Officials with Syracuse University’s veterans outreach programs are adding new recruits to their annual entrepreneurship boot camp: professional hockey players.
The Institute for Veterans and Military Families is teaming up with the National Hockey League Alumni Association to bring retired skaters into the classroom to talk with disabled veterans to learn about small-business development and operations. The joint program will start next spring, with a handful of former hockey players sitting alongside a few dozen war heroes.
Organizers from both groups say the two groups have more in common than many would think.
“These are guys who are both used to working on elite teams, who are used to doing tasks at a difficult level and push themselves to the limit,” said James Schmeling, IVMF co-founder. “And they’re looking to start new careers. We think they have a lot to learn from each other.”
For the past six years, the veterans program has been run out of Syracuse University’s Whitman School of Management, and includes a 30-day online course and nine days of on-campus sessions. Nearly 1,000 veterans and family members have graduated from one of eight participating schools.
Likewise, the NHL Alumni Association has been operating its own business training program for years, helping former players make the transition from the ice rink to the corporate world. The effort is designed to help participants avoid budgeting and bankruptcy problems all too common among retired professional athletes.
Association officials said alumni participation will help pay tuition costs for the veterans attending the program.
In return, “not only will our members learn how to utilize the skills they learned on the ice transferable to entrepreneurship, but they will learn from their veteran classmates’ service and sacrifices,” association Director Wendy McCreary said in a statement.
Schmeling said the partnership also helps officials expose veterans’ stories and skills to another group of individuals without military experience, bridging the military/civilian cultural divide.
Information on offerings and enrollment is available at http://vets.syr.edu/education/ebv/.
