 Hello, everybody, and thanks for joining us today where we're talking about all things small business and small business administration. There's a lot going on all around Hawaii and all across the country as we come into the last days of our federal fiscal year, there'll probably be some excitement as we look and see what's happening with our budgets going forward, but we're still keeping real busy with the small businesses here in Hawaii. What's happening, as I said, one thing that came up recently, we opened the nominations for the Small Business Awards, SBA Small Business Awards for 2017. So you can find those nomination forms. We have six different categories, the Small Business Person of the Year, the Young Entrepreneur of the Year, Exporter of the Year, Entrepreneurial Success, somebody who's had SBA's help before and now is a larger business, no longer eligible for Small Business Assistance. We also look to honor advocates out in our community who are helping support small businesses. So you can find those by going to our Small Business Development Center website, a quick four-page nomination form, a few quick questions to respond to that really measure the amount of success you've had, where you're taking your business, what your goals and missions are, and how you give back to the community. Great process, great awards, but we love to be able to recognize what small businesses are doing here in Hawaii. So please take a look at hisbdc.org, you'll find them right there on the first page. Just scroll down a little bit and you'll see all the different categories. You can look at the criteria for each award, a little bit different, and pick the one that might best fit somebody that you know that is really deserving of being honored for what they've accomplished, their achievements in our business community. So thanks for thinking about that. Today I'm going to be introducing you to a new resource here in Hawaii, one we're very proud to be involved with, our Veterans Business Outreach Center. These programs have been around for the last couple years and they started out as a partnership with SBA and DOD to make sure that we were getting the support and services to those who have served our country so well, who sacrificed so much, perhaps had a first career in the military and now are coming back into the civilian workforce or retiring and they just have so many talents and skills they want to do something else. So our Veterans Business Opportunity Center will be opening up, I said it wrong again, didn't I Dennis? That's right. It's Outreach Center. So that's, Dennis Kwok is leading the charge to get this center open so welcome today to our program. Thanks for having me, Jay. You know I appreciate that you could make some time. You know Dennis has a lot of skills and a lot of experience in helping small businesses get started, helping small businesses grow so we're happy to have him aboard and we really are pushing off this center and already out in the community working with our Boots to Business program but you'll be offering even more once Dennis. We hope so, yes. Like you said the program has just started. The University of Hawaii at Hilo in a cooperative agreement with the Small Business Administration and the Office of Veterans Development has been awarded the grant for this year and we're really excited that all the kind of programs we can offer our veterans. They came out with the VBOCs, Veteran Business Outreach Centers several years ago but we started out slowly in growing them. We were regional so this is the first time we actually will have a center that's based in Hawaii, on Island. Even though your host locally is University of Hawaii at Hilo, you're going to be located on Oahu, is that right? Yes, that's kind of a weird kind of situation but it's actually very practical because of the fact that we have three operating military bases on Island with a Skollfield joint-based Pearl Harbor as well as Cape Bay or kind of a Marine Corps base. And that doesn't mean that your services, your consulting, your training, anything like that will be just on Oahu because you're going to end up serving a pretty big territory. You've got my district. That's right. Well, yes, definitely. We have, we're in agreement with serving of course Hawaii and all the islands of Hawaii and Guam and American Samoa as well. Right. That's, there's a big veteran population in all these areas even if there may not be active bases. But we've always had strong participation from the territory of Guam, from the territory of American Samoa. And though our bases here are pretty active and we've been seeing a lot of activity with them over the last several years, but we do have a really strong community of veterans who are already in business as well. And a lot of the statistics show that veterans bring with them once they retire or leave the military, they bring a lot of skills that are very adaptive to being successful in business. Oh, I couldn't agree more. The actual veterans to entrepreneurship or entrepreneurs is actually a natural progression because veterans like entrepreneurs are focused, mission focused. They have critical, they're critical thinkers, problem solvers. They have strong leadership and team management as well as being ethical. These are all traits that veterans have a natural kind of, they're learned behaviors as well, but they have a natural progression to become better. For the, through their years in service, they've kind of been conditioned and those are expectations so the behavior follows and entrepreneurs or small business owners need those same skills to kind of stay on task, stay on mission, you know, work with employees, work as a team, work with others and delegate tasks as well. And I think that's one very, very important thing that oftentimes small business owners have a hard time doing is recognizing what needs to be done and being able to delegate or work with others to accomplish those goals. So I think there's a natural affinity. Even some of our, you know, some of the, the businesses that we think of, you know, as being successful in Hawaii, several that have been on Think Tech before or even interviewed on my, my program, Raymond Jardine of Native Hawaiian Veterans, Reg Baker himself is a veteran. So you find them, you know, sometimes where you least expect it, you know, statistics show that actually veterans are 45% more likely to own a small business. Wow. Yeah. So that's a pretty high percentage. It is. It is. And out of all the, although the veteran population across the United States is relatively small, they account for about nine to 10% of businesses out of the total population. Nine to 10%. Yes. Which is a tremendous population. Yeah. So you had, you know, concentration in that area. But you got started working with veterans, kind of working with SBA over the last couple of years. Sure. Maybe you will first, I guess, tell us a little bit about yourself and your background in working with small businesses. Oh, okay. Well, my most recent, and before joining the VBAC program was actually as a business advisor with a small business development center. I was an advisor there for about six, seven years and I had the privilege of working with you too for this amount of times. And during that time we had, you know, access to lots of businesses and many of them veteran-owned businesses. So whether it was starting a small restaurant or starting a service-based business, I was fortunate enough to assist these small businesses, whether it being financing or business planning or strategic planning. So your experience already has connected you with small businesses. So when you help them with financing, what does that entail? The financing end is actually a little bit more complicated and it really depends on the business owner and what their needs are. So we first assess what their needs are, whether that's startup capital or working capital. I bet a lot of people come to you saying right off the bat, I just need money. Yeah. That is a common question. Capital, capital, capital. But it's not as easy as people think that is. So there is a kind of a process and usually that comes in the planning phases of starting your business or in many cases actually expanding your businesses too. So you've already helped a lot of business navigate through that maze of getting started and then that hard part, finding money if that's really, sometimes internally, sometimes from banks or other things, but how do you approach that decision? Well, I think it's really, like I said, up to the owners as well as up to the business because sometimes it's really out of my reach. Each owner has their own specific kind of needs in terms of capital and sometimes it's really going internally, like you said, and asking family and friends, but others is going through traditional channels like banks and credit unions and utilizing your famous SBA loan programs. You could do a little plug. Oh, that's the right thing to say. It really is a wonderful loan program. And just talking about SBA loan programs, I would really like it if people are listening to this that I really hope that the Patriot Express or other loan programs are readily available for our veterans. I know we have a veterans advantage program. It is really an important, I guess, program for our veterans in terms of getting their finance. I think one of the things that these programs will do and particularly some of the loans that Dennis is referring to, SBA helps with a guarantee to the bank. So a newer business, a younger business can get the capital they need. Our veterans programs follow kind of the model or the format of the guaranteed loans, but they usually have some changes in the interest rate or even a higher loan cap. So it makes it easier for growing businesses to get the capital they need. And in going with you, Dennis, or sitting down to talk with you, you'd go over their cash flow and their plans and also look at some of their regular expenses to kind of also see if they're kind of running lean in Maine, if they have money that they may not recognize inside the business, and when the right time to go and ask for a loan maybe. Yes, definitely. There's many stages of actually starting a business, but it all starts with planning and a very, very robust plan is what you need to go to the banks because they're going to break your business plan apart to see if you actually do need those funds and whether you're going to be a profitable business. And you have to be optimistic, but you also can't be too optimistic. It's really a fine line of being truthful with yourself and your business, as well as having kind of a champion within the bank. So and I think I know of some of the small businesses that you've worked with and have been very successful in helping them get capital at the right time. Because sometimes, as you said, a lender doesn't necessarily want to entertain your proposal if you're really not ready for it or if you're asking for more and you can actually repay because nobody wants you to get into a bad situation. So sometimes your council has to redirect them, I would think. Oh, yeah, I believe so. And a lot of the success stories I have aren't really tied in with capital. It's actually, you know, I've had businesses where we worked on the business plan and then we realized that business didn't have legs and ultimately she decided it or the person didn't decide to start that business. And I think that in itself is a success story because I hope I kind of steered her away from failing a business. Yes, sometimes that's just as important for a business owner to realize that it seems like a great idea or that that entrepreneur. This seems like a great idea and I would love to execute on this, but there isn't a market, there isn't any money there. And ultimately, yes, that's got to be part of your goal is to at least make some money so you can pay your costs and hopefully take a little bit home to put in your own pocket. That's right. That's very important. So the banks are going to look at that, they're going to look at your repayment ability. They are going to look at your credit. So and that is something that we've even started with some soon to be veterans working with them on preparing. I think there's a big demand right now because our military numbers have gotten higher with some of the conflicts that we've seen in the needs for defense across the world or need for support. Some of them we're seeing a lot of them kind of cycling out of their years in service now. So our Boots to Business program has been going strong on all our bases here and you've been involved with some of those programs. So and I know some of those a lot of those veterans are staying here, but probably the majority of them are moving away and getting into the SBA or the VBAC network on the mainland. But I think those vehicles really help them because they they know I may have four months or I may have five months to go. And this is what I'm looking at. So how does how do you see the the Boots program working with them? Actually, the genesis of the Boots program is really tied in with Department of Defense transition assistance program. So the DOD TAP is really geared toward helping our veterans transition out of the military. They have three tracks. The first is educational, where veterans can get education through more schooling as well as certifications. And the second is hiring or employment, gainful employment through the private and public sectors. And obviously the third, but not least is actually entrepreneurship or starting their own business. And we found the Boots to Business program is a Syracuse University two day program where we really concentrate on giving kind of an expose to entrepreneurship, if you can say, and kind of a two day crash course on entrepreneurship for our veterans. And the it's proven to be very, very successful. People found the biggest complaint they have is actually that the two days is not enough. So actually, the two day event is actually the start. And you can actually sign off for an eight week free online course offered by Syracuse University, which a lot of people have taken. And they found it to be of tremendous value. I think we've heard a lot about that. We're going to take a quick break, but we'll be back to talk about Boots to Business reboot and hiring our heroes coming up here in Hawaii very soon. So thanks for joining us. We'll be right back. Aloha, this is Reg Baker with Business in Hawaii. We're a show that broadcasts every Thursday at two o'clock. We would love to hear from you and you can reach us in several different ways. We have a hotline that you can call in at 415-871-2474 or you can email us at thinktecawai.com or you can tweet us at thinktec-hi. Looking forward to hearing from you and seeing you on our next show. Aloha. Aloha, my name is Danelia D-A-N-E-L-I-A. And I'm the other half of the duo, John Newman. Welcome. We are co-hosts of a show called Keys to Success, which is live on the Think Tech Live Network series weekly on Thursdays at 11 a.m. We're looking forward to seeing you then. Aloha. And thank you all for joining us again. We're just talking about veterans as small business owners and the services and support they can get from SBA and our latest program here in Hawaii, our Veterans Business Outreach Center with Denny Kwok. So, Denny, thanks again. Oh, thanks for having me. We were just talking a little bit about the Boots to Business. A two-day program. And we've been doing about 20 sessions a year. I believe so, yeah. I think 20 to 22. But that just covers Hawaii. And obviously, we have our base in Guam. And we'll be doing a couple over there as well. So, we have it right now. We're at Joint Base Pearl Harbor. We go to Schofield. We get out over to the Marine Corps base, Semper Fi. Do you have a military background? Not myself. My father was a Marine. And one of my younger brothers was a Marine. Oh, very cool. The first song I ever learned to play on the piano was the House of Montezuma. But, you know, I didn't follow that path myself. OK. But, you know, I have a soft spot for the Marine Corps. Me too. So, and your family? Nope. No, we have no affiliation, unfortunately, with. Yeah, we're first generation immigrants. OK. So, there's... Well, you have a son? I do. I have two sons. So, yes, I have two sons. But they're way too young to join. You know, well, there's some time. And, you know, obviously, you're taking on the patriotic mission and in helping the service to our veterans as well. Yeah. And I think it really is a great program, not just because, you know, I've been tasked with running it, but just because I think giving back to the military community is something that's greatly needed. And especially during these times. So, this role will also give you kind of the task of creating greater awareness of, you know, veterans' contributions, what veterans have done as small business owners as employers that's creating jobs, you know, for others as well. So, and I know you kind of got involved and became intrigued with supporting or conducting some of the modules in the Boots to Business programs on various basis. So, as we looked at the VBOT process, we kind of moved you around to a lot more bases than just, I think we were working with the Small Business Development Center primarily over at the Marine Corps base. That's right. And now you've been to all of them. And pretty soon you're going to be heading off for Guam to conduct a session with my branch manager, Ken Lujan, at Anderson, I believe. That's right, yeah. Anderson Air Force Base. That will be on the 26 and 27. Okay. And I'll be definitely working with our resource partners over there, the SBA, the Small Business Development Center as well. Very good. I mean, we've got a good network down there. Oh, yeah. And I think that one of the things that's probably important to say is even though these Boots to Businesses are on the base, you don't have to be affiliated with that branch of the service. You can often, if seats are available, if you're a Marine, get on to Schofield or if you're a Navy, you can go to the Marine Corps, et cetera. So if you miss one, all you need to do is go and look at our schedule because it should be up at sba.gov as well and seek to enroll when it's the right time or talk to your counselor before your transition counselor or your command. And they know all about these courses as well or have the contacts to get you in touch. So some of the classes fill up really quickly depending on the scheduling. But they're usually very enthusiastic and you hear some great stories from the veterans and what they're planning to do. Can you recall some of the interesting businesses they were talking about starting? Sure. I mean, you have a really kind of a huge plethora of types of businesses or industries that it spans. But the more interesting ones I've found were actually involving agriculture. I found that a lot of veterans find agriculture kind of a nice industry to go into and that could be aquaponics or that could be in terms of, you know, solar agriculture. I mean, involving solar energy and agriculture. Very, very new fields. A lot of changes happening in these fields. And I find it interesting that they find farming or agriculture such a kind of enjoyable industry to go into. Is it perhaps related to where some of them grew up or some of them farm? Yeah, that's what I thought, too. Yeah, I mean, it's really not. I think it's actually the work that they do. They find it therapeutic, especially for our service disabled veterans. And I found even just among my clientele, we have a couple or two or three service disabled veterans that are actually going into agriculture, see here in Hawaii. So that's an interesting field. And I find that kind of correlation unique. Yeah, that is kind of interesting. We've seen people coming out, wanting to start to like auto detailing or mobile garage. Restaurants. Restaurants. We've heard there's a great Takaria up in Wahiwa now. That's right. You gotta give a shout out to Takaria. It's actually a client of my former colleague, Ms. Lori Hiramatsu, if she's listening. But yeah, the Takaria business has grown exponentially and they're doing really well. And they did get an SP alone if I'm correct. I heard. And I hear the people drive from Pearl City in IAEA and the Pearl Harbor base to get up there to go and get some really good food. Yeah, very, very good food. Unfortunately, me and Lori actually went up there a couple of months ago and they were closed. So yeah, we just went on an off time. Did they start a website yet? I don't know. Get their schedule up there. Exactly. Get their schedule going. We've seen husband and wife starting fitness training teams. We've seen IT services. So it really covers the gamut of what skills or interests they're bringing out. And for many, they're like a second time around a second career where maybe in the military they didn't do something that really tapped their creativity and some of them are pursuing those areas as well. And a lot of veterans that are kind of transition out in Hawaii, they actually stay. I have a perfect client. His name is, he owns Ken-Naze Southern Barbecue out in IAEA. And I helped him start his business when I was with the SBDC. And I'm still helping him now under the direction of EBOC. And he's grown his business from just an idea to a very, very successful venture. And he's in the steps of actually hopefully expanding. Oh, that's great. That's great. So if you're in the area in IAEA, please check out Ken-Naze as well. I gotta give a little shout out to you. We're gonna have to do a listing of some of these businesses. Especially food related. Well, you're even looking at, are there more veteran success stories out there that you can collect? So it is easier to really show people upfront, personal what veterans have accomplished. Yeah, that's in the process. We're still working on that with our resource partners. Just off the top of my head, we have a few definitely veterans owned businesses that have shown tremendous growth and I have shown success. Well, I think that's a great thing to bring up since Danny is looking for those stories. If you're watching this and you're a veteran business owner, you may wanna give him a call or send him an email message and I'm sure he'd be happy to talk to you about your business or even consider you in his success story catalog. Where do they get in touch with you, Danny? You can email me at dquack at hawaii.edu. Hawaii.edu, that's a very, very simple one. And a lot of the veterans too are a lot of people who are exiting the military come out and they wanna come to our boots to business. They want them to be a little longer, they'd like it to be more in depth. I understand that Hawaii has one of the highest rates of enrollment in that eight week online class of anywhere across the country and it may be just we're used to being remote out here so we tapped into some of those resources but I heard it's a really good class and it's very, very productive. Even though they are online for most of the curriculum, there are some interactive sessions and that they really come out with a real product that your business plan, a good start on your financials so really goes the step beyond what we can do in a two-day boots to business or reboot that is for veterans who are outside or already exited the military and maybe have a business. So Syracuse eight week course is one thing but then our reboot is now we're gonna be starting to do some of those around the island, right? Yes, we hope so and the next one is scheduled for, let me get my dates here correct, January 5th and 6th on the big island. Because the whole purpose of the reboot is actually the same curricula as the Boots to Business but it's really geared toward already transitioning out veterans and it's not held on basis. So hopefully we'll be, we had one on Maui about a month and a half ago and we'll be doing one on big island and we would like to schedule a couple more on Oahu as well. So you are getting around to all the veteran communities across the state. Yes, and I can't forget American Samoa and Guam as well, I'm sorry. We definitely will, this program is unique or as you can just, very, very similar to you is that geographically it's very, very spread out across ocean, but... Well, we're gonna work with you, Den. I hope so. We'll be working to, we do expect that we're gonna get a great response to this program and bring in, I'm hoping some longer term consulting clients as well, that businesses are really kind of ready to kick it up and go to the next level. So maybe longer term consulting clients with you, maybe get into our emerging leaders course as well so that they are finding the support and the success that they deserve or we can help them get there a little bit faster because that's what the counseling and training programs are all about is avoiding those big hairy mistakes, keeping the money in the business and then also kind of accomplishing, fulfilling those dreams that you have, supporting the family, all those things that you wanna do. So any things that, what are you, are you mission focused with us now? Where do you wanna take the VBAC? I definitely want to fall within the parameters of what we can do in terms of participation in the Boosted Business Program as well as a reboot. My concentration is really finding out what the needs of the veterans business community here are and kind of localizing a lot of the programs to suit the veterans' needs really. Whether it's through one-on-one counseling or more events training, it's kind of a still a nascent program so we're still trying to kind of mold that program, this program to really service our veterans. So that's another reason to get in touch with you too is with ideas or opportunities with the veteran business outreach center as well. I can agree with you more, Jean. It's really about kind of a community-based, I don't know if I'm using this word right, but definitely utilizing our community to give ideas on how we can make the VBAC more applicable to our veterans. Okay, we're gonna have a really robust program. I can tell already. We're gonna be going out today with just a couple of other quick announcements that may be of interest to you. We have our Focus on the Future conference coming up next week, October 5th and 6th. It's being offered by the University of Hawaii and the Hawaii Business Roundtable. It is on cybersecurity. It will cover medical research, a cool program to check out. A lot of people will be there down at Hilton Hawaiian Village. And to get that information, this is a long, long URL, www.uh.hawaii.edu, conference, backslash, FF, Focus on Future, 2016.asp. I would say Google Focus Future Hawaii. And then we'll be talking about Shop Small Business Saturday. That's kind of the counterpart to Black Friday and Cyber Monday. We gotta take care of our small business and our restaurants here in Hawaii. That'll be coming up November 28th, and you'll be hearing more from SBA on how to prepare for the next year. And you'll be hearing more from SBA on how to participate in that activity, whether you're a small business or you're just a Hawaii consumer who wants to go out there and support our small business. Thanks very much for joining us today.