Walmart Foundation grant supports military family job training
The Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans’ Families (EBV-F), an education and training program founded in 2010 and based at the Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University, has announced its expansion to Florida State University’s College of Business. Florida State plans to launch their EBV-F program in 2012, on the Panama City campus.
EBV-F leverages the flexibility inherent in small business ownership to provide a vocational and economic path forward for military family members who are now caregivers to a wounded warrior, or for the surviving spouse of a military member who gave his or her life in service to the country. The program, part of the Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities (EBV) portfolio founded in 2007 at Whitman, is supported by founding corporate sponsor Ernst & Young and the Walmart Foundation.
EBV opens the door to business ownership to America’s veterans by providing cutting-edge, experiential training in entrepreneurship and small-business management to servicemen and women disabled as a result of their military service. More than 300 wounded warriors have graduated from the program since its inception, and the training continues to be offered without any cost to participants.
“The expansion of EBV-F to Florida State University is a wonderful example of higher education’s ongoing commitment to serve and honor our nation’s veterans and their families,” says Mike Haynie, founder and national executive director of EBV Programs, Barnes Professor of Entrepreneurship in the Whitman School and founding director of SU and JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s newly created Institute for Veterans and Military Families. “As an existing member of the EBV consortium, Florida State is strongly committed to helping veterans’ families realize their entrepreneurial dreams. We are thrilled to add the EBV-F program to their campus.”
“It is an honor for Florida State to expand our veteran programs to include the EBV-F program,” says Randy Blass, executive director of the Center for Veteran Outreach in the College of Business at Florida State. “This program enables caregivers of the men and women who served our country an opportunity to secure their financial future.”
As part of the Walmart Foundation’s five-year, $10 million commitment to support military and veteran employment and entrepreneurial opportunities, announced on Veteran’s Day 2010, the EBV Foundation was granted $1 million to support the EBV program at its seven major university partners. The grant also facilitates the expansion of the program to additional schools and supports EBV-F.
“We are proud that our contributions are helping to expand the EBV-F program. This important program will help meet the needs of the families and caregivers of our wounded veterans who are seeking this critical support,” says Gary Profit, senior director of military programs for Walmart.
The EBV program is offered through a network of seven world-class business schools that, in addition to SU and Florida State, includes the Anderson School of Management at UCLA, the Mays School of Business at Texas A&M University, the Krannert School at Purdue University, the School of Business at the University of Connecticut and the E.J. Ourso College of Business at Louisiana State University. In 2009, EBV was recognized as a “National Best Practice” by the Department of the Army for serving soldiers and their families, and in 2011 was selected by the editors of Inc. magazine as one of the 10 best entrepreneurship programs in the nation.
