From March 20 to March 23, the D’Aniello Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF) at Syracuse University will host its 6th Annual Veteran EDGE (Engage, Develop, Grow, Elevate)at the Renaissance Dallas Addison Hotel in Dallas, Texas. The conference will bring over 400 veteran and military spouse owned businesses to the city for small business training, professional networking, and main stage keynote experts. The annual Inc.
Magazine Vet 100, a part of the iconic Inc. 5000 list, will also be announced highlighting the fastest growing veteran owned businesses in 2023.
The IVMF’s Veteran EDGE not only celebrates the accomplishments of veteran entrepreneurs over the last year, but offers innovative educational opportunities to participants with the most up-to- date information on available resources and opportunities for veterans.
According to the Small Business Administration, military-affiliated entrepreneurs contribute approximately $1.3 trillion in economic activity each year. In the post-COVID economic recovery, federal and state governments have targeted veteran-owned businesses as a catalyst for economic recovery efforts.
Keynote speakers for Veteran EDGE this year are;
- Daniel D’Aniello – U.S. Navy Veteran, Co-Founder and Chairman Emeritus of the Carlyle Group and Co-Chairman of the IVMF.
- Amy Jo Martin – Founder & CEO of Renegade Global and NYT Best-selling author, “Renegades Write the ” Host of “Why Not Now?” podcast.
- Frank Coppersmith – S. Air Force veteran and CEO of Smarter Reality.
This will be the first Veteran EDGE conference hosted by the IVMF since the organization acquired Bunker Labs, a non-profit organization which shared a mutual mission in teaching veterans how to start and grow small businesses through the fundamentals of entrepreneurship.
Additionally, ten Veteran EDGE Conference participants will take part in the D’Aniello Family Foundation Acceleration Challenge, a series of activities and workshops to assess the barriers in confronting their business, and how to best leverage available opportunities at the conference. At the end of the conference, these ten entrepreneurs are given the chance to pitch their business plan and potentially receive up to $10,000 in funding from the foundation.
“The great thing about Veteran EDGE is that it gets veterans with a common purpose together in the same room,” said Brian Krusz, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and the Founder of Sgt. Clean Car Wash.
“It gave me a great opportunity to not only serve one another as veterans, but we get to serve veterans from afar to allow them to transition from a place of darkness to a place of light by coping with PTSD properly,” Krusz said, “That was a value add that I was not looking for when I landed in Dallas.”
The Veteran EDGE Conference also brings together some of the top performing veteran business owners from Inc. Magazine’s iconic Inc. 5000 list. Created in partnership with Inc. Magazine, the Vet100 list highlights the fastest-growing veteran-owned companies based in the United States. At Veteran EDGE, the IVMF will host the Vet100 Dinner and Awards Ceremony, sponsored by Fiserv.
In addition to the keynote speakers, Vet100 recipients, and accelerator participants, military- affiliated entrepreneurs from the state of Texas and across the nation will be in attendance. With more than 15 active-duty military installations and 1.4 million Texans having served in the military, the Lone Star State is a frequent location for IVMF events. Already in 2024, the IVMF has hosted a Military Entrepreneurship Forum in Austin, and a CEO Circle conference in Plano.
Veteran entrepreneurs from Texas, like U.S. Navy veteran Anthony Cosby, Founder and CEO of STZY Footwear, will be in attendance and available for interviews. Cosby is a graduate of the IVMF’s Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans program at Texas A&M University and has previously attended Veteran EDGE conferences in addition to being a Bunker Labs Ambassador in the Texas area. Joining Cosby to share their success stories are other local military-affiliated entrepreneurs like U.S. Marine Corps veterans Chris Robinson and Ryan Holloway. Robinson, who served as an F/A-18 pilot for more than 12 years in the Marine Corps, is the Co-Founder & Co-CEO of Clearyst, headquarters in Austin, Texas. The company provides software-based sustainability solutions for businesses and organizations. Holloway served for eight years in personnel and administrative positions prior to launching a career in human resources. He is now the owner of Holloway Benefit Concepts located in the Dallas Metro Area and specializing in educating small to medium-sized businesses understand the employee benefit marketplace.
