Betting on Vets: A unique public-private program is training ex-military women to start businesses that restart their lives

The Woman's Playbook

The country’s nearly 2 million women veterans suffer the same challenges male vets do — isolation, unemployment, work-family pressures, homelessness, adjusting to civilian life, psychological and physical disabilities.

And, of course, women vets transition with the burdens of all workingwomen: lower pay for equal work, gender discrimination, lesser opportunities and promotions.

Yet most of the resources go to the men.

To reinvent the wheel, in 2011, the US Small Business Administration (SBA) partnered with Syracuse University to launch a smart, focused, nationwide entrepreneurship program for women vets. Called Veteran Women Igniting the Spirit of Entrepreneurship (V-WISE), the three-phase program has to date trained over 1,300 female service vets and military spouses – and counting. Its impact has been remarkable in encouraging women vets to steward their fate and realize their dreams.

In honor of the Fourth, learn how V-WISE, @VWISEconference, is reshaping options for women vets, with guests:
Noelle Cherubim enlisted in the US Army in 2004,motivated by 9/11. She became a nuclear biological chemical operations specialist and, in 2005, was selected for recruiter training, earning numerous awards, especially for recruiting Arabic speakers. After her service and completing the V-WISE program, Noelle, @CherubimArt, founded Les Artistes De Cherubim (LADC), which uses art to improve cross-cultural communications.

Me’Shae Brooks-Rolling, CSEP, CEPF, directs conferences and special events for IVMF and V-WISE. She has dual expertise in special events and conference management as well as financial literacy education. As a senior special events coordinator at City Hall in New York during the Giuliani administration, she discovered her passion for financial literacy, and later wrote “How to Save Money & Organize Your Finances.”