SBA recognizes 2005 Veterans Champion

Seldom would I write a column focused on the past deeds and the potential offered by just one person in our region. But the U.S. Small Business Adminsitration Regional and National Veterans Champion for 2005 not only deserves this recognition, but I have such faith in his commitment and dedication to making opportunities available for veterans in the future that I am willing to take a column to discuss him.

I am speaking about Patrick Heavey, a veterans’ business representative in St. Louis, whose work over the last 30 years would impress and educate just about anyone.

Heavey’s achievements include not only founding the St. Louis Veterans Business Resource Center, with the financial help of SBA, but also frequently contributing to legislation affecting veterans’ lives and their ability to become entrepreneurs.

Those achievements alone netted him the federal government’s highest award for veterans’ advocacy in 2005. But there is more.

Heavey displays in his daily course of work the dedication and commitment to his life’s work and to his cause that lead me to call the man a hero. I do not say it lightly. This is a man who went to whatever lengths it took to arrange for the first overseas Internet Veterans FastTrac Class.

Initially, he did it for just one veteran, an Army National Guard sergeant first class, R.T. Guzofski, who was deployed to Iraq prior to being able to begin a FastTrac series of training in Milford, Mass., near suburban Boston. Guzofski is planning to open either a gym or his own body shop when he returns from duty at the end of 2005.

He wrote to Louis Celli, director of the SBA-sponsored New England Veterans Business Resource Center, to ask if there was an online version of the class or a CD that could be sent for him to study. Celli began to search for ways to deliver the training through the Internet. He ran into obstacles … the time difference between here and Baghdad was one, and being unable to jump that hurdle, for a while Celli coached Guzofski, and then other guardsmen in Iraq, to help them produce a business plan.

One day, Guzofski reported to Celli that he had talked with members of his unit and found seven who owned their own businesses, eight who wanted to start businesses after their return to the United States and 17 others who wanted to explore entrepreneurship as an alternative to their prior occupations. Most had their own laptops or could borrow one. Projection equipment was available, and training time would be granted by their commander. Now the stakes were getting higher all the time.

When Patrick Heavey heard about the impending pilot program with FastTrac – the first Internet training to be offered overseas – he pitched in his expertise above and beyond his regular duty.

He committed money for the project, funded and found additional instructors and speakers to develop a training program that would not be monotonous, as distance learning often becomes. He researched the Internet hosting companies and their capabilities, and he found an avenue through time and space to deliver the goods.

The first box containing course material for 40 soldiers signed up for the weekly training – offered free to veterans by the Veterans Corporation – arrived in Iraq on April 8. Classes began this month and will be offered twice a day to accommodate soldiers on day and night shifts.

Certainly there were other heroes who helped to make this opportunity possible, including Boston VBRC Director Celli and, most certainly, Guzofski himself, for pursuing the American dream of ownership for himself and by sharing his opportunity with others.

But then, that’s what entrepreneurship is all about, and that’s why the U.S. Small Business Administration exists – working through its resource providers across this nation, and now, wherever American citizens reside.

Sam Jones is the Region VII SBA Administrator.