Hello, and thank you for having me today. I'm very pleased to be part of this group. I just hope I can pass on a few instances that can be helpful, going forward, for other veteran entrepreneurs.
I've been running my business for eight years now. It started from the ground up with no working capital and basically no support from the banks, DND, Veterans Affairs or anything like that. What I found is that there's quite a community of organizations within the Department of National Defence and Veterans Affairs that are looking for programs that can help veterans in transition or working through PTSD.
I do a lot of work with veterans' organizations and some work with DND through Soldier On and the OSI clinics, which are two that I work with, and with military family support centres. I've done work with them hosting classes for veterans in blacksmithing. I also travel around western Canada and work with various veterans' charities. I work to support veterans and show them blacksmithing techniques. We do workshops, classes and things like that.
What I've found, and this is only in my experience, is that there isn't really a central depository of information available for an entrepreneur like me about how to be included in the Department of National Defence or Veterans Affairs programs so we can provide our services. That would have been helpful.
In all the work I've done to date, usually members of those groups have contacted me or have heard about me through word of mouth, or they've searched my website online or gone through Facebook or something like that. It's been very informal. There hasn't been anything that I have looked at for programs that I could be of assistance with to veterans going forward. That's basically one hurdle I've seen, so that would be something I'd like to hear some feedback on.