CNY Vets Expo promotes options for veterans

MARCY — While being honored by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) with a Small Business Excellence Award was gratifying, the real benefit for the CNY Vet Expo is the additional exposure the award has given the annual event held in the Mohawk Valley. 

“It’s hard to reach veterans,” says event founder Ward Halverson. After leaving military life, many veterans tend to isolate themselves, don’t seek out help, and may even decline to identify themselves as veterans, he says.

A veteran himself, Halverson says he knows just how hard it is to return to “normal” life after serving a tour of duty. In fact, it was after completing his own tour in Afghanistan that he decided to start the expo in 2006.

From that initial event, organized by Halverson and about five other people, the event has grown into an annual affair organized by a group of 15 people that attracts as many as 400 to 500 veterans as well as a slew of vendors.

The vendors include anyone who wants to have some sort of connection with veterans, Halverson says. The only exclusions are politicians and retail businesses, because the focus is on helping veterans, not trying to sell them stuff or win them over, Halverson explains. Vendors at the CNY Vet Expo, to be held this fall at SUNY Institute of Technology at Utica–Rome in Marcy, are broken into four main categories — medical services, nonprofits, colleges, and employers.

“Lots of people want to hire veterans,” Halverson says. Businesses can receive incentives for hiring veterans, and many times, veterans may qualify for job training or other services, he says. Unemployment among veterans, at about 12.5 percent, is higher than for the overall population he says, so reaching out to connect veterans with job opportunities is crucial.

Halverson also makes it a point to tell veterans in attendance about the Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities (EBV), offered at the Martin J. Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University and other colleges around the country.

“It’s like a mini-MBA,” Halverson says of the EBV program. Oftentimes, becoming a business owner is a good fit for veterans because of their discipline and work ethic, he says, “I’m always encouraging veterans to get into business.”

The program offers training in entrepreneurship and small-business management to post-9/11 veterans with disabilities resulting from their service. The program helps veterans develop the skills they need to launch and grow a business and connects them with programs and services available to veterans and people with disabilities.

The Veteran’s Administration also plays a huge role at the CNY Vet Expo, making sure all the veterans who attend are aware of the array of services available to them, Halverson says. Other vendors typically include the Salvation Army, other service providers, and even people looking to do a good deed for servicemen and women. One year, he says, the vendors included a woman who liked to bake cookies to send to troops overseas.

To market the event, Halverson and his crew do a lot of direct outreach to any and all veterans they know. They also market the event through local Veteran’s Administration locations, such as the clinic in Rome; through local county veterans’ representatives; and through veterans’ organizations like the V.F.W. and American Legion.

The SBA honored the CNY Vet Expo and Halverson this year with the Veteran Small Business Champion of the Year award, presented May 4 in Syracuse.

“The credit really goes to the group, not me,” Halverson says of the award, which features a bronze eagle.

Planning is already under way for this year’s 7th annual CNY Vet Expo, scheduled for Oct. 24 at SUNYIT. The event was previously held at the Utica Armory.