By Liz Young | Director, Arkansas Women's Business Center
Boots To Business: One Veteran At A Time
The Arkansas Women’s Business Center (AWBC) is helping military veterans find a future in the world of entrepreneurship.
Boots to Business is a two-day entrepreneurial education and training program aimed at helping veterans gain the foundational knowledge required to start their own business. The program is made possible by the Department of Defense’s Transition Assistance Program (TAP) and the U.S. Small Business Administration. Classes cover topics like business concept evaluations and accessing start-up capital and technical assistance.
The AWBC has been part of the Boots to Business program since 2014, training service members and military spouses who are transitioning or retiring from service from the Little Rock Air Force base in Jacksonville, ARK.
AWBC Director Liz Young created an Agricultural Lunch N’ learn to educate servicemen and veterans on farming as a future entrepreneurial business. From the agricultural trainings, many veterans have become AWBC clients, receiving one-on-one assistance to start farm operations.
Veterans are 45 percent more likely to be self-employed than non-veterans. Young says farming provides an opportunity for soldiers to find peace and solitude, feed their community and their family, while restoring the farming heartland of this country. Soldiers have a high probability for success because of their physical strength, hard work ethic, and fortitude.
According to U.S. Small Business Administration Administrator Maria Contreras-Sweet, Boots to Business program has trained 25,000 transitioning service members on 165 military installations worldwide.
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