Scott Schimmel (00:00)
All right, Marcus, welcome to the Vector Accelerator podcast. We are so glad you're here because you and I have had the chance to interact for the past couple months. We've been doing some work together. We've been serving some transitioning veterans together. So this is a little bit overdue. So thanks for making the time. We were supposed to this a while ago, but you got the pukes. So tell us, tell us about that.
Marcus Haney (00:08)
Yeah.
I know, food poisoning. ⁓ man.
Something unavoidable, I guess. But here I am, glad to be here, and looking forward to having a great conversation tonight.
Scott Schimmel (00:29)
tell us about Allegiant Vets and particularly your story to get to Allegiant Vets. Like how did this all happen? And that's part of, don't know.
Marcus Haney (00:39)
Yeah, great. A little bit of the history. So once upon a time, I was active duty in the 1st Battalion, 7th Marines, where I served as an infantryman for a few years. During that time, my parents actually created Allegiant Giving Corporation, which is a 501c3 nonprofit entity based out of here out of Northern California, out of our hometown. And our original mission was to help out
service members who were getting severely wounded in action. And so we were buying these really cool tank track looking chairs called action track chairs. And we were really creating freedom opportunities for their severely wounded individuals to maybe get back into hunting or fishing or doing some activities that they couldn't do since their wounds were severely damaging them. ⁓ Fast forward a few years, I ended up getting myself shot in Afghanistan.
And so I took a seven six two round to the right thigh And so I ended up in Balboa Naval Hospital some of the places that we were helping the service members with those action track wheelchairs so kind of you know Weirdly is all kind of came together that I was down there in San Diego and transitioned from the wounded warrior battalion and I had a little bit of a limp, you know, but moved back to
Scott Schimmel (01:51)
my God.
Marcus Haney (02:07)
Sacramento my home base here now and where Allegiant Vets operates out of and ultimately there became an opportunity during in 2016 for the creation of a transition program and my transition was was tough some have tougher than others, but ultimately I longed for a community to belong to and I tried to join some of the other veteran communities around the town the ones that I'm sure everybody
has heard of in the past, just wasn't my cup of tea. so ultimately I went to the board of directors at Allegiant Giving at the time. Now we're Allegiant Vets and said, hey, there's this opportunity to help out ⁓ thousands of service members, because there's 200,000 service members that get out of the military every year. And so can we transition our focus from these action track wheelchairs to helping service members transition with success, with the confidence and.
the community to go win out in the civilian sector.
Scott Schimmel (03:07)
Wow, dude, that is awesome. So tell us about Legion Vest. Like what are you doing specifically around the belonging side? If that was the key driver, like what does that look like?
Marcus Haney (03:18)
Yeah, so we are a entity that helps veterans transition out. So we are a DOD authorized SkillBridge program. We were voted number one SkillBridge program in 2023. We've transitioned roughly 20,000 service members through our program. We actively have 1,500 in our program today and we'll do roughly about 7,500 through our program in 2025. So we're making a huge impact, but you know, they're still
Several hundred other thousand people that are getting out and that have gotten out that need need support. So ultimately we help them Develop a skill set that they can transfer the skills that they learned in the military to parlay into that next opportunity for themselves Then we give them the community with the other thousands of service members We've supported and then the confidence to go do it and then the ability to ⁓ come back if they if they need more support along the way So I'm having a lot of fun doing it
and get to help America's greatest. So just blessed to be able to do what I do.
Scott Schimmel (04:18)
Dude, how, I'm sure you've had thousands of hours now talking to veterans. Like what's your, you find yourself coming back to a core message in terms of like what you feel like they don't understand, don't know yet, need to be reminded of, like what's the core thing you keep coming back to?
Marcus Haney (04:39)
Yeah, great question. think service members getting out, we are a culture of, of we, right? And we did this and as our unit, we, we did, we did these operations or we did these great things together. And I try to help service members understand when they're rolling into their next opportunity, they're doing it as an individual contributor now, right? It's not necessarily what their team did, but what did you do? So helping them to really establish a mindset of.
explaining to the next person in line of how they did stuff and what they did, the accomplishments. We use a star methodology, right? It's like, okay, what is the thing that you went through and what was the result? How was it measured and how can you say you're part of that? And so, and I also believe that service members feel like they're rolling into opportunities that they may not be the right fit for, but I tend to tell them a lot that you guys are million dollar assets.
You just got to go showcase who you are. Companies are looking for people with your skill set, innate, what you've gotten innately through the military. They want that as a part of their company. Now just how do you go out and talk about yourself appropriately? So I would say how service members communicate about themselves is the one thing that I think that they could really hone in on as a skill set.
Scott Schimmel (06:00)
when it comes to the belonging piece, ⁓ how does Allegiant Vets do that part?
Marcus Haney (06:10)
Belonging so we really focus on sharing wins of the week And so we get together and the first thing we do when we get together as a group you know at 700 to a thousand other service members on there and Folks get on there and start sharing about the great things they did in the week and the weeks prior The successes they're having the the interviews the job placements, you know, just the successes they're having along the way and so
You know, that really showcases to the ones that are looking at maybe them as a beacon of light, right? It's like, okay, I can do it too. So it gives them that confidence that they can go out and do it themselves. so, you know, sharing wins of the week, matter how small or how big, that's really trying to how we bring in that belonging piece.
Scott Schimmel (06:56)
Yeah. Yeah.
What, um, what, when it comes to future plans, you mentioned, you know, you're working with 7,500 this year. There's so many thousands more, like, how do you see Allegiant Vets growth? And I'm sure you get that question all the time. And I'm, guess I'm asking it, um, from not like, don't sell, you know, don't sell me on we're gonna, you know, we're gonna have all 200,000 like,
What's the realistic vision that you have? Like, what does that look like for Allegiant Vets to grow?
Marcus Haney (07:33)
Yeah, the interesting piece is we don't have a marketing budget, right? We're a nonprofit. So we are a word of mouth referral type organization. So we just end up doing a good job by every service member and they go tell their buddies, Hey, this is where you should transition. found myself getting some success. you know, and veterans are a little bit, you know, hesitant on taking just somebody's word for it. And so, but if somebody tells them that this place is good to go.
and they go there with confidence. so ultimately our plan for growth is to continue to serve our community, ⁓ one service member at a time. ⁓ My overall mission would be that we had a physical location in every major city in the country where service members can get together and have community and learn stuff together and really bring in the best of the best ⁓ job opportunities within each community too. mean, we're doing
some really great stuff here in the Sacramento market. I'm a part of this organization called the Veteran Workforce Alliance, which is bringing in companies like Bosch and the major hospitals and really trying to put the veteran opportunities and veteran job opportunities on the map. so ultimately I hope to do that in every major metropolitan area in the country.
Scott Schimmel (08:49)
Dude,
that's awesome, man. Like I mentioned, the top of the show, like we with Vector Accelerator, you with Legion Vets, we're dating. Obviously, we've gone on some dates together now. ⁓ How do you see the partnership? Kind of describe, like, where do you see us fitting together?
Marcus Haney (09:00)
Yeah!
We're holding hands, I think, right?
Yeah, great. think we're holding hands a little bit dating as proper term. Look, I see the vector accelerator and what you guys offer from a motivational standpoint and a self reflection standpoint for service members. You know, I think we spend a lot of time, you know, getting pre programmed a little bit to be in the military mindset. And I think that what we need to do is deprogram a little bit on our way out of the military. And I think vector accelerator does a wonderful job of
helping service members dive into what they want to be when they get older, right? And I think that that's super important. And so I think that the Vector Accelerator and Allegiant Vets combining forces to help these folks psychologically, ⁓ skill set wise, and also with the connections on their way out, I think we're an unstoppable deal together. So yeah.
Scott Schimmel (10:01)
Yeah, that's awesome.
All right, so how do we get connected with you? what's the, tell me, I'm Joe veteran. I got no clue about Allegiant advanced. Like, well, how do I get plugged in?
Marcus Haney (10:10)
Yeah.
Yeah, great. Thanks for asking. Go to legionvets.org on our website. There's a big blue button right there. You can push join the SkillBridge. You'll come to a webinar and talk to our team about what our program's all about. And then we'll walk you through our five-step battle plan on how you are successful on your transition out. Then you'll sign up for our group, come to our SkillBridge program, get hooked up with Scott and the Vector Accelerator folks, and get yourself ready to rock and roll on your transition out.
If you're looking for a place to transition with success with some community, ⁓ come to Allegiant Vets.
Scott Schimmel (10:44)
Heck yeah. Marcus, thanks so much. And we're excited at what we're going to do together. It's awesome. Appreciate it, Yep.
Marcus Haney (10:48)
Thanks, Scott. Really appreciate the time,
