In this episode of Veteran Led, John S. Berry sits down with Barb Carson, Managing Director of Programs and Services at the D’Aniello Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF) at Syracuse University. In this powerful episode of Veteran Led, Air Force Veteran Barb Carson shares invaluable insights on leadership, transition, and Veteran support. As a leader at IVMF (Institute for Veterans and Military Families), Barb discusses how military experience shapes civilian success.
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I love listening to what people did in the service compared to what they do now. For me, nuclear command and control absolutely has no correlation to what I can do in a civilian role, except for this. I can make really hard decisions in three minutes or less with less information than I wish I had.
Welcome to Veteran Led. Today’s guest is Barb Carson, an Air Force Veteran who works with IVMF to help Veterans get into the right programs and succeed. Welcome to the show, Barb.
Thanks so much, John. Looking forward to this.
So you are an Air Force Veteran and you retired as a colonel, Correct?
I did.
Now, before you got involved in the IVMF community, you were in the US Small Business Administration.
Yes.
Tell us about that.
It was a great adventure. And it was an active-duty coordination effort. I came straight from the European Command into the Small Business Administration because I’d had a tiny little enterprise while in Okinawa, a personal training business. And they have Veteran programs at the Small Business Administration that I’m afraid not too many people are aware of. So I spent nine years there and am working… The Boots to Business program, which went out to 180 military installations back in 2013, still exists for those who would like, after their service career as a military spouse as well, to be their own boss and not be employed except by themselves.
And you were an Air Force officer and a military spouse?
Yes.
And you said, and you had a personal training business in Okinawa, is that right?
I did.
Wow. And so then you feel, oh well, this supports small business, this is what I’ve been involved in. And you get involved and you’re in that for almost a decade. And then how did you end up at IVMF?
I worked with IVMF in the program. I just mentioned Boots to Business back in 2013. Dr. Haynie was instrumental in creating that program and bringing it to the Small Business Administration, the Department of Defense and VA, saying, in transition, we talk about employment as the only next step or education. There’s a much broader opportunity out there. It’s entrepreneurship. We really should bring this out and we did.
Awesome. And for the audience, what does IVMF stand for?
The Institute for Veterans and Military Families.
And now that is connected to the D’Aniello Institute, Syracuse University.
Yes. Dan D’Aniello is a Syracuse alum, Navy Veteran and one of the founders of the Carlisle Group. He continues to serve in this way by generously making it possible for us to support Veterans and military family members in entrepreneurship, employment, and connecting them to services in their communities.
And you continue to serve as well. And when we come To CEOcircle and other events, you’re usually front and center making sure that the event runs well and it always does. But you’re also there to help provide opportunities for Veterans. And I’m curious, in your role, first of all, tell us your role and then tell us what that means. Like what do you actually do?
Oh, I’m lucky. I have a great team, several teams. And we lead in entrepreneurship programming where everybody from just, I have an idea should it be a hobby or could I make some money on this? To those who are looking at mergers, acquisition exit, like the cohort right now with CEOcircle, that is one part of our portfolio. Another is employment. Onward Opportunity is what we’re best known for. Almost 12,000 people go through that program every year. Veterans of every era, service members leaving service and military spouses. And finally the coordinated care, which is there are many services open to military members, not just the VA. How can we help communities, states and organizations bring those resources together?
And it’s not just brand-new entrepreneurs. I mean, some of the participants are eight and nine figure companies.
Certainly, some are venture funded, others are working with private equity, some are trying to get their first line of credit from their local bank. It’s the whole spectrum.
And what’s interesting is we all need help.
Yes.
And to get this help you have to be a Veteran or a military spouse.
Yes. And I think this, it’s not always an identity. Veteran’s going to seek a program because we, although we use teams in military service, there’s some kind of thing that makes you feel like I should be able to do this alone out here in this world. It is not at all the same. And if we can convince folks to give this a try, you’ll be just as strong as you were in the military with the team that you built as out here in the business world.
Well and you seem to have a lot of empathy probably because you had your own business. When you see what a lot of Veterans and let’s face it, it doesn’t matter whether you’re a Veteran or not, you go into business, you’re gonna struggle. We had a great speaker yesterday and he said, you know, in business most of the time you just going to have more bad days than good days. You may have a bunch of good days in a row, but if I count the years, I think back to all of the challenges and, and it’s real easy, I think, to frame them as bad days. But I think for a lot of us, when we know that our peers are going through the same thing, we could reframe them as challenges, challenges that are friends with, and we could reach out to them. And I think it doesn’t have to be alone. And you’re so right. We had teams, we had a mission, and now we have this mission and we’re afraid to bring a team on. But to be fair, when you’re running your company, there’s stuff the team doesn’t need to know and quite frankly, they shouldn’t know because they would be scared out of their minds.
The reason you are the leader of the organization is because you can handle it, that you can carry that weight on your shoulders. And for a lot of us, if the team knew, we worry if the team really knew what was going on and all the jeopardy and all the risk out there, we wonder if they’d show up tomorrow. But we can’t have those conversations with the team because we don’t want to erode confidence in our leadership abilities and we don’t want to erode confidence in our organization. So what do we do? We just don’t tell anybody. And then that results in things like suicide, which is how EO, Entrepreneurs Organization started.
And so we have to be able to talk to somebody. But for a lot of us Veterans, we go talk to these civilians and we’re like, oh, you’re whining about that. That’s cute. Like, let me tell you about the challenges I’m facing. And so I think it’s just a different… And also with Veterans, we can actually take feedback. And you get in these groups and you tell somebody, look, I want to give you some accountability, and it hurts their feelings. Right? And for us, it’s like, in Veteran, the Veteran world, feedback is a gift and we love it. So this is such a great group because you’re dealing with Veterans who, they know what leadership is. We’re not starting at ground zero with leadership. We’re talking to amazing leaders who now want to take the next step or have taken the next step and just want to give back. So tell me about your role in all this. I mean, making it all work, it seems like you just show up and it all works.
There’s a lot of hard work and incredible teams that bring it together. I think I’ll pick up on a thread that I would say I am empathetic and with an opportunity like you. We continue to serve when we’ve left the uniform. You find that you may see something from a vantage point that another is not going to see right now. But because I have worked with thousands of entrepreneurs I know there are some common problems and some common solutions, and if we can convene together and break through that, that feeling of, I’m alone in this and I can’t reveal that I am having this problem, we can quickly come together and find some unique situations and solutions that are going to bring us to the next level and also expand our networks. I might have something that’s going to help you, John. You’re going to introduce me to five people or organizations that are going to solve problems I didn’t even know there was a resource for. It is just inspiring. So what I do is take a look at the resources that are around us, bring them together, and empower people to take advantage of them.
Yeah and I think it’s really special in the Veteran community because we can have that level of vulnerability. I mean, I actually got a text from Candace last night. Hey, I’m out at the bar, and Barb’s out, so if you want to ask her some questions, she said they were going out. I didn’t go out last night. I’ll go out tonight. But one of the things that I think is great is I was talking to Candace. She came on the podcast, and I’m in a law firm mastermind group. These are all firms my size throughout the country, and I pay a lot of money to be in it. And we’re filling out… We share everything. And they’re like, what’s your project management software? I’m like, wait, we’ve got our CR, our client relationship management. We’ve got our practice management software. We’ve got our financial software. We’ve got, you know, we’ve got all the software. We don’t have a project management software. That’s pretty embarrassing, right? So immediately I get on the phone, okay, I need to come down here, and we need to choose a project management software. I need you to get my team on board.
Why? To explain why? Because when we use programs like EOS, and you say, what’s this, 90 Day Rock? Where are you? Oh, we’re on track. We’re on track. We’re on track. Then we hit day nine. You’re like, oh, we didn’t get done. We’re off track. Well, wait a minute. Well, if you don’t have project management software, you can’t really check up. And so it’s, hey, you know, trust but verify, or show and tell. But, man, it was like, hey, this is embarrassing, Candace. I know you do this, and I know you’re a PMP But I need someone to come down here, like now. So we will pay you get on the plane. And you know, she’s like, I’d love to help. And you know what? She did a phenomenal job. Now part of that is because we’re 140 people, but we’re almost 40% Veteran. So most of our leadership team is Veteran. So she comes in like, you know, just tell them like a Veteran. You know, it’s basically like, hey, you guys suck. Get project management software, you know, get into… And I mean, she’s very polite about it, but she was like, this is where you need to be.
And we’ve hired, you know, Freddie Kim from MilSpec Talent to find some of our team members. I was speaking at an event in Arizona and Joey Dyson was hired to be the cigar guy. I didn’t even know he was going to be there. And so he’s from Jersey. He shows up. He’s the guy that spoke last.
Oh, yes.
And it’s, you know, so I think those opportunities, those relationships, it’s just great when you need a service and you trust the person who can provide it. And one thing I love about this group is that there’s no prohibition. Oh, don’t sell to each other if you’re in this. There’s a lot of groups I’ve been in where, you know, you can’t do business together, but it’s like, no, I’m here because I want to do business with other Veterans. That’s the whole point. So I love the fact that we can work together and a lot of us do.
Yes, that’s a fantastic benefit. That isn’t necessarily the objective, but deals flow together, teaming, joint ventures, that is absolutely value.
Yeah and collaboration. Right. The collaboration that happens at the top. We’re not in competition. We’re trying to collaborate. And I’ve seen a lot of these guys are in the govcon space, but they’re all helping each other. It’s just a different, it’s a different feeling. Like, it’s like there’s no shortage of success. If my company’s successful, you can be successful too. And I’m going to be proud of you. I’m going to be happy for you. And when I, you know, in the civilian world, you don’t see as much. There’s a lot of jealousy. Even if we’re in different industries, you’re like, oh, well, John, he didn’t deserve that success and maybe I didn’t. But the whole thing is, it doesn’t matter you should. You should be happy for me. Right. We’re in the same organization, but you don’t always see that. But you definitely see that with Veterans. Why do you think that is?
Because we know that there’s enough for everybody. I think there’s a sense of that, that we don’t see the world as a limited place. I don’t know what that comes from. Perhaps it is that we’ve had experience working with teams and can celebrate other successes. I also think that level of trust that we have referred to several times is very strong in this community. So I believe that we can champion each other. You always want to be with a group of people who would say your name in a room when there’s an opportunity, and that’s exactly the culture that we’ve got.
And say your name in a positive way.
Exactly. Yeah. Good point, John.
Well, and if you could tell us this, I mean, between reserve and active time, I know you retired as a Colonel Full Bird in the Air Force. Tell me how that prepared you for what you do today, running all of these programs.
I love listening to what people did in the service compared to what they do now. For me, nuclear command and control absolutely has no correlation to what I can do in a civilian role, except for this. I can make really hard decisions in three minutes or less with less information than I wish I had. That’s priceless anywhere. And then to be told, well, you can’t be in the reserve with that career field. The clearances are just too much to keep up with. How about you take a correspondence course in something that was not how I hoped to pivot to a new career, public affairs was available. It’s an incredible career. It is not one that can be learned by a correspondence course. Yet, I had great mentors. I got a lot of OJT, and there’s nothing better than being able to communicate your story to people. So this combination of make quick decisions and communicate the thinking that went behind them, those were like superpowers have been for me. I’m very grateful for what the military taught me, but I got to apply it in myriad ways.
Yeah. And I’ve noticed, you know, that’s where our civilian counterparts, a lot of them fail. They become perfectionists. They’re afraid to make the decisions. And I think we’ve learned, make a decision, be decisive. It may be the wrong decision, but at least you made a decision and you learn from that decision.
Absolutely.
And so as you’re guiding Veterans now and taking them into that business world, what’s the most common challenge you see in the Veteran community, for those Veteran business owners or those Veteran CEOs.
It’s still around two things. One is the access to capital and unrealistic expectations of how much and where they can get it from, the mismatch there. Another is the navigation. There is a sea of goodwill, and you’ve heard this phrase, people are drowning in it. So how do I navigate? What is the right next step for me? Finding a few folks that can be that navigation waypoint and get you to the next step is challenging. And that’s an important mission for the Institute.
So speaking of important missions, there’s nothing more important, I believe, than building leaders. That’s the only way you’re going to scale. What are your three examples of great leadership and three examples of bad leadership? In the show, we call this the After-Action Review. I’m not sure if you did in the Air Force, the Army, we did it after every single mission. And we would say these are the good, these are the bad. So what are the three examples of great leadership you’ve experienced either as a civilian or in the military?
Some real clear feedback from while I was in college, I was a little too lax and within my ROTC detachment, I was 10 minutes late to an appointment with a captain. She did not let me join that meeting late and she told me that it was disrespectful to waste anyone’s time. That stuck with me. It’s not a culture I grew up with. I have never been late and I think that’s a small thing, but it matters a lot. And so a good leader who stands, tells you what the expectation is, holds you to it with accountability, and you get a second chance. She was a great example of that. The second when I told you that I had to retrain rapidly and I was not prepared for a new career. And yet when you come into the reserve, you have a number of years technically, but the months that you actually have on duty are quite small. And I appreciate and continue to leaders like Colonel Thurston, who gave me enough rope that I could get out there and try things and learn, but he wouldn’t let me fail while I was learning. So that safety of I belong here.
He’s going to teach me how to do it and I’m going to be able to be a contributor real soon. The last one was around a failure that I have a boss who did make that an ambitious decision and it didn’t work out well. But the ability to say, though I had an intent to achieve this. We. He didn’t say we. He said, I didn’t do it. Here’s what went into that failure. Here’s what I’d do different if I could. That I won’t and not naming names, but that was in federal government. It was pretty visible. And I learned from that and I hope to bring that forward. We all make mistakes. It’s what you do after that, that matters.
Outstanding. And now the examples of bad leadership. Things that we as leaders need to stay away from. And look, these are the cheap lessons. If you learn them, then someone else can learn from them.
Right? Not having bearing. So the moods of a CEO or a co worker, they matter. They change the environment that we can work in effectively. So I do have one where there was a paper towel had run out and the person who was supposed to do that, hadn’t been aware, came out and flicked wet fingers at this person with anger that did nothing. So it’s a small thing, but just seeing the reveal of temper, moodiness, it just takes away from our ability to work together. It takes away trust.
Well, that example makes me feel a lot better about myself.
Never had that extreme example.
Not like over paper towels.
Another, this one is more… There’s more room to move within this one. But being unable to delegate, to clearly say what the objective is and what the person that you are trusting with to help you achieve that objective is accountable for and has the authority to act on. So it doesn’t sound like terrible leadership, but it leads to some paralysis.
Absolutely.
And the last is just letting bias. So I value teams so much. There is what a person’s role is on paper and there’s what they might contribute if they could bring their whole self. And I have been in an environment not recently, but where it was not welcomed someone to bring their whole self to work. And that also affects an organization, not just that person.
Wow. Yeah, great, great point. You want someone to be engaged, you want them to be positively engaged, not negatively engaged, and you want them to be part of the team and you expect them to go all in. And if they can’t be who they are, then they’re never going to be that way.
Right.
They’re never going to give that full effort.
I’ll say. I’ll be more clear, John. This is, I believe you can lead from wherever your organization, where you are in your organization. I may not be the senior leader, I might be an assistant, but I can lead from there. And I need to be treated as a person who has something to contribute in that way.
Absolutely, absolutely. And I think that sometimes, you know, it’s why we do the 360 assessments in the military, because we can learn from. Wow. I may think that I’m doing something really well, but if I can’t see that, maybe I’m shutting somebody down. Because sometimes we don’t see it. We’re in such a mission focus. We’re not people focused. When we say mission first, people always. So I guess the mission does come first. But where we fail then sometimes is we’re so focused on the mission we realize that we may have a great resource in our organization. We are underutilizing and because, you know, they’re new or they have new ideas and especially now, like with our marketing, you know, we want those people who are a little bit less experienced, newer to the world and quite frankly, you know, grew up differently because technology is different, how communication happens is different. And to shut that person out would be to shut out our future clients. It would be ridiculous.
You’re making a great point. As a seasoned person now, I’d say that the rapid change in technology and even what’s possible for us to do with our business process is it turns over so fast you can’t go get a four-year degree. That’s going to keep up with all the things that are going to change. We have to embrace the new members of our team and encourage those to continue to learn all the time. We have to demonstrate that we’ve got to model it too.
Well and I was blessed to just finish moderating a panel on AI.
Yes, you were.
Two years ago I wouldn’t think I would ever be doing that, but here we are. And I think one of the great things about IVMF is that leaders are learners. You guys get it and you’re making sure that we get the best access to not only learning about leadership, but learning about what’s happening in the world and how we as business leaders can adapt to build a bigger, better future for our team, but also to protect our organization. So I really love how you bring it all together. Now, that being said, how can people, Veterans and military spouses, Veterans and military spouses learn more about IVMF or learn more about Barb Carson or get involved.
I’d say a website is a place to start. I’d love to talk in person with everybody, of course, but ivmf.syracuse.edu, just to begin to get a sense of employment, entrepreneurship, connecting with your community. That’s where we begin. And then we have programs in person or virtually so that we are accessible too.
And I’ve noticed there’s almost like a step ladder in some of the programs too. So some people that came here to CEOcircle were involved in other almost like incubator programs that helped them build the skills and build the company to a certain level so they could qualify to move into CEOcircle.
Yes. And you bring up something I wanted to share, too. Bunker Labs joined us just one year ago, and I’ve been with the IVMF and we’ve had a partnership with the SBA and with JPMorgan. You see all these threads coming together into a really strong rope, as I described it yesterday. So there’s a, there’s a long history of partnership and resource availability to Veterans and we want to bring all that together.
Well, Barb, thank you so much for everything that you do for our Veterans and our military families.
Thank you, John, so much.
Thank you for joining us today on Veteran Led, where we pursue our mission of promoting Veteran leadership in business, strengthening the Veteran community, and getting Veterans all of the benefits that they earned. If you know a leader who should be on the Veteran Led podcast, report to our online community by searching @Veteranled on your favorite social channels and posting in the comments. We want to hear how your military challenges prepared you to lead your industry or community, and we will let the world know. And of course, hit subscribe and join me next time on Veteran Led.
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