney disease or something of that nature. Under the evaluation, if he is starting a business or already in business, it could affect his compensation. This happens in a number of instances where a veteran is applying for a disability and is starting a business. This goes in the records and the response for the evaluation comes. Yes, this veteran is disabled. He does suffer from this illness or disability and is doing this thing. However, the veteran has been able to overcome his disability by starting a business. Then the case is denied or declined. Then you have to go in for appeal. So, I just wanted to bring this up. We have Social Security issues which I hope you know about. Dave Hammis has talked to you about it. Social Security also has its rules and regulations regarding self-employment, which is pretty much a beast of its own. It is quite different in some ways from the VA’s compensation and how you can do it. The Social Security system is different. People have learned how to manipulate that too. There are a number of service connected disabled veterans who receive both VA as well as Social Security disability benefits. Going into business is a deterrent, because of the income and benefits they would lose. There are ways to legally get around it. Veterans have to know these rules and regulations and realize that once your business does get on its feet, there is a strong chance they will lose some, most of, or all of their benefits—whether it be social Security or VA. Without going into benefits counseling, which I am not a benefits counselor, there are so many variations of this. We have a veteran who has been in the military. He or she has been to Iraq. He/she has some psychological problems, maybe an arm amputation, maybe a burn victim, or maybe came out of a poly- trauma center or something of that nature. He/she can’t get work and wants to start a business and has all these benefits. Where do they go from there? Should they go into business or not? This is part of the evaluation that counselors have to realize. I hope you can see right now, when dealing with a person with a disability and especially disabled veterans, it is a non-traditional approach. Most people in business today are traditional in nature. There is a stereotype and when you put that non-traditional in business, probably the disabled veteran is the most extreme of the non-traditional, not only do they have the disabilities, many of them are young especially today. They have very little education—high school diploma only and a substantial disability. They have never earned much money in their life. They are probably receiving more money in disability benefits than they have ever earned before, who can possibly receive more money than their parents receive each month. That is one of the issues right now. A lot of veterans coming from the wars are given such cash awards. They are buying their girlfriends cars. They are putting an addition on their mom and dad’s home, not realizing that this money is for them. They want to go into business thinking that all they have to do is put money down, sit down, and watch the register ring. They wind up losing money. We are going to see a delay, probably within 3 to 5 years, when these veterans with all these benefits all of the sudden starting bankruptcies. We will have a new type of veteran market. I predict that in a very short term, when veterans find out that they are going to blow all of these benefits, because they have not been schooled in it. It is like the person who wins the lottery and has never won or earned more than $10,000 a year and all of the sudden they get a few million dollars. Their life changes dramatically and often not for the best. It has been documented, a number of studies and in books this is what is happening with the veteran. However, instead of just being broke, they also have a disability to live with. The question is why is the veteran going into business? There are a lot of reasons to go into business and not all of them are to make money. This is an area where I have controversy with, not only with voc rehab but mainly with the Small Business Administration. Everybody is looking at the profit motive. Many veterans who know the system want to get into business and just break even so that they can maintain or receive their VA benefits and Social Security benefits. Just as a side note, if a disabled veteran is receiving a VA benefit, that is less than 100 percent, in other words—0 percent or 10 percent in this case, because of the cash (cash awards start at 10 percent), from 10 percent to 90 percent (and the VA increments are 10 percent increments—you won’t get a veteran that says 92 percent disability or anything like that). They are either 20, 30, 40, 50, 70, 80, or 90 percent disabled. If they are in that level, their benefits will not be taken away unless there is proof that your medical condition has been cured or relieved, again from 10 percent (or zero percent) to 90 percent. If a veteran is looking for an increase in benefits, for example, they are at 40 percent and their condition has gotten worse. Once they apply for a review or an additional benefits claim, their whole case is open. Their benefits can actually drop from 40 percent to 20 percent, if medical evidence shows that they actually have improved medically. This is where taking care of yourself can hurt you. Veterans have to be very careful every time. If they feel there is this question about their health, they maybe got overrated accidently. Once they apply for additional benefits, their whole case opens up again and everything is up for review. Once a veteran is 100 percent, there are two types of 100 percent disability ratings. One is a permanent rating. Which really isn’t permanent, it is a rating saying that they will not take away your benefits, unless there is medical evidence that proves that your health has improved substantially. You can do whatever you want; you don’t lose any of your benefits if you go back to work or start a business, if your 100 percent rating is permanent. However, the other rating is 100 percent unemployability. For example a person with paraplegia is typically rated 80 percent with no other medical complications, because he or she cannot get work. And they add an extra 20 percent rating, making that a 100 percent rating. That extra 20 percent rating is an unemployability rating under the VA process. As such, the veteran cannot do any activities that could be considered as employment or conceived as earning money, whether or not they do earn money. Once that is identified that they are doing some activity, which could include volunteering more than so many hours a week, they will drop back to the 80 percent rating from the previous 100 percent unemployability rating. Veterans are scared of this. The difference between 80 percent and 100 percent, or 90 percent and 100 percent of the VA service connected rating is substantial. It is not a percentage of dollars. If you take a $1.90, then $1 equals 100 percent, it doesn’t increase at that level. It is substantial. There is quite a difference in benefits for a legacy or for your heirs and so forth. These are some of the issues that a veteran has to contend with. So going back to expectations, know what kind of business they want to go into. You have to identify what their expectation of business is. Why are they going into business? How active will they be in their business? If they are looking just to be active, you want something that will not be at risk, something that is low. But, if they are looking to be active in business, be a business owner, and contribute back to society and employ people, there is everything from franchises to creating a business concept, which most people start doing right away, especially business consultants and advisors. This involves the whole business plan and so forth. The other reasons people will get into business are for health reasons—to improve their health. We have a lot of people with psychological problems that do this. A lot of people get into business for social reasons. Single dads are looking to meet other people, a networking type of thing. We are seeing a lot of female vets coming back now getting into business, mainly because of their disability but also to be a business owner. Power is another reason. We see this mainly with the officers who have self-confidence who want to get into business. They know if they go back into the workplace, maybe their disability is not too severe, they are starting at the bottom of the totem pole. They are not the lieutenant colonels or the generals any more, unless they get a government job. And, they don’t have the status they had before. But, as a business owner, they can put down general retired or some designation, and also put owner or president of the company. It is sort of an image or ego thing. There is nothing wrong with that. It can be to their benefit, if they know how to use it. A lot of people are doing it just to create a legacy. This is the reason I first got into business. In 1968, I was given 20 years to live; I thought I needed to create something for my wife. My wife got pregnant right away when I got back from Vietnam, so I guess I wasn’t that disabled. That was a main concern of mine. If I am no longer around, what is my wife going to live on? That was the main reason I got into business and also to control my future, my destiny. That’s why a lot of people with disabilities get into business. They lose control when they have a disability. When you own your own business, you can control the hours that you work and everything there. Those are just a few of the reasons. We are finding a lot of veterans now who are older with disabilities, who are getting into business in their 50s, 60s, and 70s. Their whole purpose for getting into business is not only to create a legacy, but issues for children and grandchildren. IRA Roth accounts for example or self-employment retirement accounts for grandchildren. These are some of the issues going on. So, you have to identify the reason for them going into business. If you put them in an area, you’ve got to write a business plan. And, sometimes that doesn’t work. Then you’ve got cultural barriers, for example working with Native Americans with disabilities veterans. Immigrants who served in the armed forced, who now are disabled. These are cultural barriers that you should be aware of when you are dealing with disabled veterans. These are things that most voc rehab people do take into account when doing vocational rehabilitation assessment, or they should be taking into account. But, business consultants don’t even get into the picture yet. If you send someone to the SBA or the SBDC, they haven’t even thought of that, nor do they care about it. They are good at what they do about business. But, they are weak on the people side, because they haven’t had the training or the time to work with people in this, and how to modify it. Let’s look at programs that are available for disabled veterans. There are a number of programs for disabled veterans. If a veteran is 40 or 50 percent service connected, depending on the part of the country they are located, they would have to be service connected. The VA has had success for certain VA voc rehabs and that’s funding business startups. We have different instances. In Iowa, we did one at $125,000 for a cabinet- making shop for a paraplegic veteran. Hawaii has done some. Iowa tends to be the most successful in our case with working with them. It is a battle. The veteran really has to prove it and have a real strong counselor and administrator at the VA voc rehab office to help. Many veterans, mainly those who are non-service connected or have a disability that maybe does not qualify for VA voc rehab can get assistance from state agencies. Again, Dave Hammis can help you with that. State voc rehab agencies generally do not fund startup businesses. There have been exceptions. What most state agencies will do, as well as VA agencies, possibly will buy the tools to help someone start a business, for example buying tools for an auto mechanic. Another example is buying someone a computer for their business. They are not a bank. Neither agency is a bank. The VA, voc rehab, and with a strong program sometimes will bend, more so today due to the vets coming back. Other programs around here are scattered. I specifically put vets, not too many of them, unless a veteran is able to get a service organization such as VFW or DAV local chapter to help them. They have to be very careful in that. Often there is a 1099 tax form, associated with the gift or award given to them. It is seldom a grant, because the veteran is not recognized by the IRS to receive a grant. You read all these things about the grants available for disabled vets. There are grants available. Often these are through bidding or through special interest. Seldom are they ever for a startup business. Generally, the recipient of the grant has to be approved by the IRS beforehand. There are exceptions such as scholarships, scientific, literary types of grants for someone who wants to be a writer. A disabled vet wants to go into the writing profession, may get a grant. But, for a disabled veteran who wants to open up a local print shop would not necessarily get a grant. To qualify for a grant an exception might be if they are in a hub or a designated economic depressed zone. Grants are not something anybody should look at to use for a startup business. Another area where we are getting a lot of disabled vets into is the nonprofit arena, where they do get grants. This is another business strategy that is not recognized by state voc rehab. I would say about five percent of those we help in business actually start nonprofit organizations first. There are some great ways right now under recent IRS laws where a nonprofit can go into for profit businesses. That is another source of funding that very few realize and know about, especially people in business don’t know about it. If I could go back 40 years ago, I would have started some nonprofit first rather than going broke with my first five businesses. By the way, I’m starting my 24th business right now, so I must be doing something right after all these years. There are so many options available right now. Regarding the government and procurement, there are a number of bills that have been passed, starting with 106-50 [PL 106-50], which is the Veterans Entrepreneur bill [Veterans Entrepreneurship and Small Business Development Act of 1999] which President Clinton signed in August of 1999. It has only in last few years been implemented. These give veterans a right (not a preference ) to bid on federal jobs with government agencies having a goal of giving some of their work, goods, and services sold to service disabled veterans only. There is also the Veterans Act, which later on came up giving a preference to veterans. The Veterans Administration is the only government agency thus far that has even come close to meeting their goals since 1999. They did this last year. There is a lot of flack about this both in the House and by advocates for veterans. Disabled veterans and veterans are not getting their share of government work. It is mired in paperwork. It is a nightmare. It is a competitive bidding issue. With veterans, one of the expectations should not be that because I am a service disabled veteran, I can get work from the government right away. They still have to bid. We do not recommend anybody starting out in business going right into government procurement unless they had a designated expertise. But, I mean expertise as they are the top of their field. They are just not someone who knows something, but are well known in their industry because of their name or status they could do. We have a gentleman who was top in database security for the government as an officer and getting out of the military after 27 years. He has a disability. He will be opening up a consulting firm and hopefully will sell back to the government in the area of top security database management. We think he will be able to get some work right away. That is an exception to the rule. We had a gentleman in West Virginia who was a nuclear scientist. When he got out of the military, the military did hire his company. Unfortunately the gentleman has passed away with MS, but his company is still going. There are some procurement advantages for some veterans and certain trades especially if the trade is something to do in one of the construction trades—hauling of gravel, paving roads, laying the underground water pipes. They can always find jobs; however, they should also look for work in nongovernment sector or bidding on nongovernment jobs. Also, each state depending on the degree of service connected disability has special state certifications. There are about eight or nine states right now, California being one, where veterans who are service connected (10 percent or greater) can get certified under the state as a disabled veteran business enterprise. Other states that include this are New York, New Mexico, Washington, and I believe Ohio. I can’t remember all the states. These are states for certification. This is for state jobs. Under the federal job, there is no certification for service disabled veterans to bid on jobs. You can register under the SBA’s database of service disabled veterans. That is for any service disabled veteran of zero percent or greater. If you are a 100 percent service connected veteran, you don’t have any advantage of government procurement over a veteran who is zero percent service connected. The rating system is one-veteran- fits-all in this area. There is no special funding. The SBA does have the Patriot Program. I have heard some good news about it. There are a number of other programs that the SBA does have guidelines or goals that they have to provide loans to veterans. Actually, service disabled veterans is the only one that they keep data on. A non-service connected veteran would not generally have preference in an SBA loan over a service disabled veteran. A non-disable veteran would not have any preference. On the government procurement side of the order of priority and the bidding on jobs, the service disabled veteran is at the bottom of the totem pole. The priority first goes to 8A programs. This is a federal program that designates disadvantaged businesses. A service disabled veteran is not considered disadvantaged nor is anybody with a disability in business considered disadvantaged, regardless of the severity of the disability. As I mentioned earlier, the business world is an able-bodies world, and we have to compete on that level. Next, on the priority on government federal procurement is women owned businesses and small business entities, then service disabled veterans, and then veteran general. Veteran general includes non-disabled and non-service connected disabled veterans. They do do “set asides”. There are a number of federal laws requiring both—“set asides”. They tend to be in the trades, and so the service disabled veterans in business have to make sure they are in the right trade. There is also another federal law where two service disabled veterans are bidding on the same job. They can request that that bid/RFP be set aside for service disabled veterans only. There is federal legislation identifying that, and it is a paperwork nightmare. There is a lawsuit pending on a military base in California where they did not honor this federal request or law on a contracting job on a military base. That is still up in the courts and being decided by the military right now. Again, I’ll repeat that if two separate businesses owned by service disabled veterans are bidding on a federal job along with others who are not service disabled, they can request that that job be set aside to service disabled veterans only, and it requires a lot of paperwork. This is why knowing the procurement arena and knowing purchasing agents and the time it takes to get into this arena is so critical in order to be competitive like this. As I often recommend, not to focus on the business if someone is just starting out in business, unless they understand the procedures. Many of you will probably get a disabled veteran who was a procurement officer in the military. Maybe they worked for the Navy or somebody like that. They would be great in this business, partnering with another veteran. Another opportunity for all service related veteran, is the veteran must own at least 51 percent of the company and must be an active manager of the company. So, for a service disabled veteran who owns 10 or 20 percent of a company, the company would not qualify as a service disabled veteran business. The only exception to this is a 100 percent service permanent disabled veteran. In that case, they only have to own 50 percent of the company, not 51. There is new legislation that will hopefully be coming out soon where if the service connected veteran that owns a business passes away, that the spouse would be able to continue running that business and keep that service disabled veteran status for bidding purposes. This has not passed yet, but we expect this to pass shortly as a future benefit for service disabled veterans especially for those who want to continue a legacy of what they are doing now to loved ones after they are no longer here. Let’s face it, many of us veterans are going to die before our spouses. They told me I would die 20 years ago, and I’m still around. I don’t know what happened. Those are basically the government programs. There are scattered programs around the country. The best people to find are the office of Small Business or a Small Business Development Center in your area, if there is any special program for veterans. They tend to be statewide, not federal wide. Again, remember you have the federal, which requires no certification. What the veteran does is just mark a box that they are a service disabled veteran. In most cases, if they are considered a final bidder or do get the award, they have to present their award letter from the VA about their service connection. That is an easy thing to get. It takes about two days to get with the phone number, the 800 number to the VA. On state levels, if the state has a designated service disabled veteran bidding procurement process, and states do require certification, not every state has that process. There are probably eight or nine, possibly 15 states now, that have state certification, often known as an DVBE, Disabled Veteran Business Enterprise, or SDOVB, Service Disabled Owned Veteran Business -- more acronyms for you to play with. Let’s look at financing. We touched on it briefly. Most of the veterans, unless those coming out financially well set with good credit, can go through the traditional way of financing which would be through bank loans, SBA loan guarantees, or others. Still, most veterans start businesses from family and friends, credit cards, and all. Most of the veterans we work with are broke, or they are doing the business in someone else’s name, which we don’t discourage. We understand that, but they have to understand that if their business is successful they better self-report, or we will report them. We have done that in some cases. When a veteran has a $3 or $5 million business and is still receiving Social Security and is 100 percent unemployable, and his wife is getting a couple hundred thousand a year in salary, I think it is time they told everybody what was going on. And the veterans who do this, who try to beat the system, veterans and non-veterans with disabilities who beat the system really are hurting the potential of their business. It is a whole culture in business operations and all. If the true nature is the business, they have to understand this and go forward. We told everybody right now, if you are starting a business especially if you have a severe disability, your first six months to one year is research phase. You might have a business license and all, but you are just testing the water to see what will happen. We want you to limit the amount of risk, if no risk at all, and then after that we sit down and evaluate it all, including your benefits. Get your feet wet and get in there. We’ve got this transition, especially those just getting out of the military, and especially those who have PTSD. We don’t know how they are going to act in society. They are different. Many of them do not realize how different they are. They have to slowly integrate back into society and business is a great way to build self-confidence. They meet people again. They start socializing with the real world. Self-employment is probably the best rehabilitation of anything. It is better than employment as far as I am concerned, because under self-employment you are still in charge. Under employment, someone is telling you what to do and looking over your shoulder. A soldier, especially a combat soldier, platoon leaders as an example, can blow a short fuse when someone starts yelling at him because something screwed up at work. But under business, you take a different role. So, this is my attitude from personal experience and working with thousands of vets over the years on the reason for self-employment. With that, I gave you a lot of scattered information, hopefully a progression of what we look at. The first most basic thing, get them ready for self-employment. Identify strengths and weaknesses. Are they ready for self-employment? Is the business world ready for them? Get their expectations down. Make them understand exactly what it is like. As a disabled veteran, there are some benefits. Especially if they are service disabled. Still, they have to compete with everybody else and the veterans status only goes so long or so far and so does the disability status. If anything, the disability can be both a benefit and a deterrent to them. Just to give you one little trick, we tell those with disabled vets (especially if they have an obviously disability whether it is an arm amputation, they are blind, they are in a wheelchair, or they have a psychological issue, maybe a brain injury, or they don’t speak—when someone communicates with them they know something is different about them) put themselves in the back seat. They are not the business owner as far as the public is concerned. It is easier to make the business a priority. It is all about their business and them, but mainly about their business. They don’t have to impress anybody. As an example, I owned a multimillion dollar company in marketing. My business card had marketing director, not founder, not CEO, not President. People used to say, isn’t that a wonderful a company like yours that hires the disabled. I said, I couldn’t think of a better company to work for. But if I give out my business card with all the obvious disabilities I had, the first impression the public would have isn’t that nice, a little home based business or something diminishing. So, this is part of the tricks we teach them how to do. Based on their disability, there are advantages to their disability, how to use it, when you show up for business meetings. For example, if you have an obvious disability (you are a wheelchair user. I use a Seeing Eye dog) I never show up early at business meetings or at the Chamber of Commerce. If I get there early and sit down, my table is less likely to fill up. If I arrive towards the beginning or after most people are there, I can pick and choose where I want to sit. People are not going to get up, because I sat there. The way you sit in a meeting -- all these are part of the skills we teach them about with business. We are non-traditional. We have to network and do things not like everybody else does. For those of you who do know business, you know that it is not about how many people do you know, it’s about how many people know you. This is where you have to develop it. More business is done through friendship than is ever done through advertising. You have to build up friendships and break that separation. Remember, the next presentation will be what type of businesses to get into. How to start the business? The business planning process. Most business plans can be done in five pages or less for disabled veterans. How to buy a business with no money down? How someone who is in jail can go right from jail into business the next day, or from the streets? We have done this for years, where you get a homeless disabled veteran on the street and 30 days later they are running a business and have a place to sleep. It may be in their business, but we have gotten them off the streets and they are starting to earn cash.