Nonprofit offers advice, connections
By R. Stephanie Bruno
New Orleans Times Picayune
A nonprofit called The Veterans Corporation held a seminar in New Orleans this week during which it offered veterans suggestions for raising capital, preparing a business plan and otherwise launching a successful business.
While military service fosters some of the same qualities that make a successful entrepreneur, including discipline and organization, returning veterans do not always know how to translate their skills to the civilian business world.
Trinity Cazzola, a former platoon leader in Iraq who owns Mayas Restaurant & Bar on Magazine Street, said Thursday that The Veterans Corporation helped him make the transition.
“I was deployed for two years and around the end of that time I started preparing for what my next move would be,” Cazzola said. “I’m originally from Michigan but I had visited New Orleans and fell in love with it. I knew this was where I wanted to live when I got out. My friend and I wanted to open a business, but we knew we needed help to get it off the ground.”
Cazzola’s friend Edgar Irias was at the hotel and hospitality management school at the University of New Orleans at the time, and the two decided that a restaurant would be the right venture for them. Cazzola found The Veterans Corporation during some late-night Internet surfing while he was still in Iraq and called its president and chief executive, James Mingey, for guidance.
“The most important help they provided up front was to assist us in refining our business plan so that it would appeal to bankers,” Cazzola said. “We submitted it when I was still in Iraq. They helped us find capital, and by the time I returned to the states in the summer of 2007, we had the financing we needed.”
Charles Achane, president of the Southwest Louisiana Business Development Center, said that retired military personnel are ideally suited to becoming successful business people.
“In the military, you get the training to be disciplined and organized and to function as a team. Those traits stay with you your whole life,” Achane said. “Those are exactly the skills you need to succeed in business.”
The Veterans Corporation helps direct former military personnel to lenders, such as Superior Financial, that offer loans especially for veterans or their spouses. The group also helps veterans refine their business plan and coaches them on how to navigate the maze of paperwork required to bid for government contracts.
A poor business plan can sink even the best candidate, said Bob Bordelon of Capitol One.
“Someone will walk in with a great idea and lots of vision and passion, but they fumble on how to get where they want to go,” Bordelon said. “If you have a good business plan, that makes it easy for a lender to evaluate risk and make you a loan.”
For more information on The Veterans Corporation, visit www.veteranscorp.org.