Enter the Junto – A Ripple Effect

The USA has invested heavily through cycles in a highly technical, expertly trained and diverse military service corps. Yet, for a nation of 325 million, barely half of a percent (0.5%) or about 1.5 million people are in uniform at any one time of end strength in a state of readiness to answer the call. However, we have twenty times that number in the status of “veteran” who have melted back into civilian life with knowledge and skills. Between a third to half of those are capable of being retooled in some measure from part time to full time or even in a self-employed capacity. It would help to have even 1/100th of them. We currently have 45,000 veteran service organizations spread across the nation.

Yet, less than 2% (approx. 900 ) of them have operational budgets of over $1M. Moreover, out of that 2%, less than 17% of those have any full-time staff or facilities (approx. less than 150 nationwide). That means we cannot wait for 3rd party services to retool our veterans. We have to bootstrap ourselves and help each other. Junto Studios & Metalworks Co. argues for an approach that fosters more collaboration between academia, training programs, the VA, industry, local government and our small business clusters throughout communities.

If we help one person, we don’t help just one person – we help everyone around that person: their caregivers and family, their children, the community they live in, and our nation. Junto Studios and Metalworks was founded by just one veteran.