Event to help disabled veterans who want to start, grow businesses
| Tuesday, May 17 2011 05:00 PM
Last Updated Tuesday, May 17 2011 05:01 PM
TRAVELING CHAPTER
The Disabled Veterans Business Enterprise Alliance will send its "traveling chapter" to Kern County to help disabled veterans interested in starting or growing a business. The mobile business counseling unit will be available 4 p.m. May 26 at the Bakersfield Marriott Conference Center, 801 Truxtun Ave.
Admission is free for disabled veterans. For information, call (916) 446-3510.
The Disabled Veterans Business Enterprise Alliance strives to reach veterans all over California, but in the past it's had trouble reaching veterans in some of the state's smaller cities and rural areas.
In an effort to interact with people outside the markets that host its 11 permanent chapters, the nonprofit organization has partnered with the U.S. Small Business Administration's Small Business Development Center network to create a "traveling chapter" that will tour the state. The unit will stop in Bakersfield on May 26.
The idea is to bring together a concentrated body of expertise to advise current and aspiring business owners who are veterans. Professionals in finance, business development, diversity and contracting will assemble in one place.
Services are free for disabled veterans.
"The state has set a goal of spending 3 percent of its budget with disabled veterans, so there are some real opportunities for disabled veteran business owners," said the alliance's executive director, Rich Dryden. "We've tried to pull together every kind of resource a person could need except lending money, but we can refer them to sources where they can get that help, as well."
Entrepreneurship skills are particularly important to the disabled veteran community because often employers are nervous about hiring someone with a physical or mental health issue, Dryden said.
That's a problem in any job market, but is especially challenging in an economy in which even job seekers who are not disabled are having trouble finding work, he said. Sometimes veterans have a better shot starting their own business, and the successful ones will be able to hire other disabled veterans because they won't be afraid of working with them, Dryden said.
There are 22.7 million military veterans in the United States, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
The unemployment rate for veterans who served in the military at any time since September 2001 was 11.5 percent in 2010, compared with 9.4 percent for non-veterans, according to the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics.
"For disabled veterans it's more difficult because they in many cases don't have the work experience that other people have," said Charles Bikakis, director of the Kern County Department of Veterans Services. "But really, everyone is suffering because of the economy. People are having difficulty finding work because the jobs just aren't there."
