Federal researchers count more than 2.5 million veteran-owned small businesses in America today. Officials at Syracuse University are hoping to create a single shop to help them all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This weekend, the school’s Institute for Veterans and Military Families launched its new Center of Excellence for Veteran Entrepreneurship, billed as a hub for business ownership research and resources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That includes plans to expand IVMF’s catalog of veteran entrepreneur classes, building a network of business hopefuls and investors, compiling best practices with new information sheets and conducting new studies to push for new policies to help would-be business owners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The official launch Saturday came just hours before the start of IVMF’s latest “Entrepreneurship Bootcamp,” this one a week-long training program for veterans’ spouses and family members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Institute officials have brought in First Data Corporation as a founding partner for the new center, touting the firm’s rise from a small Nebraska payment processing firm in the 1970s to a $11.2 billion firm with 23,000 workers in 34 countries today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
CEO Frank Bisignano, who helped found the 100,000 Jobs Mission while working at JPMorgan Chase, called the partnership a natural extension of his corporate efforts to work with troops transitioning from military life to civilian realities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I’ve never thought of doing that work as philanthropy,” he said. “We’ve see that the call of duty, wearing the uniform of the services made people better equipped in life for everything that goes on in a successful business. We want to work with them.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Vivian Greentree, head of military and veterans affairs for First Data, said company officials also signed on to the center to help fill needs they have seen in veterans’ interest in starting their own companies and available start-up resources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
“We’re not looking to re-create anything that’s already out there,” she said. “But we saw a gap. This is bringing together things in a way we haven’t see before.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The center will also coordinate programs with the U.S. Small Business Administration, focusing particularly on their Office of Veteran Business Development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
IVMF officials plan on establishing dedicated campus space for the center in months to come. For now, it’ll share office space with other institute programs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Leo Shane III covers Congress, Veterans Affairs and the White House for Military Times. He can be reached at <\/em>lshane@militarytimes.com<\/em>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The new effort is being billed as a hub for veterans business ownership research and resources.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":39119,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":19,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3226],"class_list":["post-17112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-veterans"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"M5RIUHKEGJHYZNVC5ZVYZLRNMI","arc_canonical_url":"\/veterans\/2016\/03\/13\/syracuse-university-s-military-institute-doubles-down-on-veteran-entrepreneurs\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n