YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Business owners and managers in the Mahoning Valley who are also veterans agree that their military experience provided a strong foundation for their future careers – highlighting the discipline, decision-making and leadership skills they honed while serving in the armed forces.
Teamwork, thinking under stress, organization, and adapting to dynamic or fluid situations are all part of the learning curve within the military, they say. These same life lessons also come in handy when you are running a business.
“A lot of the values we learned in the military through training and our experiences lends itself to greatly to small business,” says Chris Thomas, owner of Tri County Tower in North Jackson. The company constructs and manages communications towers throughout the United States, many of which are used for emergency management services.
Thomas joined the U.S. Army in 2004 and served nearly four and a half years as an intelligence specialist.
“There’s a sense of discipline you have to cultivate if you’re going to be successful in the military,” he says. Some of these behaviors range from routine – getting out of bed on time, for example – to managing a stressful situation during a deployment. “You have to be effective for your unit. We all rely on each other, and a small business is similar. We’re all very reliant on one another for success. A lot of the values I was taught translate very well here.”
Thomas says he served two tours of duty in Iraq and signed up for the military in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Moreover, his father and grandfather both served in the military, and he wanted to continue that tradition. “It’s a great avenue for people who might not have a lot of options in a lot of ways,” he says. “It provides you a future, some skill sets and access to education,” he said. “It provides you with some of the skills-building you need in everyday life.”
Thomas purchased Tri County Tower in 2015, after working for the government as a private contractor. His military training – especially as an intelligence specialist – provided some groundwork for his current business. “My role was what they call signals intelligence,” he says. “It’s a little different than what we do here in terms of infrastructure, but I had a fundamental understanding of how it all works.”
Aside from technical training, the military helped develop in Thomas a skill for interacting with other people to foster camaraderie and teamwork, he says. “It also taught me how to use information in effective ways, to better your situation and developing those interpersonal skills that we use. That’s a big lending hand to being successful today.”
Tri County’s main customer is the state of Ohio, Thomas says, as well as local governments. The company builds communications towers from the ground up and then maintains them – including lighting systems, radios, dishes, and transmission lines.
“My biggest clients are local, state, and federal government, and then public utilities and public safety,” he says. “I resonate with their mission a little more, coming out of the military and working for the government in Washington and Virginia.”
Moreover, the company has also made efforts to hire veterans, Thomas says. At one point, nearly half of the employees at Tri County had some sort of military background. “While we don’t discriminate against anybody, we do lean into veterans,” he says. “We have a couple of recruiting initiatives out there to get them in here.”
By the Numbers
According to the latest statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau, approximately 1.62 million businesses – including those with and without employees – were veteran-owned 2021 and generated $983.9 billion in sales.
Of the total number of firms, 304,823 were identified as a company that employs at least one person. Collectively, these companies employed a total of 3.251 employees with an annual payroll of nearly $180 billion.
In 2022, veteran-owned businesses represented 5.5% of business owners in 2022, a 1% decline from the previous year, data show.
The highest share of veteran-owned businesses was in the utilities sector, accounting for 7.68% of all veteran-owned firms. The second-highest share was in the mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction industry, which accounted for 7.26% of all veteran-owned firms.
Also, the average age of a veteran-owned firm is generally older than a nonveteran-owned business, the study shows. According to these demographics, 53% of the principals of veteran-owned businesses are 65 or older, compared to 21% of companies owned by nonveterans.
Decision-Making
For Sylvester Frazzini, vice president of sales at American Business Center Inc., his 12 years in the United States Marine Corps – both on active duty and the reserves – has fine-tuned the decision-making process when it comes to his role in business.
such as discipline and decision-making.
Central to this is what is called the “OODA Loop,” Frazzini says. OODA is an acronym for Observe, Orient, Decide and Act – four principles that he says helps guide both military and business decisions.
“This military decision-making process is about situational awareness and rapid, informed action,” Frazzini says. “In business, we use it constantly – observing market trends, orienting ourselves to customer needs, deciding on strategy, and acting decisively.”
American Business Center provides office technology equipment and solutions to customers across the region, Frazzini says. Its owner, Bob Wagner, is a veteran of the U.S. Navy. “His leadership and commitment to service continue to shape the culture at American Business Center,” he says.
Frazzini says his military experience has provided a strong foundation to tackle everyday issues in his professional and personal life. “Challenges arise every day in business,” he says. “As a Marine – improvise, adapt and overcome – it’s something you have to do in daily life. The ability to think on your feet, stay calm under pressure, and find creative solutions is essential.”
Frazzini served in the Marines as an infantry rifleman and machine gunner. As such, the military provided stellar examples of leadership, whether in a small unit, a platoon, a company or a battalion, he relates.
On occasions, however, there are also lessons learned from examples of poor leadership, he adds. “You can learn a lot – take the traits and qualities of the good ones and then learn also what not to do from those bad example,” he says.
Leadership in business has many parallels to the military, Frazzini says. What is especially critical is that you wouldn’t ask an employee to complete a task that you wouldn’t do yourself, he says.
“Making sure that you’ll do anything that you ask anyone else to do is very, very important,” he says.
Moreover, the military introduces a ritual of discipline that is invaluable to a career in the business world, Frazzini says. “The discipline instilled by the military was the greatest preparation for business,” he says. “In business, as in the military, success often comes from doing the things others don’t want to do – or doing them better with greater consistency.”
Pictured at top: Chris Thomas, owner of Tri County Tower, says his Army experience laid the foundation for his success in business.