Business for veterans is networking group's business

Joe Johnson of Blaine started Trust Vets last year as a way to help drive business to local veterans.

Trust Vets is an enterprise and website that offers veterans virtual and in-person opportunities to connect both with fellow vets and the broader community. The group meets monthly in Blaine, Burnsville and St. Louis Park. It also has a growing presence in Oklahoma and Colorado, said Johnson, who hopes to expand it elsewhere.

Johnson isn't a veteran himself, but he's a longtime supporter, he said, and he wanted to find a way to say thank you to service members. At the same time, the security company that he worked for was sold and shut down, so he was on the lookout for a new business venture.

Johnson said he got to talking with people and saw a need for more professional support for veterans. While there's a lot of emphasis on finding jobs for vets, it's unclear what happens to them once they're employed, he said.

The veterans community is "woefully underserved. People may fall through the cracks in the system," he said. "I wanted to launch comprehensive services to lift them up organically."

The networking company offers a way to "put vets to work," with a directory of local veteran-owned businesses. It includes a wide array, from family law to art galleries. Also, the 150 dues-paying members range from World War II veterans to recently discharged soldiers.

The goal is to "make it easy to seek out and do business with vets," Johnson said.

Trust Vets also connects people face-to-face. Last November, it held a summit about the gaps in veteran services, which it plans to reprise in a couple of months.

The idea was to "identify what each organization did extremely well, so we could drive referrals," he said.

Everything from getting a ride to the VA hospital to readjusting to life as a civilian can be tough for veterans, the website says. Trust Vets is a way to point to some of the resources out there, Johnson said. Some organizations have started working together.

Furthermore, older veterans are in a position to mentor the younger ones, he said.

'Take care of each other'

A guest speaker at one Trust Vets meeting, Barry Bridger, a Vietnam veteran who lives in Kansas, shared his story about being a prisoner of war. His message was that "when everything else is lost, take care of each other," Johnson said.

That's something Trust Vets has taken to heart. Many members go out of their way to create opportunities for one another. The challenge, Johnson said, is to "see how much business they can create for each other, how they can leverage their civilian careers."

Ryan Doliber of Elk River heard about Trust Vets through Johnson, whom he met through another networking group.

Doliber, who served in the Minnesota National Guard for 12 years, started his business, United Window Cleaning in Elk River, in July 2012.

Trust Vets was one of his first marketing tools. Networking has been invaluable for him, he said.

He has a couple of veteran employees, as well.

This year he hopes to scale up his ice dam removal services. "Trust Vets will probably play a part in that," he said. This past year, he had a hard time keeping up with the demand. "I said, 'I need a secretary,' " and Johnson was able to steer him toward a worker who can field the calls.

It's also helped him to find services he needs and to refer on others.

"I can go there and say, 'I'm looking for a painter. I have a customer who needs some painting done,' " and then somebody might chime in with a referral. And he can do the same for others, Doliber said.

Although the Guard puts a lot of effort into finding employment for its members, "business owners are out there on their own," he said. Trust Vets is helping to fill that void. Johnson "is out there promoting the independent" operations, Doliber said.

In it together

Don Raleigh, who lives in Blaine and has a business called Evolve Systems that builds websites, joined Trust Vets shortly after it started.

He said many people "want to do something to honor vets, and this is a way to make good on those intentions."

"The focus isn't just on 'hey, what can you do for me,' but [on] what can you do for the group?' We're stronger as a unit than we are as individuals," said Raleigh, who was a presidential guard to Ronald Reagan.

He also has switched to using veteran-owned businesses for different aspects of his work.

The group affords a "feeling of camaraderie, of making a difference in the community." He has mentors within the group and likewise, he tries to do the same for those coming up behind him.

"We're able to spend time talking, listening and sharing our experiences — making sure that we in the vet community are making business better for everyone in the community," said Raleigh.

To learn more about Trust Vets, check out trustvets.com.

Anna Pratt is a Minneapolis freelance writer. She can be reached at annaprattjournalist@gmail.com.