Celebrating Veterans, Including Veteran Entrepreneurs

The above photo honors my father's U.S. Army service and my father-in-law's U.S. Army service, in each case, in the Korean War.  I took a pause today to respect what they and so many others have done to serve our country.  I hope that all veterans and their families and friends have enjoyed a Happy Veteran's Day.

With veteran legal service projects (some through student organizations, like our award-winning Vols for Vets organization at UT Law, a nonprofit supported by many in our community), including full-fledged law clinics (e.g., here and here and here and here and here), emerging across the country, I wondered whether there was any assistance outside the law school context, specifically for veterans who are entrepreneurs.  I did find, through a page on the U.S. Veterans Administration (VA) website, that the Office of Small & Disadvantaged Business Utilization has a program for Veteran-Owned Small Businesses.  Under the program, a veteran who owns a small business "may qualify for advantages when bidding on government contracts—along with access to other resources and support—through the Vets First Verification Program."  A number of additional entrepreneurship programs exist under the auspices of the same VA office.  Many can be found on the website for the Office of Small & Disadvantaged Business Utilization (noted above).

In my web travels, I also found a nifty national veteran's entrepreneurship program at the University of Florida Warrington School of Business.  And at one of our sister UT system schools, the The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, the business school--the Gary W. Rollins College of Business--has a Veterans Entrepreneurship Program.  And it seems there is quite a bit more out there in the educational setting.

This all seems like a good start.  I am sure with more digging, I could find more.  I was admittedly gratified, however, to see that Forbes published a piece on free support programs for veteran entrepreneurs.  I was hoping to see a bunch more of that kind of thing . . . .  Maybe next year?

Again, I send abundant and heartfelt thanks to all of our veterans for their service.