Veterans

Meriden Veteran Goes from Military Service to Entrepreneurship

Posted on by Melissa Ferrigno

Record-Journal- When Gulaid and Davina Ismail’s second child Issaq was born three years ago, the child suffered from acid reflux so badly he threw up often. The couple was going through plenty of infant clothes.

“We were constantly changing clothes and throwing them out when they get stained,” Davina said. “So we asked ourselves ‘why don’t we start making clothes ourselves?'”

Gulaid Ismail, a U.S. Marine who served seven months in Fallujah, Iraq, was able to get some assistance from Veterans Administration programs and the couple soon started Dribblebabies, a baby and toddler web-based store for parents five years after his honorable discharge.

Honoring Veterans 365 Days a Year

Posted on by Claire Hall
Angel Charles, Connecticut National Guard and 2015 EBV Participant
Angel Charles, Connecticut National Guard and 2015 EBV Participant (Nathan Oldham/UConn School of Business)

 

UConn’s Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans Helps Military Heroes Become Business Moguls

The UConn School of Business has a strong and proud history of serving the educational and career needs of military leaders and veterans, a tradition that dates back to its earliest days.

After WWII, the university offered business classes at Fort Trumbull in New London to serve returning GIs. The creation of a full-time MBA program on the Storrs campus in 1960, another milestone at the School of Business, occurred as a direct result of a contract to expand educational opportunities for members of the Air Force.Continue Reading

How Veterans Can Sign Up for Entrepreneurial Training Through College Initiatives

Posted on by Melissa Ferrigno

New York Post- Last year, Army Reserves veteran Dr. Stephannie L. Addo-Zuniga was knee-deep in the trenches on a daily basis from 8 a.m. to midnight, relying on her tenacity and perseverance to pull her through.

This wasn’t army bootcamp, but an intense learning initiative offered through Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities at the University of Connecticut.

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‘Top Notch’

Posted on by Claire Hall
UConn EBV Class of 2015
EBV Class of 2015 (Lisa Ducharme)

UConn Graduates 25 from EBV Program; Veteran Entrepreneurs Poised to Start Own Businesses

After the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, retired U.S. Marine Corp. Staff Sergeant Lawrence “LD” Dapo’s assignment was to fly then-Vice President Cheney to an undisclosed, secure location.

“It was all business that day,” Dapo recalled. “I had no time to reflect on the tragedy until afterwards. But that was the day I knew I would marry my wife. She was quite the trooper.”Continue Reading

Til Duty is Done

Posted on by Claire Hall

U.S. Army Veterans

Retired U.S. Army Captain /UConn Alumnus Building Housing, Haven for Returning Veterans

Every class that graduates from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point adopts a creed that unifies and guides the future officers during their military training.

For U.S. Army Capt. Justin Nash, and the rest of the Class of 2001, that principle was: Til Duty is Done.

That powerful phrase has been a rallying cry for Nash, who several years later led a platoon of professional soldiers and 300 indigent Afghan warriors through a series of harrowing missions near the Pakistani border.Continue Reading

EBV Program Receives Boost from Bank of America

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Bank of America - logo

 

Bank of America to Support Initiative for Veterans

UConn’s Entrepreneurship Boot Camp for Veterans with Disabilities (EBV) has received a $15,000 grant from the Bank of America Foundation.

The grant will support UConn’s program in the School of Business that provides disabled veterans with training in entrepreneurship and small business management, the UConn Foundation, which applied for the grant, announced.Continue Reading

5 Resources for Turning Veterans into Entrepreneurs

Posted on by Melissa Ferrigno

Milwaukee Community Journal – Is the solution to joblessness among veterans, entrepreneurship? Career experts think so. According to the Small Business Administration, military veterans are almost twice as likely as non-veterans to start their own business, but their unemployment rate stands at 6.7 percent as of February, and has been consistently higher than the national average.