991. Helping Veterans Live Their Dream

“I asked a general officer that I’d known for a while what we could do to help transitioning veterans. He said, ‘You know, Phil, for some veterans, the transition can be more than a little difficult.’ And that’s when the portion of American Dream U. in 2013 came alive. I did a little research and found the transitioning of all veterans was run by the Department of Labor and the Veterans Administration. At that time, the goal of the curriculum was two resumes: a civilian resume and a government one. I thought ‘Wow. I think there’s a lot more to it!’ So, I called some entrepreneurs that I knew, and we did our first event at Fort Lewis. All the soldiers thought that we were going to have dozens of PowerPoint slides: the military lives off of PowerPoint presentations. But that day, all of a sudden there were no PowerPoints. There were only entrepreneurs there sharing their stories. The soldiers started leaning forward, paying close attention, and taking notes. The general officer of this team said, ‘You’ve really got something here.’ That’s when I discovered that bringing other successful people, both veterans and non-veterans, to share what’s possible, really was a powerful idea. Since then, we’ve done over 170 events, in front of 17,000 or more live attendees. And then, of course, with Covid we had to pivot to be online. I’m proud to say we’ve helped a lot of military people and their families since 2013 and will continue to do so going forward.”

Philip J. Randazzo is an MBA professional, leveraging multiple sustainability disciplines within health care, financial planning and education industries of civilians, veterans, and current military individuals. He was given the key to the city of Las Vegas in March of 2003, testified in front of the U.S. Congress, was invited to the White House, and is actively involved in the Las Vegas community serving on the Advisory Board of the YMCA of Southern Nevada and served on the Veterans Services Commission. He’s the founder of American Dream U. and Clarity Council. His organizations bring the world’s top entrepreneurs together to help those making potentially difficult transitions.