Michael Thomas is an Army Veteran is the founder of Operation Meraki, nonprofit that believes our Veterans do not need to become civilians again. Instead Operation Meraki believes that they our heroes need to take on a new mission. From career skills, workforce development and entrepreneurship, their focus is on veterans finding a new mission and career path forward. Listen to learn more about Operation Meraki and how they are making an impact!

Battle Buddy Podcast Guest Links:

www.operationmeraki.org

Battle Buddy Podcast Links:

https://linktr.ee/battlebuddypodcast

Transcript from Episode 40 with Michael Thomas:

Keith McKeever 0:04

Buddy with McKeever Elliot, welcome back to the battle buddy podcast. I got Michael Thomas with me today today. We're talking about his nonprofit and the things that he's doing. But first, Michael, welcome to the show. Hey,

Michael Thomas 0:17

appreciate you having me, Keith.

Keith McKeever 0:19

super glad that you're here because I love to, to highlight the good things that are people are doing in the veteran community. From a nonprofit standpoint, I'm really excited to learn, even myself learn more about what you're doing with some of your initiatives. But first of all, tell us a little bit about your story. You know, what? Got you in the military? Why did you join what you do those kind of things?

Michael Thomas 0:37

Well, it's sort of a two fold. I mean, originally, my family, I had a lot of Army family members and marine family members. So it was either get my butt kicked as a marine or get my butt kicked in the army. So it really didn't matter which branch I went. It just mattered what the conversation at the table is going to be. I went through ROTC in high school and I was really proud of myself to go to the military. And I decided like, after ROTC, I was like, Nah, I'm not really interested. 911 hits 911 hits, and I was going into into New York at the time going to the World Trade loop. Because I would go as a kid and go sit in, in the financial district, because I'd love to see the powerful guys sitting out there. And it was sort of like people watching for me. And so I would go out there and I just look at these powerful guys just doing whatever and and that day I was going in the trade loop collapsed. Our train got stopped, we got sent back home, I got back to the house and I saw the first hour come down. Two days later, I was on ground zero with a buddy of mine went in on his truck. As a first responder was on a bucket brigade. Stay down there for three months at the end of that three months, doing search and rescue and feeding people and making sure things were going a year later. I decided in October October 23 that I was going to go into the army. I went into the Army serve 10 years, or 10 and a half. They don't count the half though, but I 10 and a half years. It's blown up twice, five deployments. And then I got out of the service. And I got on a mission to one transition into civilian life and to help other people like myself who had a rough transition become successful in transition.

Keith McKeever 2:47

Yeah, no, this transition seems like everybody I've talked to either it goes way smoother than expected, or they hit all kinds of roadblocks. So was there anything in particular that you know, that was a big bump in the road for you?

Michael Thomas 3:01

Well, I think the significance of taking off the uniform for the first time I went back into service. The first time I took off the uniform was, I believe in oh seven and I left service and I was like I finished my time I'm ready to go. They took my Id put a boot in my bud and said it was great. Have a nice day. I lived in my car apartment. I stayed in my car for about almost a year. And I went through suicidal ideation I went through undiagnosed PTS, I went through withdrawal from being out of uniform, taking off the identity. I went through, not being able to find a job job searching from five in the morning to five at night. And nothing and I got so I had such an issue outside the wire outside the wire for people who don't know, this is like outside of the perimeter of of a base. But outside the wire, I look at transition in that mentality. I was I was so so lost outside the wire that I came back into service. And I did another deployment because it's all I knew. And after I separated the second time I didn't I decided that I wasn't going to go after systems that were developed I was going to because they were failing my buddies left and right you know the systems would say hey come to us and they would put them in a warehouse they put them in a manufacturing plant people with herniated discs in their back and bad shoulders and they would say you're a soldier you you have a you know you work hard you're on time you're dressed. Well you know you you know what you're doing and we became sort of like the machine that kept the manufacturing world running. And, and I just said I didn't want that. I had I had marketable skills from being in comms in the military, after being reclassed had marketable skills, and I wanted to use them. And so that transition period was the catalyst for the organization I've built the the mindset that I have now moving forward. And that's that's just it. I mean, that's that's the, that's the catalyst for the change.

Keith McKeever 5:19

Yeah, that's a that's really something a lot of vets need to realize is they don't have to get out and go into a factory setting or any kind of job right there. There's a whole new world opening up for you. You don't have to be funneled into this one job standing on your feet working for hours upon end, because let's face it, I think all of us come out a little broken physically, in some way, shape, or form, mentally, maybe in others, but it's not suitable for everybody. I personally, I standing on my feet for 12 hours a day putting things together is not an OB, I would find any satisfaction. And at the end of the day is what can you physically do? What can you mentally do? You know, and what gives you some sort of gainful employment? Right? You should? Well, there's that there's going to be super enjoyable, but you shouldn't piss you off and make you angry to do it either.

Michael Thomas 6:13

Well, I think I think we're, we're probably the I like to say veterans are the most apt at taking a beating, right? Like, any work environment and be like, yep, coal, coal, Roger, Roger, north south. Yep, yep, yep. And just keep driving on, the problem we have is that when when transition veterans have that approach, they never grow. And when they never grow, they get stuck into a mindset that being an employee is perfect for, you know, we don't ever teach, we never teach them to to turn into entrepreneurs, we never teach them the transition mindset, we never teach them, that their identity that was taken off with that uniform does not dictate their identity outside the wire, they are still the same person, they have the same skills, the same value add. But corporate America has a lot of learning to do in order to, to learn how to ingest and, and to bring in veterans into their culture, and how to how to handle veterans in their in that same culture. But us as veterans, we have a lot of things to learn about corporate environment, you know, we need to learn emotional intelligence, because I don't know about you, but when I first came out, I was knife handing everybody and you're an idiot, you're your dummy. And I and, and, you know, as as a, you know, as senior NCO coming out, that was my goal to like, hey, hey, get over there, get your head out for point of contact, you know, think for perfect, you know, and when we go into the corporate space, there's a lot of culture shift that we're not prepared for. And that's why here in Ohio, we have organization, I mean, we have veterans that are turning over in roles every seven months, you know, and that's, that's a big no go. You can't sustain a family, you can't sustain a livelihood, changing your job every seven months, and no one takes you seriously.

Keith McKeever 8:12

Yeah, the more of a track record, you you get on that and you go into that next job interview, your resume sits on an HR person's desk every like, six months over here, this is changing jobs, they're not going to be here long term. So why would I invest in this person?

Michael Thomas 8:26

You know, and and I don't know if I'm going off a little bit on the beat off the beaten trail with this, but I mean, you know, I, you know, I have I have had Joe's that that, you know, just be real on this, you know, like I had a Joe that went in the country took a life man. And it was the first life he ever took, he never recovered from it. And he got a BCD coming out of the military. That's a bad conduct discharge. For those who don't know, he can't get VA service. He can't get help out here because most organizations shut him out. They say you don't have a general that you don't have a general discharge. You don't have honorable discharge, you don't have a specific discharge. Your BCD does not allow us to give you service. I built my organization where that has no bearing. If you are a veteran, you are a veteran family member. You walk through my doors, you get service, that's it. There is no I'm not contributing, my organization is not contributing to the 22 that we lose every day. I refuse. So we open the door, we open the floodgates. We don't care what campaign you are, we don't care what service you are. We don't care how much of a knucklehead you are. We don't care if you had a jail time and you can't find work. If you are willing to work. You come through our doors and we'll get you to work. The only problem is our programs are tough. We are not going to do it for you. You have to be ready to do in order to come through our doors because we are challenging the landscape and changing the landscape for veteran transition. So we we don't have The the luxury when we're trying to get you squared away, to chase inconsistencies. So we we work on programs that help you to get square and then we get you to work. So

Keith McKeever 10:13

as long as awesome and you're into operation maraca here in a minute, but you just kind of said something that, I don't know why. But this is the first time I really kind of thought about it. But comparing the veteran suicides epidemic. And nobody ever really talks about the breakdown of these individuals in their discharge status. Because off the top of my head, there's what like, six different discharge that basically five or six different different discharge statuses. But it's never broken down like that. And I am very curious. Now, I don't know that that data is going to be anywhere where you could find it. But I wonder how much of that is people with a bad conduct discharge, or are those negative ones in general,

Michael Thomas 10:52

again, see, I mean, I guarantee that if you looked at the data, there'll be a substantial amount, because they don't get service, they have nobody that will give them service, because a lot of these organizations, like wounded warrior, you know, their post 911, if you're anything other than a post 911 Veteran, you're not getting that service, you're you you have access to visibility of their resource partners, but their mission is for post 911 veterans, you know, and if you got a bad conduct discharge, they're not working with you. It's it's not because they are not a great organization, it's because they have quarantine themselves to a perfect candidate. And, and I just don't believe that that's the way to serve veterans. That's that's just my my personal opinion. And that's the opinion of the organization as of right now.

Keith McKeever 11:45

Well, you know, that's a, that's a good point, because I don't know too much about all of their plans, programs. But then in other organizations, when you're in a nonprofit world, that you survive on donors, you got to go out and get, you know, individual donations, or corporate donations, whatever. And when you get to a certain size, I'm sure that there is some political pressure of sorts to, you know, do certain things in order to get get that donations, you know,

Michael Thomas 12:10

I don't know what they started, as you know, like, and I just called them out just for just randomly, I mean, that I've been in their system, you know, like I was a veteran in their system, I had a friend who applied to be with them, and he had a BCD. And they turn them away, because they can't do anything with the BCD. And that's fine. But you know, when we have veterans that are that are unstable in emotional status, in a familial status, in awareness of services, and all and then you put them where they're not getting any service, because their status when they left service, like all of that is compounding issues,

Keith McKeever 12:55

a lot of extra weight on somebody's shoulder to have all that extra stuff of. I can imagine all that extra stress. And I think if you look at things all that stress eventually leads to a couple of different things, and they kind of lead the same thing. Alcohol and Substance Abuse or negative type behaviors could be gambling, convenience, and the kind of addiction. And that could eventually lead to suicide.

Michael Thomas 13:19

Correct? I don't individual, it's directly to it. But what I will say it is an attributing factor, I think that any instability and event you got to remember when we when we come back from combat, and we haven't been reset, we deal with a lot of weight, we deal with a lot of weight we deal with a daily high alert, you know, there's so many different things. Some of us are high performing, you know, like I'm a high performing severe PTSD, right. But I challenged myself, I put myself into CBTs, I put myself into programs, that that, that helped me to get my life back, but also helped me to find peace and stability. But that is a challenge I put on myself because I refuse to be destroyed by my diagnosis. I don't want that being my story. Right? So so the idea is we change the narrative, we change the tools and we change the transition mentality. And that's it. You change that and you change those element Ain't No it ain't no easy climb. I mean, that's, that's charging ahead.

Keith McKeever 14:29

But it does all start with mindset. Everything starts with mindset. And, you know, you just got to have the right mindset because I'm kind of the same way I denied I had any kind of PTSD or anything for years. And, you know, a couple years ago, the blinders kind of came off. And I myself have made it that kind of stage of kind of self discovery. Like I don't want that to be part. I don't want that to be part of me. I don't want that to have any kind of negative effect on my children or my wife or any of that stuff, but it is what it is and what you know You can start finding the tools to live better with it. And mitigate mitigate issues. So it's, there's a lot of reflection, a lot of self discovery, and just being like, you know what it is what it is right? Like, can you do nothing about it? Yeah, you know about what happened, can you think about the past, but you can do something about the future,

Michael Thomas 15:20

you can only live for today, man, especially if you have wife, kids, you have family like that are living now. I mean, I've put a lot of battle buddies in the ground man. And, and the reality of it is this, you know, when you're left here, and they aren't a lot of Survivor remorse happens, you know, when, when you when you were there, when they got taken, you know, a lot of a lot of guilt happens that all compounds into your pts. And one of the things that is is the most, like profound for me, is when I realize that the people that are here today need me just as much as I needed to cover this, like, like, I covered the six of my battle, you know, like, whether it was carrying him or whether it was it was covering him and fire, I have to be that same vigilant individual now that I was then in a different space.

Keith McKeever 16:20

Absolutely, it's probably arguably even more important now that we're, you know, you're not coming into a unit every single day with those people. You know, you're in Ohio, I'm in Illinois, I, you know, if you stop to think about it, we all probably have battle buddies and probably 30 or 40 of the different states, you know, we got with our friends everywhere. And it's all on us to check in on people, you know, it do do more frequently. And I think that's something we should all challenge ourselves to do and challenge our buddy battle buddies to do is to check on people more often but your your, your operation, we're at your your non profit here. Tell us a little bit about that. What what what is it? And how did? When did you decide to start something?

Michael Thomas 17:00

So we're, we're a nonprofit, that's, I don't say my mission a lot, okay. I have a tagline that I use when I talk about us. And it is simply this operation. miracIe is a nonprofit that is focused on changing the landscape for better in transition for them in their families. You know, our actual mission is to restore the dignity and quality of life for transitioning veterans by helping them tell their stories and mentoring them towards success. And, you know, the the creation of Operation miracIe was my transition experience. And I started to see it too many times, I started to see people come out of the TAP program, transition assistance program out of the military, or whatever different services call it, but they would come out be ill prepared, they would have a resume that would not get them work, they would go right back into working into manual labor jobs, they would never see themselves as an asset, they would go through this whole process, the the the discharge issue, you know, the service level issue, older veterans versus current veterans, like all these issues, and there was too many gaps in transition service. When I was when when I was transitioning, there was only one saving grace that I had. And that was what they call the D verb. Right? I don't know what the acronym stands for. But it's D. D VlP. And they also had a counterpart that was a lever, the lever was like your ingestion, you talk to them. And they would say, Okay, you need such and such. And then they would call the D Bop, and it evolved, like the, the, the curves will fly back. And he'd run out like that, you know, like, he like, bam, I'm the diva, what do you need, and you'd be like, hey, I need such as ISIS, I know that person, come on with me, you know, and they'll and they'll take you and they had the resource, and they would give you the resource, they would set you up with it. And they would make sure that you were good. Um, and so when I when I started thinking about miracIe, I was like, man, it'd be really good to have a organization that did that opposed to a single person in the state, we create an organization that would that would connect bridges with all these other organizations. And we would be the unmitigated, unbiased entity that would feed other organizations, and we would just make sure veterans were served. So if an organization can't serve them, they would send them to us and we would help them to get them to a place where they can be served. And we would give them to another entity or in our partner network. And so we created that with the with the mindset that security starts from the veteran out to the family. That's the first step right. So we have as soon as the veteran comes out of service if he's a single soldier, you know, majority of the time he doesn't have housing, organize, you know, didn't have a job organized. And so

Keith McKeever 20:02

lawns are probably much more much more likely to not have any plan, but they're

Michael Thomas 20:06

willing to go into contract work, right. So they're willing to go do contract work as a 1099, for having a more flexible for 10 months and go make good money doing those jobs and get on their feet. But a family, when they separate from the service, what happens is they just go outside the wire, and they've got a family that the veteran has whatever their diagnoses are, they have their family, they have their kids, and there's no support on there until you get registered with the VA if you're eligible to register with the VA, right. So then you have all of these, these it, what if what if what if insecurity and instability in that family, and then we have like, you know, undiagnosed PTS, and you know, we have domestic violence happen, or we have aggressive behavior towards the kids, we have this, we have that, and and the family gets broken apart. And so instead of dealing with all of that, let's catch them right out the door, let's snatch them in and say, Hey, we've got a part we got a partnership with, let's say, you know, I'm like, we have a fencing company, right? Like, we were talking, we were having conversation with a fencing company, I won't name them until we're finalized. But they said, you know, they came talk to me yesterday and said, I've never thought of hiring veterans like this. I said, Yeah, let's, let's give them path. Practical Skills, let's teach them how to do stuff. But let's give them a path to leadership,

Keith McKeever 21:36

let's find a way to make that happen. So yeah, not just throw them in a job and say, Here, do this for the next 30 years, oh, the

Michael Thomas 21:41

person looked at it and said, Wow, like, if we were to train them, eventually, we could pull them to a W to make them a project manager or something like that. And they would be able to transition into a W two from a 1099. Initially, their family would be taken care of because they would have good line of revenue. But then they have long term investment, because they have trained them, and they have trained them their method. And now we've worked with them to make sure that they're stable for long term employment. So it's like that's, that's the the synergy that I want to create with miracIe in the community, because I just think that there's an added value and inherent value to well adjusted, well supported veterans and families.

Keith McKeever 22:27

I think it's under, it's not maybe under looked at from a company standpoint of hiring veterans is, yeah, they're probably going to show up on time, they're going to do darn near whatever you tell them to do. But they're not looking at all those different skills, the technical skills and the leadership skills. And if you can put somebody six months or a year, five years down the road, right, promoted into that Foreman position, or whatever, they're going to be able to take that, that leadership and responsibility and run with it.

Michael Thomas 22:55

So what I did what I do with interviewing, like when I talked to, like new employers, I go, you know, I remember this is this is my, this is my face, so I'm going to give it away. So now I have to do something different. You know, I remember when I was in the in the desert, and someone brought me a cook, a transpo guy, a logistician, and an IT guy and said, Bill, calm steam. You got two weeks, make them proficient and get ready to go on mission. Okay. And I said, Cool. So I look at the cook and I say all right, The cook is a good customer facing personalized make them help desk, this IT guy can get them spun up on how it helped that stuff. He's really good customer centric, let's put them there. I said, I've got this transportation and logistics, logistician. Great, let's put them together, because we'll never lose anything on a hand receipt. And we'll know how to pack everything up so that we can get stuff log packed onto site and move things around. Great. So now we get them together. Oh, but they're also going to have to be you know, quality it people. So let's get them cross hip pocket training, right? Let's create hip pocket training for them so that they can learn on on the job. Because they don't have to learn how to be a logistician or a truck driver. Right? So we teach them what they need in in two weeks. We're on mission. Right? And so those are those are, those are values that we as as people who have served in the uniformed services, that is something that we have that a lot of corporations could benefit from, right because there are people who don't work well together and they go they go I don't work well with that person. I don't want it I don't want it and the bad part about it is corporate America goes great. Keep doing it. You want you want a job? Figure it out. For us. It's like figure it out cool, I got something and we have creative capability. We understand that transitional thought process that that that team building thought process we also understand leadership we're taught you know, partition paiting delegating and and, and dictating leadership and how to discern the three and how to how to be a good leader and how, you know, you also get taught how to be well you don't get taught but

Keith McKeever 25:11

a lot of valuable lessons and bad leadership.

Michael Thomas 25:14

You learn a lot about in bad leadership. Yeah, but uh, but the ultimate is we come we come into the workforce with a ton of skill sets that never get tapped into because the employer don't doesn't understand the veteran employee as well as they could. And so that's it. I mean, we're charging that hill. We're at right now trying to get all of our programs certified through the Ohio Department of Veterans Services. So we're getting our, our sir our programs vetted right now. And once they do, they'll be available for any service to send their veterans to us. And so we'll be listed statewide, as a certified organization or certified programs. And we will be doing that process as we build our national entity. So

Keith McKeever 26:12

it's awesome. Yeah, get the first one done. Right. And that all the bumps in the road? Yeah, go out of state two and three, and four and five,

Michael Thomas 26:19

total in the dirt man.

Keith McKeever 26:22

Especially when you're dealing with the government. I think we all get back in the hole. Yeah, we all totally understand working with the government and the red tape. You got to get through there. But not some does some awesome stuff. And you know, you know, it's crazy. Oh,

Michael Thomas 26:35

Keith, what's crazy is that I don't I don't have a problem with the government elements. Right. What I have a problem with is the lack of understanding that they don't that people don't understand. Like, it's weird, right? Like it's a weird

Keith McKeever 26:55

veterans and our cultures.

Michael Thomas 26:59

Were a veteran service. Great. So tell me anything that's not in your metrics. Tell me tell me what it is to live with PTS day by day? Oh, we know it's difficult. They need support and it Okay, what does it mean? When you wake up, and you have, you know, and you've been in night terrors all night? What does it mean? When you wake up and you step out of your room? And the first thing you do a CD, your young child, and they need your attention, but you're emotionally shut off from your terrorists? What does that mean? What does that do for you? Well, we don't get that far. We got, you know, healthcare professionals for that, that's great. But if you're going to serve, you have to understand, you have to understand, I come from a from a very bumpy military career in the sense of like trauma, trauma, trauma, war, war war. And, and the one thing that I've prided myself on with every veteran I serve is I don't try to tell their story. I let them tell me their story. I sit with them. I'm actually getting certified as a peer support specialist so that I can do peer groups here. Because I just think hearing from someone who's been in the place that that you've been in, and having a conversation candidly, without, you know, me trying to infuse my opinion on you, is going to be a healing place for our veterans. So

Keith McKeever 28:23

you're gonna it that puts things in perspective, because I've had that sitting in this seat as a podcaster when some people tell me their story, especially the really deep ones just like wow ya know, I went through some crap when I was in but some people have some truly unbelievable incredible stories of things they've done and it's like, well puts things in perspective are the things that people go through the you don't go through, you know, but nobody knows us like us. I couldn't agree more with that, that disconnect with government instead of a corporate just people don't understand us, like we understand us. Like we have to have

Michael Thomas 28:59

a better approach man like we are so used to kicking down doors that we can't even have a civil conversation sometimes we just be like, Listen, man, shut up. Listen.

Keith McKeever 29:08

The no fan needs to go away.

Michael Thomas 29:13

Like I've had some great opportunities in the, in my my, my corporate life, I've sat on boards of corporate 500 companies, corporate five companies, or fortune five companies, I've sat on boards. And I worked my way to a board position and had no degree dude. Like I said, I can only sit for a year because they couldn't keep me permanent because I was non degreed, but because of my importance to that organization, and because of the modernization and things that I put into play, and the things that I brought to the table that they were not thinking of, they valued me so every time I walked into that room, I was valued. And if I can give that to any veteran that's in transition Now to say, when you work with us, or when you work with our programs, our goal is to teach you how to be valued when you walk in the room. And if you get that feeling, I swear to you, you will never want to lose that feeling again. And you will work every way you can to keep that feeling by progressing through your career and building and stability for you and your family. Or just you. I always say, you and your family because that's our programming. But I know you.

Keith McKeever 30:34

You know, for those who don't have a family can't predict the future. You know, you might say you don't have one now, but you that that could totally change real quick,

Michael Thomas 30:41

but they still got that you still have that. Come on in here and get help. Absolutely. You don't come through our doors, please. Yeah.

Keith McKeever 30:52

So your programs, um, I did have kind of, you know, one of the highlight some of those lets you talk on your build, refocus, what is what is that one?

Michael Thomas 31:00

So we have to So just so you're aware, so build and bridge are is our company, or organization tagline we're building and bridging right? So a build program, you that was which one, refocus, refocus, yeah, I was talking about that and reengage. Okay, so re refocus is our photography program where we teach veterans the art of photography as an alternate means of therapy, to teach them how to navigate their trauma. And what we do is we bridge to traditional therapy. So we give them tools so that they can use those tools to open up in group settings or to their their provider. But we give them a tool of photography videography, to learn how to go out there and see the world through their experience. And so that has been a very successful program. We've had 300 veterans and our 428 we've served go through that program that was our Prime program. And one of the things that I love about that program is there's a moment where we do the transition, right? So we it's a it's a point where they have to find their five right like their five photo, what what we do is we do a photo walk after they've been taught for a day or two, they they've been taught, it's a two day workshop, the refocus is a two day workshop. So so the first day is like in class training and eating. And then, and then day two is like a recap in the morning and at photowalk in the afternoon. And we do, we're out walking for that second half of the day. And the goal is I take words that are like just random words. So like freedom, patriotism, broken, you know, regrowth, whatever. And I take those words, very, very succinct, very thoughtful words, and put them in and let the veteran choose a word. And they have the second half of the day to express that through photo. And then they have to tell why that was that photo, why that was their top photo and what that photo meant in their perspective. And it's just the exercise to open up veterans being able to express what their purpose is, or what their purpose for what they've done is. So it's just an exercise to open up dialogue and to get veterans thinking about utilizing that medium as as a tool. Go ahead,

Keith McKeever 33:26

guys. Okay, that's, that's why I wanted to ask that because I thought it was really, I'm really interested in the whole art is a whole art is a therapy. And I thought that was really cool. I was like, okay, using photography or videography like, and as you frame that, I was like I can, I can see how that works. When you kind of let your guard down and you start to think in a creative way. It just open up conversation plus, you know, it doesn't hurt probably to have, you know, two days with a bunch of people where you're talking and sharing food and stuff like that build that comfort up.

Michael Thomas 33:58

So I've had I've had classes where I've had a student who was told from another organization that she was not allowed to bring her service animal. Okay, so she came to a class with 25, veterans, strangers without our service animal and was falling apart. She was in the class net. And she was she was losing it to the point where she was shaking, and she was had tears running down her face, and she was like, I'm leaving. And I stopped the class. Okay, we stopped the class. I said, Listen, I said, first of all, you're in safe space. You have to establish safe space. When you're doing work like this. You're in a safe space. I partnered her with another female that was in my class before she came back. I partnered her with her made her a battle buddy. So you now have your battle buddy. Anything you need anything you need to learn. She's already been through the class she can help you. So then I learned that a dual battle buddy system works in this type of environment. for things that happen like that, but before we got done, she took the best photo of the class. And she she walked out of there, like, I can't believe I stayed, I'm so happy I did. And she showed that she has that photo framed, because before they leave their five photo, I edit it professionally, I put it in a frame and I give it to them to leave, so they can hang it and remember what they what they were doing. And so she walked out and she she wrote me back a couple times just thanking me for giving her that experience and and she's taking photos now. And and it's it's those moments that we have where we see a light in somewhere that that people believe stays dark that we we realize our mission to continue to move and to help people tell their stories and and move them towards success. And so that would that's that's the refocus program. It's it's a great program. Guardians that is on there is a byproduct of that I used to hear stories in the classroom. And guardians never forget is a documentary program that that captures veterans stories and we tell them if you go on our on the Guardians Facebook page, you can see a video of Mr. deal he was he's a 98 year old Well, I think he may be 99 now but he was a world war two veteran who jumped into Normandy D Day plus two, you know, so he's got a great story he told he talks about going the Battle of bulge, getting people from the concentration camp in Auschwitz. I mean, like, he goes through a whole gamut. It's 12 minutes worth your time. And so that became another passion project out of that, and it was really good. Re engage was the other program you asked me about. And that is, that is our workforce development program. So that is that program is what has gotten us really recognized as an organization because we go to people and we challenged their mindset, we challenge their their their thought process that they've got it all together. When it comes to veterans. We put we plant little little, you know, little little pieces of information in their head that they go, Oh, wow, I didn't think about that. I didn't think about that. We also teach in that we have a eight week course. And that eight weeks.

Michael Thomas 37:35

I don't have my layout in front of me. But the eight weeks goes through we partner with Franklin Covey. Okay, so Franklin Covey is our partner. And in that we created a course we went through all their courseware. And we pulled out things that we realize were deficient in our soldiers coming out of or transitioning veterans. So we pulled all of those courseware. And then we created a seven week program that incorporates timeliness, it incorporates emotional intelligence, it incorporates, you know, writing for effect that incorporates team building communication, and all these skills that when put into a veteran will make them 10 times more marketable. Then we go into week eight, where we're what we're doing is we're going from the program, we we framed it as Scout to Pathfinder. So Scout army is someone that goes out surveys, enemy, and they just, they're they're not engaging, they're just gathering data, and they're coming back to the fold. And they're, they're giving that information out. The Pathfinder, on the other hand, will clear drop zones, they'll engage enemy, they'll still do, you know, they're sort of like forward for forward charging personnel. So they they take that data, and they move out and they open the ground for people coming in. And so we're our goal is to transition our veterans and their families eventually, through scout from a scout to a Pathfinder. And so they go from data gathering to engagement into the workforce. And so we're building some some bridges that are going to allow us to do some, some entrepreneurial development, where also where the program itself also incorporates financial literacy, financial planning. It also incorporates live interviews with with hiring managers is our end goal. That's that's where our program is going to. And right now we're just helping set up veterans for the workforce. Then we're helping them aligned to a job get them out into the workforce, and we will support them for the first year. have employment. And in order for them to continue with support through us, they will have to come back through some sort of recap with us. We haven't we haven't molded that yet. But there's going to be some kind of recertification with us to make sure that they're constantly utilizing the skills we're teaching them and trying to be as as agile as an employee as we can.

Keith McKeever 40:24

There's a lot of good skills and narrative that you mentioned, that I think are just things that like emotional intelligence, when you come out of a system, like the military, where everything's military bearing, yes, sir. Yes, ma'am. I mean, I know I even struggle with it sometimes, like, my wife's, like, how can we never show any emotion?

Michael Thomas 40:43

You know, when I was, like, I'm

Keith McKeever 40:44

happy. Always like laughing, you know, super animated, it's usually very stiff and rigid. You know, and, and I think sometimes, maybe it's just hard when you're when you don't have people to read, especially if you were in 20 years. You know, it in everybody is a stone faced in front of you, it's gonna be hard to really learn how to read people's body language and stuff. And learning less stuff is important.

Michael Thomas 41:09

It's a different conversation, though. I mean, like, you're talking uniform versus out of uniform. I mean, the corporate space is, is top down, right? And, and so as the army but the or the military, but there's little sex, right? Like you, you get your e4 Mafia, right, like you get, you know, possibly, right? You guys all still normalize in your group. But when it comes to cross pollination, where a Junior is in dressing a senior, like, all of a sudden, there's this breakdown of comms, like, there's like, shut up, do what I tell you get it done. When you become leadership, and you're in the civilian world, you can't be like, Hey, shut up, get it done. I mean, you can't in construction, but in any other job, you're not going to be able to be like, Hey, you idiot, like get your stuff get, you know, yeah,

Keith McKeever 42:02

vast majority of work settings, that's not gonna fly. Yeah.

Michael Thomas 42:05

So, so, so understanding, okay, I have to be more mindful of this person I have to be, I have to understand them a little better, I have to understand their needs better. And make that make a better appeal to them. You still use your professionalism, it's just you frame it differently. So I mean, ultimately, my thought is, you know, a veteran doesn't need to be taught to be a civilian, they just need a new mission. Keep their keep their professionalism, keep their their candor keep their ability to complete the mission, do the job, but give them a new scope. And once you do that, their mind just locks in. It's amazing to see the lights go on. And they go, Oh, senior leadership is like brass in the military. Like, yes, middle leadership is like senior NCOs. Yes. You know, management is like our E four. E five e sixes. Yes. Worker bees are e fours and below. Yes. Okay. So I need to get to mid management, I need to get promoted. Right.

Keith McKeever 43:11

And there's less of a dividing. There's, you know, in a military, I mean, you know, just go to a general just strike up a conversation, you know, you don't go up to the chief master sergeant or the Command Sergeant Major to strike up a conversation. But in a company, let's say you got a company of 100 people, you might know the CEO, the CEO might even go and have beers with as many mid level managers. And so you got to frame this. You got to look at it. Like they're, they're approachable, they're actually approachable. Go have conversations with them, like you said, us. Keep that keep that kind of bearing. Keep that professionalism, right. Watch your language. Don't do anything. Embarrassing or illegal, right? You start challenging the CEO to do is probably not going to engage in those e4 antics with you. But you never know. If they do, maybe that's a company might not want to work for.

Michael Thomas 44:07

Let's do it. Let's get the one wheel and go down here. Let's see what happens.

Keith McKeever 44:14

We're going to the janitors house for beer pong. This probably probably ought to set up some red flags. But you know, people are approachable. And you have to you have to realize that a lot of corporate environments that that false brick wall is not there. You know? So don't be don't be afraid of those people, engage with them, talk to them. A lot of those people will be more than happy to be mentors to you. You know, if you show the initiative.

Michael Thomas 44:39

There's, if you don't mind, keep I'd like to talk a little bit about one more program. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, go ahead. So there's one more program that that I just recently put into play and it's Reset. Reset is a program that's built for. Exactly. It's named to reset a veteran You know, during the week, so we've got trauma informed yoga we've got, we're building peer support groups, we're doing mindfulness or meditation we're doing, you know, we're going to do things just for emotional well, being of our veterans. I find that like, the, the purpose of reset was that I learned meditation. And I went somewhere that, that taught me meditation, but I was like, I'm not gonna come by, dude, I can, I can really, it's not something I want to do. Like, I can't quiet my mind long enough. I'm thinking of like, 1015 things at once. And they were like, you know, I'm a Christian man. So they, they use this to get my mind and they said, hey, you know, if prayer is you talking to God, meditation? Is you listening for an answer? And I was like, Huh. And I was able to just sit there and be in that in that meditation space, and just go, Okay, now I can I can, I can figure it out. That worked for me, it doesn't work for everybody some

Keith McKeever 46:13

interesting take on it. Yeah. Some people,

Michael Thomas 46:15

some people need more of a more approachable, you know, opinion of that. But for me, that made the light go on it said, wow, like, I, when you run your mouth, you can't hear right. So sometimes you just need to listen and be present in your body and your breathing and your feeling of who you are to know where you're at. And so I created the reset. For the purpose of getting Adam H involved, which is our call drug and mental health program, I'm trying to get them involved so that we can get the program up and functional so that we can provide, I don't want to say like mental health therapy, because we're not, we're not licensed for therapeutic things. But what we are, are an avenue for exploration of wellness, I think a well adjusted veteran is a is a serviceable one. And when you give them tools to decompress, originally, it was just going to be like a midweek group that we can just like talk about how the week is going and reset sort of, you know, dump in a group. But then it turned into what what if we use this amazing space, I have, you know, to partition a section out and do a yoga class, you know, that had, you know, trauma informed care and wrapped around it. And so I was like, Well, I think we can we can make this happen. And we built a wellness program. So I just want to talk a little bit about our school, Ram. It's a new program, but it's something that we're really investing time and effort and data into to try to build a program that's going to help the veterans and our families reset in our current, you know, state of where we are. That's awesome.

Keith McKeever 48:03

I think especially today, you know, as we have two years COVID now and all this stuff, and I've always felt like a connection to the military community is something that, that that's a huge, huge problem for veterans and transition. So that gives them an opportunity to connect at least a little bit on a regular basis, if they choose to show up, you know, which is even before COVID was an issue, but when you have COVID, and people kind of you know, some people are backed off, you know, try not to go out and go do things like it's even more important. Yeah, no, not having a connection and that person's mental health. So last thing, I was just kind of curious about all the people that you've had come through, of course, you don't have to share names, but has there been anybody that's just come through your program in any one of those programs? That is just massively seated expectations, just like massive success. You kind of shared one earlier with the lady in the service dog.

Michael Thomas 48:59

I think we have to we have to temper the success element. Right. Well,

Keith McKeever 49:04

I'm not talking about just jumping right. To somebody who really shown a lot of growth in the process.

Michael Thomas 49:10

I get I just like to

Keith McKeever 49:13

point I like yeah, we should temper it a little bit. Yeah,

Michael Thomas 49:16

but but I think I think we've had we've had a couple of people I mean, we've had we've had with guardians, we were able to get someone to open up and talk about you know, being the first female on all male fleet. Back when, you know, she was she was the first female and all male fleet and they were fabricators they fabricated like metal and things like that. And they wouldn't allow women out to duty in combat. So she got shore duty, and the ship she was on went out and it took missiles and 90% of the crew was lost. And her as a brand new fabricator had to go out find bodies and, and fabricate coffins for them and send their remains home. And it was the first time she spoke of that since 89 or 87, one of the two years, but she opened up about that, and I was like, wow, like this, this has merit like this, this this environment is some is an environment that can heal. And after she got done, she says I can't believe and she went through a whole myriad of like, I can't believe it. I'm too intelligent to have a breakdown about this, I thought I dealt with this acceptance going like, okay, it happened. And then relief that she was able to open up and give that to the room. The whole team itself changed because I had two new administrators on the team that came in and they were like, This is gonna be great, we're gonna hear veteran stories. And at the end, they were like, wow, their whole perspective changed and shifted, and we were able, as a team to go, this is Wait, this is this is something we have to be responsible over. So for me, the success in that point was that my team understood the magnitude of what we were charged to deal with. And they made an adjustment mentally, emotionally, and we were there for that veteran. And that was that's just one of many stories that came out of Guardians. And as far as workforce development, I think we are we are doing the program in bits right now because we're trying to get funding to get the program done. But we are we're doing like resume writing and and performance based interviewing and preparation for for employment and things of out of the curriculum that we can onesie twosie. And we've had a veteran that that just got hired two weeks ago for Apple. And he's he's going to start at Apple and we're going to support him through Apple. And our hope is that his his, his higher an apple will allow us a link into Apple, which will allow us to open a dialogue with them and see if we can create some really and this is Apple corporate. This is not an Apple store.

Keith McKeever 52:27

Yeah, yeah.

Michael Thomas 52:30

Apple people like in Easton Ma, like, California, dude. So but but yeah, I mean, I'm partnering with a lot of different organizations that are doing some amazing work with transition. And we're all sort of Hive mining and really trying to break the gate down for for our veterans of families. And, you know, that's that's all I mean, if that's all my legacy is left is that I've opened the door for as many veterans as I can tell, I was gone from this earth and I'm satisfied.

Keith McKeever 53:06

Well, there's no doubt about it, just just little things like resume help. I mean, you never know what that compound effect is eventually going to look like, you know, take somebody from getting a job, that doesn't mean anything that pays a minimum wage, you know, maybe they go get a job to make $25 An hour $30 An hour or, you know, some salary position with great benefits take care of their family that can not only set up their family, set them up for potential retirement at some point time to generational wealth for some people. Yeah, you know, it's a huge compound, you know, potential impact.

Michael Thomas 53:41

And that's, and that's my, my, my ultimate, you know, altruistic goal, man is just to teach people that there's still value in them. I think I think we are at a point where morale is low in the country. I think we're at a point where anything good is is, you know, is needed. But I also think that we have a challenged demographic when it comes to veterans, because there's a lot of things that I don't know, man, I feel like people make light sometimes of the veteran experience. And they feel as though you know, veterans are taken advantage of systems and things like that, when they fight for their for their rights day in and day out. And I think that it's very important for for any service provider, anybody that is doing the work to understand that your opinion of the situation means absolutely nothing to the validity and accuracy of the situation. And so get yourself out of the way. Look at the data, look at the people connect to the people and make the change.

Keith McKeever 55:01

I couldn't, couldn't agree more with all that, you know, there's, there's a, there's a lot of work to do. You know, because each each even each generation of veterans, you know, has unique challenges right now, you know, we're losing the world war two guys that unfortunately, a lot of them are going to be gone, we're gonna be down to virtually none left and just a couple years and Korean wars right on on their tail, you know, and they're they've got issues of needing to go into long term care facilities and stuff like that. And Vietnam guys behind them have a lot of physical and mental issues and they're, you know, I've just kind of entered that retirement stage, they'll be right on their heels and intergeneration honest, I have to remember to what it's the oldest generation from post 911 is probably got to be right on the tails of the Vietnam guys, you know, close to 70, maybe even more than I don't know, but it's kind of the higher ups that were already in for 30 years when the war kicked off. But that's a large age gap. That's a lot of a lot of issues. And we were in war for 20 years. And in what, seven? Yes, eight years in Iraq. So that's a lot of people. That's a lot of a lot of war. And I think there's a lot of time that's gone by too. I really firmly believe that that more time goes by the more people have forgotten. You know, I mean, we had some some very harsh reminders last year, with withdrawal and of Afghanistan, that we were there. And we had people these last 10 years that kind of just kind of got forgotten about the we're even there.

Michael Thomas 56:31

But they say in order to erase history, only two generations have to forget about it. Doesn't surprise me at all. So what does that mean, when we have our world war two guys going and no one remembers their story, but what's putting the history book. And that's another essence of Guardians is like, we need to we need to encapsulate the stories, we need to capture the history. And we need to stop. You know, allowing the history of our brothers and sisters disappear with generational gap of people who don't care to keep the story. And so I don't know, man, don't get me down that that that path?

Keith McKeever 57:19

Well, you know, long story short, people need to go out and connect with those people and ask them their stories. Some guys may not open up. But ask the stories, crack open a book and read somebody's story of somebody writing a book out. Because there are some just incredible stories of people overcoming amazing things. And it will inspire you. It will make you understand more of the veteran community. So but I'm going to throw your your website down there at the bottom for those and we watched it on YouTube. I got that right on there. You do. All right, cool. I copy and pasting correctly. But operation meraki.org I'll have it in the show notes and everything for everybody that happens to be listening. Don't forget to you know, go like and subscribe to my YouTube channel. Go follow the podcast and also go follow Michael. Like I said, all the links will be in the show notes on YouTube and all the podcast stuff. But any last words, Michael, before we wrap up,

Michael Thomas 58:13

stay engaged. And don't be afraid to ask the person sitting next to you. If they're okay. We lose too many Veterans Day by day, if you have family members that are veterans, please make sure to check on their wellness, especially in this this pandemic of separation. Be mindful that the people that you love, still need love. And that's about it. I mean, just stay engaged with us. There's a lot of things coming down the pipeline, and we're excited to you know, meet and get to know as many of you as possible, feel free to reach out to us.

Keith McKeever 58:52

Absolutely. So there's your challenge everybody reach out to get the help that you need a overarching kind of theme there is reach out to your battle buddies, you know, reach out to reach out to the support people. You know if if Michael doesn't have the answer, maybe I do. Maybe somebody else we know does, you know, you know, we will find somebody to get you the answers. So, once again, Michael, I appreciate you appreciate you stopping by the show and highlight what you guys do. I appreciate you. Looking forward to seeing what you guys roll out in the future.

Michael Thomas 59:24

Yeah, we're looking forward to talking to you again. Sounds good.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai