October 24, 2025 • 34 mins
Waco Hoover is an entrepreneur and investor with over 20 years of experience in venture capital, M&A, entertainment, media and live events.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I am Rich Parat from John Jay and Rich the
host of CEOs you should know. This week's CEO is
Waco Hoover, founder and partner of MCON, the nation's largest
celebration of military culture. Here how he's building a platform
that empowers veterans, connects communities, it inspires change.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
So I grew up in a small town called Viera Beach, Florida,
on East Coast, about two hours north of Miami. I
grew up in a with military family, served a couple
of tours of Vietnam, a second ear more grandparents serving
World War Two. So come from a multi generational military
family which has been which is definitely shaped you know, however.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
View the world And where'd you go to school?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
I did my undergrad at NYU in New York City,
and they did grad school at Florida State University standing.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
And then of course you talked about military service, and
I know the apple doesn't fall for from the tree.
You did service, So we appreciate what you've done for
our country. Can you tell us a little bit about
why you joined and how many years you served?
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (00:59):
So I served in the Marine Corps. Was the Infantry Marine.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
I served four years in the in the infantry to
point through Southeast Asia, and it was you know, it's interesting.
Speaker 4 (01:10):
Why did I serve in the military. You know, I
want to.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Say that, you know, I wasn't rebelling for my father
because he told me, he said, son, I support you
whatever you do. And enlisting in the military and not
going straight to college. He's like, but just don't join.
Speaker 4 (01:24):
The Marine Corps. And what did I do? I joined
the Marine Corps.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
And I'm looking back on it as a young person.
I definitely I don't believe I was intentionally doing that.
Just the Marine Corps, the spree Is Corps, the high standards.
It spoke to me, and so it was just a funny,
you know, kind of actual story, you know, of him
telling me that. But uh yeah, I will say that
the military, my experience in the Marine Corps I was
(01:47):
described as some of the best and worst times you know,
of my life.
Speaker 4 (01:51):
But I wouldn't trade it for anything.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
And the experience, everything you learn, the relationships. It set
me up to be successful in so many other things.
I had no idea post service.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
Well, I'm glad that you talked about that Waco, and
just a little bit later on we talk about leadership
in this series and CEOs you should know. And I've
talked to so many people that have had outstanding military service,
like yourself, and taken that to the private sector, whether
it's for a nonprofit, and there are so many correlations.
And I'm a big sports guy, and as you know,
between sports, the business world and the military, there's a
(02:24):
lot of things that you can integrate when it comes
to structure and teamwork and honor and duty and all
those things of leadership. So I want to talk about
that in just a little bit, but we're obviously here
to talk about MCON that's coming up in Las Vegas
October twenty three through the twenty six. Now there's a
lot to talk about with all your speakers, You've got
a huge list of people, and I know you put
(02:44):
this together, and I guess the first thing before we
talk about mission and vision, the speakers and all the
events that are happening during that event coming up very
soon this month, about the Ridin story about starting it,
because I know you've got a lot of irons in
the fire that i'd like you to talk about today
that you do, whether it's right directly with the military, indirectly,
But when you came up with this idea, what did
you want to do? What did you want to kind
(03:05):
of put together here?
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Yeah, So m CON is this culmination of a couple
decades of like building communities, building event and media brands
and platforms with myself and our partners, and you know,
and then also like myself having lived, you know, the
experience and being very involved in it, but then also
my partners who did not serve in the military, but
they're you know, they're patriots, they love our country, they
(03:30):
want to support service members in their families as much
as possible.
Speaker 4 (03:34):
It really was identifying this white space that existed.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Quite frankly, and you know, if you look at it,
virtually every other community in our country has a large scale,
annual tent pole celebration, right for lack of a better term,
celebrating those people or this thing or this theme. Two
examples are, you know, if you've ever ever heard of
Dragon Con, it's almost like twenty thousand people all celebrating
fantasy and dragons in that whole world, you know, which
(04:00):
is amazing, and that's their thing and they love and
they're passionate about it. Another example is the Essence Festival,
which is the largest celebration of black culture in this country.
Speaker 4 (04:07):
It takes place in.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
New Orleans every year. I think it's over fifty thousand
people at this point. It's just an amazing celebration of
black culture.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
But for us, the military is high visibility, and.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
As important as we are to this country and our service,
we don't have a large scale celebration of what we did.
And so we are all about and we built MCON
to create the largest celebration of military culture at the
end of the day, celebrating things like culture and service
and sacrifice and purpose and community and really remembering and
(04:42):
celebrating what that service is. Because all too often there
is this there's this there's this perception of the broken
veteran that permeates many pockets of American society. And the
reality is that, yeah, there's a number of men, there's
a lot of men and women that we need to
help and support in the ways that to get them
through whatever they might be struggling with it's related to
their military experience.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
But the reality is the vast majority of.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Us that serve are out there doing amazing things in
their communities, building businesses, executives in the workplace, in their schools, churches,
you know, whatever they're doing. And so we want to
celebrate people doing extraordinary things in their lives because of
their military service, not in spite of it. And one
of the best ways to do that is create these
(05:27):
at scale tent poles where you're bringing together huge brands,
huge partners that are endemic to the military community, VADO,
D and otherwise, and you know nonprofits that we work with,
but then also all the other groups that may be
more tangential but they are more peripherially or loosely supporting
the military, but they don't know how to do it
(05:47):
in the most authentic and impactful way, and we want
to help educate them to do that, because at the
end of the day, the military and men and women
that serve make extraordinary sacrifices that most people have no idea.
The true reality is what those hardships look like. And
so how do we bolster that, how do we celebrate
that at scale? And that's what I'm comes all about.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Outstanding Well, a lot of talk about when it comes
to the guest lineup, which is absolutely extraordinary. I know
you've packed a lot in when it comes to this event.
But you know, one of the really cool things that
we love to talk about, not only mission and vision,
but I think more specifically. You know, if people in
our listenership are being introduced to MCON for the first time,
if you were to kind of give a thirty thousand
foot view Waco about what this exactly is in short form,
(06:28):
what would you tell them?
Speaker 2 (06:31):
I would say that MCON brings together the military community
like no weather event in the country, and we are
building a program a platform to inspire, inform, and entertain
our community.
Speaker 4 (06:43):
So that for every.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Man, woman, kid, family member, or the supporter that comes
through that door, yes, they're going to have a great
time with all the activities and the speakers and the
culinary experiences. But most importantly, they are going to leave
their experience, whether it's one day or all four days,
and they are going to be exposed to a deep
stack of resources that they most likely have not been
(07:05):
exposed to. And so they're going to go back to
the local military base all in Las Vegas, or they're
going to fly across country back to where that is,
or go back to their home wherever that might be,
and they're going to be better armed and more equipped
with information and knowledge that can help them live their
life to the best of their ability post service. And
that is what that is what we are trying to
(07:27):
do with them, Colin, is we're trying to improve outcomes
and quality of life for service members, veterans in their families.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
You know, Wiko. One of the things the resumeeds to
me that you're talking about right there in any CEO
that I've talked to, any company about a product or
a service that they offer, the human condition is that
we want to be able to relate to each other.
And when you talked about that white area that you had,
that hole in the industry that wasn't there that you
and the other people put together when it comes to income,
we're talking about people that could be suffering from many
(07:56):
different things, or have different experiences or same experiences, are
all kind together and saying, you know what, I'm not
the only person on the planet that's feeling this way.
And when you hear that speaker talk or you're sitting
next to that person saying, hey, you know what, we
had the same experience is this is what it really
is all truly about, isn't it.
Speaker 4 (08:12):
That's that's exactly where we're at.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
I mean, we've got pro athletes sharing their journey and
how they've had mental health struggle struggles, but they are
now pro athletes post service, which is incredible. We've got
amazing entrepreneurs who have founded multi billion dollar businesses sharing
their struggles and their journeys. And you know, all of
our services, all of our journeys and our experiences are relative.
(08:34):
And you might be you might come to the event
and you might be rock bottom looking for what's the
way just to reboot the trajectory of where I'm at
right now. Or you might be in the place where
you're looking to scale your business and you need to
raise capital, or you've already had successful exits and you
want to impart mentorship. The reality is everyone's coming for
(08:54):
a different purpose, and we want to we call it
engineered serendipity.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
We want to give people opportunity to have.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Connections with individuals and organizations that can support them and
help them accomplish whatever the next chapter is. That is
a huge part of what we're trying to accomplish.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
You know, one of the other things I was thinking
about as I was hearing about MCON and the amazing
things that you have created. Here. I'll give you an example.
So I've been in sports radio and television for almost
thirty years, but a long time ago I didn't know
about other program directors in sports radio and the country,
never had a chance to meet them talk with them.
And finally heard about this conference that was in Phoenix
that this guy had put together, and all the program
(09:32):
directors from around the country came together. We golfed, and
we had seminars. And what I had an opportunity to
do is to be able to once again relate to
that fellow person about my experiences, the good stuff, the
bad stuff, but also learn. And as I see and
I look at Amcon with all the different things going
on and all the different speaker lists, that I want
you to talk about this a moment once again, it's
that fellowship being brought together about all these people that
(09:55):
might have shared or similar experiences. They get to be
together for three or four days and to talk about
it and live it, and it's got to be an
extraordinary experience for everybody.
Speaker 4 (10:04):
It is, And that's exactly right.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
And at the most fundamental level, community facilitates social connections.
Social connection saves lives at the end of the day,
and that is it prevents isolation, it creates inspiration. There's
learning opportunities or connectivity we talk about all the time.
You know, Sebastian Young are amazing your time's bestselling author,
one of the most accomplished war correspond correspondents of our generation.
(10:30):
He's been a guest speaker and an amazing support of
MCON and you know, he has a book called Tribe
and Finding your Tribe is something that we talk about
all the time. And that's that's not the easiest thing
to do when you transition out the military. Transition from
activity service to veteran is very very challenging. It can
(10:50):
be very challenging for It is very challenging for the
service member, challenging for the spouse, the kids, you know,
and so there is a we want to bolster and
support the existing programs that are there, and then on
the other side of that, we want to talk about
a lot of the nuance that's involved with this.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
You don't know what you don't know at the.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
End of the day, and purpose is relative, and we
tend to take a bit of a rubber stamp approach
with how we provide resources to service members, and the
reality is is what you know somebody who served six
years versus somebody who served twenty four years officer list
and what they need and where they're going is very,
very different. So we need to use a scalpel with
(11:28):
how we support our service members to ensure that there
is the best outcome and talking about things like the
nuance of purpose.
Speaker 4 (11:35):
Oftentimes we think that.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Hey, I'm going to get a good job, I'm going
to make a decent living cool, I've got purpose. Well,
there couldn't be anything farther from the truth. Like some
of us are going to fill our cup with work,
with owning a business or being an executive or whatever
you do. But there's a huge category of individuals and
service members and veterans who that's never going to fill
(11:56):
your coup It doesn't matter how successful you are. You're
just going to keep pouring liquid into that cup, but
it's going to keep going out. So you've got to
identify other things that are going to get you at
when you get out of bed that day, put your
feet on the ground, you're going to be jacked up
and pumped to go get after. It can be something
that you're doing in your local church. It could be
coaching at your kid's sports team, or any sports team
(12:17):
for that matter. It could be mentorship, it could be
big involved in a veteran nonprofit. There is an endless
amount of things that you can lean into and really
identify purpose. What's going to fill you, what's going to
make you feel inspired to live the best version of
your life. And there's so much nuance around that. That's
such an important piece to be able to dissect and
(12:38):
share that with men and women so they understand that
I don't have to reinvent the wheel here. There are
millions of individuals who have come before me. So let's
build out a playbook. Let's be data driven and outcome
oriented to how we can support people so that we
don't have to make the same mistakes. As an entrepreneur
and investor, over the past twenty years, I have screwed
(12:59):
more things up that I've had successes.
Speaker 4 (13:01):
But I've I've learned for that.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
That's you know, as long as you're as long as
you're like baseball, as long as you're patting averages around
three hundred, you're doing well in business and investing in
companies and building them and so, uh, that is something
that you know, we know, fail fast, fail forward, but
it's it's only there's only no value and failure if
you learn if you don't learn from it. As long
as you learn from it and you apply that and
(13:23):
you improve upon it, and you can share that knowledge
with other people, your team, your organization, yourself, there's tremendous
value and failure and all too often we're letting our
service members poke around in the dark without giving them
resources and playbooks that are already there.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
Yeah, that's all well said wayco and really resonating words
when it comes out, and you're not the first one,
and almost every leader in the series has talked about
the umpteen failures that they had and learning from that
and eventually getting went out there. And then my final
takeaway I think with this is for a lot of
people that are going to tend just to be seen
and heard at this conference is really important too, isn't it.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
Well, that's exactly right.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Sometimes we don't feel like we have a voice and
also are there's around fifty thousand betteran nonprofits.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
Some are huge national organizations that you've.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Heard of, like when Warrior Projects, THEFW American legion, and
you know, Blue Star families and so on. Others are
much smaller regional groups, but that doesn't matter how big
or small you are. The impact of saving one life
or the impact of helping somebody get a job or
get them out of homelessness, whatever the scenario is that
(14:32):
you're supporting or employing a military spouse, there's tremendous impact
in that, and so being able to understand, wait a minute,
I don't have to reinvent the wheel over again if
I want to have my voice heard. There are other
organizations you've already done this, learn from them, leverage those things,
and apply that to your community in a really powerful
and profound way because you can also do it and
(14:53):
it's much more data driven.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
Is the other piece, and that is a huge part
of what we look at.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
Your speaker lineup is huge, and I'm not it's incredible,
and I know you can go through all of them,
but I would love you to go symptoms that you're
excited about and also maybe some of the topics that
are going to be explored. Can you go through some
of them for us?
Speaker 4 (15:12):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Absolutely, you know, this is a this is a hard one.
I intentionally didn't put a short list together because there
are so many great people and I don't want anybody
feel like I left them out internationally, because they're all incredible,
you know, in their own right, and so you know,
I got to call out, you know, a good friend,
but also you know amazing executive.
Speaker 4 (15:28):
That's doctor Tina Athrol. She's the CEO of psych Armor.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
They do incredible work across our entire military community with
cultural compency training and other types of things to ensure
that community care providers understand how to engage.
Speaker 4 (15:44):
And work with veterans and their families.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
There are there are so many preventable outcomes, negative outcomes
that we could help with if you simply if the
care provider simply identifies that somebody is a veteran so
you can ask additional questions and she and her team
partner with them. On imcon health, where we're talking about
human performance, we are talking about reinventing the continue of care,
(16:07):
economics of care delivery, community partnerships.
Speaker 4 (16:11):
We've got six pillars that we built out and this
is all about how.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
We drive different outcomes. Dennis, you're probably feel familiar with this.
A lot of listeners are, but for the past twenty years,
we have not been able to put a measurable dent
in active duty and veteran suicide despite spending more money.
And so this program, it's very intentional that it was
in Washington, d C.
Speaker 4 (16:31):
Or part of the usual places, and I'm DC all
the time.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
There are so many amazing men and women who work
very hard, you know DC at the agencies and nonprofits there.
But we wanted to get outside of the traditional forum
that are there, the DC bubble, so we can have
different conversations.
Speaker 4 (16:47):
We're bringing in different amazing speakers.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
One example is a Green Beret veteran got a Mike Emkes,
the co founder of Function Health. Function Health is the
fastest growing health tech company in history. Went from it
went from zero to i think almost four hundred million
dollars in three years.
Speaker 4 (17:05):
They just did a raise. Is all public.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
They did a raise earlier this year to two point
five billion dollar valuation. And it's all about how you
test and you look at different a much broader array
of biomarkers so that you can be preventive in nature
with how you look at your own personal health care.
So they're democratizing how we can do that and the
same thing for everything we're doing around this, we're looking
(17:27):
at upstream oriented solutions so that you eliminate men and
women getting to point a crisis or dealing with issues
before it even happens. But one thing on the health
piece before I move on, that I'll talk about is
a term that we use is called brain health. Shifting
away from this notionure of mental health. Brain health, this
great organ up here floating around in our brain in
(17:49):
our heads, is the most important organ in the body
because it informs and influences everything else.
Speaker 4 (17:55):
But we think about it in this.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Very subjective terms traditionally around mental health. And that's not
to demonize you know, mental health professionals in any way,
shape or form, but we need to eliminate the stigma
associated with how we think about mental health and brain health.
You know, therapy is no different than going to the gym.
You know, you want to improve, like how heavy the
(18:17):
spots that you can push or your bench press, You
got to put in the time in the gym. If
you're dealing with something that's going on with the chemistry
up in your brain, you've got to put in the work.
But the science is showing us that we can make
cognitive measurable improvement if we work at it, if we
employ these different therapies that are out there, and so
it's really incredible that we're able to showcase a lot
(18:39):
of these different modalities and transformative therapies to our community
and executives and professionals from different agencies to actually affect
change and look at how we can implement them and
furthermore research. So that's the health and wellness piece of it.
And we've got cold punch pools and UFC providers do
a combative expos so tons of cool stuff as it
relates to that, but you.
Speaker 4 (19:00):
Know, some of the other stuff that we're doing, you know,
I want to call out a gentleman, Tyler Gray.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Tyler is a Green Beret, you know, Army Ranger stiper.
He was a Delta Force operator and you know he
got you know, got injured pretty in a pretty hoarly way.
He's come out since, had an extraordinary story and a
TV on CBS or TV show on CBS. Now he's
a best selling author for a book he just dropped
(19:26):
and he's going to be talking about his own personal
journey and kind of what we alluded to earlier. People
were talking about you know what, I was in a really,
really horrible spot. But here is how I pulled myself out.
Here's here the resources that I tapped in to do that.
You don't have to go this alone. And look at him.
He is one of the most highly trained operators in
the world at that level and he still struggled with things.
(19:49):
So everyone take a minute and pause and think about
that for a moment.
Speaker 4 (19:53):
You know, regardless of where.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
You are or you're the low the different types of training,
if you were an admin, or even if you're a
pavilion and you're you know, you're not an All Star
athlete or anything. People at the highest lea because that's
one of being a professional athlete going to the All
Star Game, you know, every year, and those individuals are
being vulnerable and forth rine transparent about those journeys. So
(20:16):
it's incredibly inspiring to see people who are willing to
put themselves out there in service of others.
Speaker 4 (20:21):
And that's a that's a theme that continues to permeate.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
And then we foster and I'm calling is you know,
service never stops at the end of the day. You know,
there's a number of other you know, really incredible folks
that I you know that I want to call out
as well. Gosh, who let's uh, let's so. Another person
is a Charlotte Creach. She's the chief program officer at
Higher Heroes USA. They do absolutely incredible work on the
(20:47):
hiring side, the transition piece. They have an incredibly data
driven approach to every dollar that goes into you know, supporting.
Speaker 4 (20:55):
A veteran and hiring.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
They've been able to push that number down so that
they're able to to be as efficient as possible. With
all of the brand partners that are putting resources into that,
they're just doing extraordinary work.
Speaker 4 (21:06):
You know.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Some of the other ones that I want to call
out is Blue Star Families and some of the work
they're doing with Starbucks Target Shabani. From a brand partnership piece,
they are They're what winning looks like at the end
of the day. Both partners are engaged, believe in the mission.
They're both taking a very data driven approach to it.
(21:30):
They're looking at how they build out authentic and impactful.
Speaker 4 (21:33):
Programs, not one or the other.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
And the corporate brand partners they're not taking a check
the box. So we're just doing this because it feels nice.
They're doing it because they want to understand every dollar
that they contribute or every resource they contribute, it's not
just about money that is going to make a huge
difference in that.
Speaker 4 (21:50):
So we've got just an amazing group of people there.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
And then the other piece of that is General Rudi
Rae is marine recon veteran, TV shows on Fox and
other places, just on HBO, just an amazing human. He
just was always so vulnerable and inspiring with the stories
that he tells. So he's going to be out of
Range Day with us doing some incredible things and other
pieces of that. The other thing I want to call
(22:13):
out his own Range Day that we're hosting on Friday.
That's the big kind of the consumer part of the
event that kicks off at Clark County Shooting Complex.
Speaker 4 (22:21):
And we've got, yeah, we're slinging arrows down range. We're
having a blast.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
We are you know, we have you know, we're working
with the National Shooting Sports Foundation, We're walking to the
USCCA ARC on firearms and a bunch of amazing groups.
But one of the things I'm really proud of is
what we're doing around the topic of secure storage, and
it's about cultural change. And Dennis, I don't know if
you are if you're familiar with the Edelman Trust Barometer,
but Edelman's a huge global agency. Every year they do
(22:48):
this survey of over thirty three thousand consumers, and what
that survey tells us is that consistently consumers, the individual veterans,
and every wise all of us.
Speaker 4 (22:58):
You mean, we trust corporate.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
Brands more than NGO's, more than media, and more than government.
And so corporate brands have a powerful, powerful opportunity to step.
Speaker 4 (23:08):
In and affect change and influence change.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
And so we're really thrilled to be partnering with the
firearms industry, the outdoor industry to help to reshape culturally
how we think about secure storage. And why that's important
to call out is over seventy percent of veterans that
die by suicide use a firearm. And I want to
be very clear, I'm not picking on firearms when I
say that. It is just a statistic, and quite frankly,
(23:33):
it represents an opportunity to dramatically reduce suicide if we're
able to create more time and distance if someone is
in crisis or if they're struggling, and so you know,
the response we get all to oftens when individuals and
firearms owners aren't locking up the weapons. Is you know what,
I need my weapon accessible if something goes bumping the
night you protection self defense, totally understand that. But the
(23:53):
reality is is there are gun lock boxes now today
that you can have open and sub two seconds and
get access to that weapon. But you can still keep
it locked up and you can still protect your family,
members of the community who might be in your home
get access to that firearm or from theft. And so
we're reshaping that cultural narrative around training. And so we're
(24:15):
going to have a number of different training exercises out
there or were actually gonna be demonstrating putting people in
the clock to start in one position, move to numbers
another position, open the gun, block box, load it, taking
a number of steps, engage your target, clock stops. So
we're going to demonstrate and showcase and also have a
lot of fun and gamify it that Hey, guys, there's
no excuse if self defense is a priority. You can
(24:36):
still keep your firearms locked up and ready when you
need them. So the cultural change you see continues to
be a permeating theme for im CON and that's a
big part of it, and then some of the other
things we're doing on Saturday Sunday, We've got musical performances
for local artists who are veterans, some.
Speaker 4 (24:52):
Which who are veterans.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
We've got amazing authors and you know, amazing authors.
Speaker 4 (24:59):
We've got amazed pro athletes.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
I mentioned we're gonna have UFC profile it fighters doing
a combatives expo and Naval Special Warfare and Air Force
Special Operations. We're doing that with the WEE to five Foundation,
which is going to be really incredible.
Speaker 4 (25:12):
So the.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
Group of people, organizations, that's hundreds of organizations, hundreds of
brand partners.
Speaker 4 (25:21):
We're expecting, you.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Know, almost six thousand attendees this year. We're just looking
to have a great event for people to come together
and walk away with amazing resources, and we have a
really great times standing.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
I appreciate you sharing all that WACAN. At the end,
I promise, well, we're going to give the website how
to get tickets, all of that, the dates where it
is at the expo in Vegas, and everything you need
to know if you already have in Google that I
did promise. I wanted to talk about leadership WACO, and
I think there's so many correlations once again between military
and sports and the private sector what you do, and
I know that not only am con, you do so
(25:52):
many other things that I'd love for you to talk
about without embarrassing you, because I know you're very busy
with your different buckets that you work with when it
comes to the military and all these different projects you are.
But when you hear the word leadership with what you
grew up with and where you are today and how
you access it and how you use it, can you
talk a little bit about leadership for our listenership? Please?
Speaker 4 (26:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
I think for me, leadership is something that's always evolving.
I look at when I was a young entrepreneur, a
young CEO, and some of the leadership traits that I
exhibited not the greatest, you know, and I'm completely honest
about that. But you're constantly evolving, You're growing as a person,
(26:34):
You're learning, you're reading. And I love Michaelangelo's quote. I
think it was in the sixties when he said it.
Speaker 4 (26:40):
I am still learning.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
I won't even embarrass myself and try to pronounce it
in Italian, but I'm still learning. You have one of
the greatest, one of the greatest artists in history, still
in his sixties saying I am still learning, and I
think that is one of the most important aspects of
leadership is being vulner and being openness, because I think
that I actually know when you when you lead with
(27:02):
leadership in that capacity where we're always constantly evolving and learning,
that triples down to the organization, from your your executives,
your managers, the individuals, because it informs that we can
respectfully challenge each other, we can try new things, we
can innovate. And one of the things that we see
all too often across different pockets of government agencies, I think,
(27:23):
and you know some of them which are directly you know,
in charge with supporting veterans, is there can be this
complacency or we can get we can trip over bureaucracy
and red tape in a in which ultimately hurts the
warfight or the service member and their family. And I
say that not picking on individuals that work there because
they're part of a bigger system, but constantly learning and
(27:45):
evolving and trying new things and measuring that measuring and adjusting.
Measuring and adjusting is incredibly important and so from a
from a leadership standpoint. We always try to instill that
in folks. And then the other piece I touched on earlier,
the mistake. You know, people are going to make mistakes,
your your contractors, your employees, your partners.
Speaker 4 (28:06):
You know.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
I had to develop this over time with my father.
And forgiveness is a really important aspect of And granted,
there's certain things that you don't come back from that
you don't forget obviously hopefully those are obvious and there's
nuance step, but you know.
Speaker 4 (28:21):
People are not perfect.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
I am not perfect, and being able to allow people
to stub their toe and come back from that, makeup
for it and still be a good contributing member of
your team is something that's I think a really important.
Speaker 4 (28:34):
Aspect of how you build a good, healthy culture.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
At some point, you know, if someone goes too far,
you know, or there's not performing to the standards, you
got to you got to make a change. Obviously it
goes without saying, but like I said, the forgiveness piece
and the continual process improven piece are such important aspects
of leadership.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
Well, my takeaways from what you just talked about, and
it's very prophetic what you had said, but there's a
lot of humility to being a leader and also self
awareness and it really takes those kind of things and
then counting on your team all the time. I did
mention a lot of the things that you're working on,
and I know, don't we can have our own separate
podcast all the amazing things that you're doing, but I
know you're very proud of some other things that you're
(29:11):
working on. Can just for a few moments share what
you're doing?
Speaker 4 (29:15):
Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
There's a number of programs that we're involved in that
there are absolutely incredible.
Speaker 4 (29:19):
You know. One of those is some of the work
I do with the American Legion.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
I chair the American Legion's national suicide prevention program called
Be the One for two point six million members and
it is in an extraordinary program where.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
We first launched it about a year and a half ago.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
In the first ten months, we trained almost thirteen thousand
of our members and staff on suicide prevention. We worked
with the Columbe University with the Columbia Protocol, and we
built an app called the Be the One app where
you could literally go through it and you know, Dennis,
you me or the lay person, not a clinician, if
you are dealing with somebody who may be potentially in crisis.
Speaker 4 (29:54):
It is a very easy series of.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Checklists to go through and figure out out if somebody
is at low monitor high risk risk of suicide again
using a scalpel like I talked about earlier. So we're
incredibly proud of that work, you know, that we've done
to educate men and women and think of it as
CPR for the brain. It is a community health based approach.
You know, CPR saves hundreds of thousands of people's.
Speaker 4 (30:16):
Lives every year.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
It's millions of lives since it was first you know,
rolled out, you know, back in the eighties and nineties,
and we need to take that approach with suicide prevention
in this country so that you me, other people are
informed and equipped to identify somebody who may be going
through struggles because oftentimes you signals are not obvious at all.
And so very proud of the work that the American
Legion is dealing would be the one and other things.
(30:39):
Another great program that we're dealing with the Department of
Veterans Affairs is two years ago we stood up a
program a venture studio inside the VA and so we
launched what's called the Veterans Health Venture Studio with a
good friend and colleague, doctor Andresendahl.
Speaker 4 (30:54):
She's the brain child. She has the brain child behind
all this.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
And the idea is to bring in men and women
from outside the walls of the VA and also inside
another partner organizations to tackle to look at the biggest
points of friction, the biggest challenges to improving quality of care,
and we're going to build tools, technology and AI driven
platforms that can help solve those problems at scale. And
so the Venture Studio is a year long program where
(31:20):
teams get selected and continue to go on through those
different programs ultimately and at the end of the year,
certain teams are selected and will ultimately be piloted in
different organizations and hospital settings across the VA, and the
ones that demonstrate the most advocacy are then.
Speaker 4 (31:36):
Scaled across the enterprise.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
So it's a very innovative, fast moving program designed to
improve care, improve access, and prove quality care for veterans
in those who serves.
Speaker 4 (31:46):
That term is amazing.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
And the other thing that I do that really sits
across all of these programs is, you know, I co
founded a brand strategy agency called Impact Group and what
we do is we specialize in working with large corporate
its foundations, other organizations to build out programs for organizations
that are looking to support and create impact programs for
(32:11):
military service members, veterans in their family. So that can
be you know, employee resource group inside the corporation, it
could be building out a robust impact social social impact
program working with nonprofits. But what's unique about us is
we align the corporate goals and objectives with the organization
(32:31):
of the itty and we match that up with the
impact conditions they want to lean into so that they're
data driven and we ensure that they get a creative
impact not only on the organization employees and customers, but
they also are able to really in a detail, in
a data driven away, measure the outcomes for those nonprofit
partners that are serving to ensure that those resources are
(32:53):
having the most impact. So there's a number of other
groups that I'm invested in, but those are at a
high level. Some of the things that I'm most proud
of and really related to the great work that myself,
our partners, and our other stakeholders and team members are
doing to support veterans and their families.
Speaker 3 (33:07):
Well, I appreciate you sharing all that way. It never
sees it to amaze me in this series when we
talk to CEOs and leaders and entrepreneurs, they're involved in
so many things, they're just not that many hours in
the day. Yeah, you somehow make it because of all
the energy and passion that you have, and that comes
through tremendously as I talk to you. Well, let's we
promised to give the website and also the dates of
m CON twenty twenty five, how to get tickets where
(33:30):
it's located the Expo in Vegas. So if you could
kind of give everybody just one last thing about how
they can be a part of this, let's let's let's
get them all set up absolutely.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
M CON twenty twenty five is coming up October twenty
third through the twenty six in Las Vegas. It's at
the Expo at World Market. If you want to get tickets,
learn more, just go to MCON dot Live, mcon dot
l I ve you can get all the information you need.
You can inquire to our team if you want to
get more information, or you can get your tickets right online.
Speaker 4 (34:00):
Hit the website.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
Understanding, well, Waco, I can't tell you how much I
appreciate your time. First of all, thank you for your
service to our country, but also the things that you've
done after service is just absolutely incredible, and we need
more people like you out there helping our military out there.
But this MCom just sounds like an amazing thing to
be a part of and help people at least take
a look at it. If they can't go, just get
online because the Speaker series is amazing. All the things
(34:21):
wrapped around in Vegas are just absolutely truly incredible. It
is hercule and what you and your team have done
to put this together. Thank you so much for your time,
and we really appreciate focusing and having you on CEOs.
Speaker 4 (34:31):
You should know I really appreciate it. Thank you, guys.
I am Rich Parat from John Jay and Rich the
host of CEOs you should know. This week's CEO is
Waco Hoover, founder and partner of MCON, the nation's largest
celebration of military culture. Here how he's building a platform
that empowers veterans, connects communities, it inspires change.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
So I grew up in a small town called Viera Beach, Florida,
on East Coast, about two hours north of Miami. I
grew up in a with military family, served a couple
of tours of Vietnam, a second ear more grandparents serving
World War Two. So come from a multi generational military
family which has been which is definitely shaped you know, however.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
View the world And where'd you go to school?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
I did my undergrad at NYU in New York City,
and they did grad school at Florida State University standing.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
And then of course you talked about military service, and
I know the apple doesn't fall for from the tree.
You did service, So we appreciate what you've done for
our country. Can you tell us a little bit about
why you joined and how many years you served?
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (00:59):
So I served in the Marine Corps. Was the Infantry Marine.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
I served four years in the in the infantry to
point through Southeast Asia, and it was you know, it's interesting.
Speaker 4 (01:10):
Why did I serve in the military. You know, I
want to.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Say that, you know, I wasn't rebelling for my father
because he told me, he said, son, I support you
whatever you do. And enlisting in the military and not
going straight to college. He's like, but just don't join.
Speaker 4 (01:24):
The Marine Corps. And what did I do? I joined
the Marine Corps.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
And I'm looking back on it as a young person.
I definitely I don't believe I was intentionally doing that.
Just the Marine Corps, the spree Is Corps, the high standards.
It spoke to me, and so it was just a funny,
you know, kind of actual story, you know, of him
telling me that. But uh yeah, I will say that
the military, my experience in the Marine Corps I was
(01:47):
described as some of the best and worst times you know,
of my life.
Speaker 4 (01:51):
But I wouldn't trade it for anything.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
And the experience, everything you learn, the relationships. It set
me up to be successful in so many other things.
I had no idea post service.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
Well, I'm glad that you talked about that Waco, and
just a little bit later on we talk about leadership
in this series and CEOs you should know. And I've
talked to so many people that have had outstanding military service,
like yourself, and taken that to the private sector, whether
it's for a nonprofit, and there are so many correlations.
And I'm a big sports guy, and as you know,
between sports, the business world and the military, there's a
(02:24):
lot of things that you can integrate when it comes
to structure and teamwork and honor and duty and all
those things of leadership. So I want to talk about
that in just a little bit, but we're obviously here
to talk about MCON that's coming up in Las Vegas
October twenty three through the twenty six. Now there's a
lot to talk about with all your speakers, You've got
a huge list of people, and I know you put
(02:44):
this together, and I guess the first thing before we
talk about mission and vision, the speakers and all the
events that are happening during that event coming up very
soon this month, about the Ridin story about starting it,
because I know you've got a lot of irons in
the fire that i'd like you to talk about today
that you do, whether it's right directly with the military, indirectly,
But when you came up with this idea, what did
you want to do? What did you want to kind
(03:05):
of put together here?
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Yeah, So m CON is this culmination of a couple
decades of like building communities, building event and media brands
and platforms with myself and our partners, and you know,
and then also like myself having lived, you know, the
experience and being very involved in it, but then also
my partners who did not serve in the military, but
they're you know, they're patriots, they love our country, they
(03:30):
want to support service members in their families as much
as possible.
Speaker 4 (03:34):
It really was identifying this white space that existed.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Quite frankly, and you know, if you look at it,
virtually every other community in our country has a large scale,
annual tent pole celebration, right for lack of a better term,
celebrating those people or this thing or this theme. Two
examples are, you know, if you've ever ever heard of
Dragon Con, it's almost like twenty thousand people all celebrating
fantasy and dragons in that whole world, you know, which
(04:00):
is amazing, and that's their thing and they love and
they're passionate about it. Another example is the Essence Festival,
which is the largest celebration of black culture in this country.
Speaker 4 (04:07):
It takes place in.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
New Orleans every year. I think it's over fifty thousand
people at this point. It's just an amazing celebration of
black culture.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
But for us, the military is high visibility, and.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
As important as we are to this country and our service,
we don't have a large scale celebration of what we did.
And so we are all about and we built MCON
to create the largest celebration of military culture at the
end of the day, celebrating things like culture and service
and sacrifice and purpose and community and really remembering and
(04:42):
celebrating what that service is. Because all too often there
is this there's this there's this perception of the broken
veteran that permeates many pockets of American society. And the
reality is that, yeah, there's a number of men, there's
a lot of men and women that we need to
help and support in the ways that to get them
through whatever they might be struggling with it's related to
their military experience.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
But the reality is the vast majority of.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Us that serve are out there doing amazing things in
their communities, building businesses, executives in the workplace, in their schools, churches,
you know, whatever they're doing. And so we want to
celebrate people doing extraordinary things in their lives because of
their military service, not in spite of it. And one
of the best ways to do that is create these
(05:27):
at scale tent poles where you're bringing together huge brands,
huge partners that are endemic to the military community, VADO,
D and otherwise, and you know nonprofits that we work with,
but then also all the other groups that may be
more tangential but they are more peripherially or loosely supporting
the military, but they don't know how to do it
(05:47):
in the most authentic and impactful way, and we want
to help educate them to do that, because at the
end of the day, the military and men and women
that serve make extraordinary sacrifices that most people have no idea.
The true reality is what those hardships look like. And
so how do we bolster that, how do we celebrate
that at scale? And that's what I'm comes all about.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
Outstanding Well, a lot of talk about when it comes
to the guest lineup, which is absolutely extraordinary. I know
you've packed a lot in when it comes to this event.
But you know, one of the really cool things that
we love to talk about, not only mission and vision,
but I think more specifically. You know, if people in
our listenership are being introduced to MCON for the first time,
if you were to kind of give a thirty thousand
foot view Waco about what this exactly is in short form,
(06:28):
what would you tell them?
Speaker 2 (06:31):
I would say that MCON brings together the military community
like no weather event in the country, and we are
building a program a platform to inspire, inform, and entertain
our community.
Speaker 4 (06:43):
So that for every.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
Man, woman, kid, family member, or the supporter that comes
through that door, yes, they're going to have a great
time with all the activities and the speakers and the
culinary experiences. But most importantly, they are going to leave
their experience, whether it's one day or all four days,
and they are going to be exposed to a deep
stack of resources that they most likely have not been
(07:05):
exposed to. And so they're going to go back to
the local military base all in Las Vegas, or they're
going to fly across country back to where that is,
or go back to their home wherever that might be,
and they're going to be better armed and more equipped
with information and knowledge that can help them live their
life to the best of their ability post service. And
that is what that is what we are trying to
(07:27):
do with them, Colin, is we're trying to improve outcomes
and quality of life for service members, veterans in their families.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
You know, Wiko. One of the things the resumeeds to
me that you're talking about right there in any CEO
that I've talked to, any company about a product or
a service that they offer, the human condition is that
we want to be able to relate to each other.
And when you talked about that white area that you had,
that hole in the industry that wasn't there that you
and the other people put together when it comes to income,
we're talking about people that could be suffering from many
(07:56):
different things, or have different experiences or same experiences, are
all kind together and saying, you know what, I'm not
the only person on the planet that's feeling this way.
And when you hear that speaker talk or you're sitting
next to that person saying, hey, you know what, we
had the same experience is this is what it really
is all truly about, isn't it.
Speaker 4 (08:12):
That's that's exactly where we're at.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
I mean, we've got pro athletes sharing their journey and
how they've had mental health struggle struggles, but they are
now pro athletes post service, which is incredible. We've got
amazing entrepreneurs who have founded multi billion dollar businesses sharing
their struggles and their journeys. And you know, all of
our services, all of our journeys and our experiences are relative.
(08:34):
And you might be you might come to the event
and you might be rock bottom looking for what's the
way just to reboot the trajectory of where I'm at
right now. Or you might be in the place where
you're looking to scale your business and you need to
raise capital, or you've already had successful exits and you
want to impart mentorship. The reality is everyone's coming for
(08:54):
a different purpose, and we want to we call it
engineered serendipity.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
We want to give people opportunity to have.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Connections with individuals and organizations that can support them and
help them accomplish whatever the next chapter is. That is
a huge part of what we're trying to accomplish.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
You know, one of the other things I was thinking
about as I was hearing about MCON and the amazing
things that you have created. Here. I'll give you an example.
So I've been in sports radio and television for almost
thirty years, but a long time ago I didn't know
about other program directors in sports radio and the country,
never had a chance to meet them talk with them.
And finally heard about this conference that was in Phoenix
that this guy had put together, and all the program
(09:32):
directors from around the country came together. We golfed, and
we had seminars. And what I had an opportunity to
do is to be able to once again relate to
that fellow person about my experiences, the good stuff, the
bad stuff, but also learn. And as I see and
I look at Amcon with all the different things going
on and all the different speaker lists, that I want
you to talk about this a moment once again, it's
that fellowship being brought together about all these people that
(09:55):
might have shared or similar experiences. They get to be
together for three or four days and to talk about
it and live it, and it's got to be an
extraordinary experience for everybody.
Speaker 4 (10:04):
It is, And that's exactly right.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
And at the most fundamental level, community facilitates social connections.
Social connection saves lives at the end of the day,
and that is it prevents isolation, it creates inspiration. There's
learning opportunities or connectivity we talk about all the time.
You know, Sebastian Young are amazing your time's bestselling author,
one of the most accomplished war correspond correspondents of our generation.
(10:30):
He's been a guest speaker and an amazing support of
MCON and you know, he has a book called Tribe
and Finding your Tribe is something that we talk about
all the time. And that's that's not the easiest thing
to do when you transition out the military. Transition from
activity service to veteran is very very challenging. It can
(10:50):
be very challenging for It is very challenging for the
service member, challenging for the spouse, the kids, you know,
and so there is a we want to bolster and
support the existing programs that are there, and then on
the other side of that, we want to talk about
a lot of the nuance that's involved with this.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
You don't know what you don't know at the.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
End of the day, and purpose is relative, and we
tend to take a bit of a rubber stamp approach
with how we provide resources to service members, and the
reality is is what you know somebody who served six
years versus somebody who served twenty four years officer list
and what they need and where they're going is very,
very different. So we need to use a scalpel with
(11:28):
how we support our service members to ensure that there
is the best outcome and talking about things like the
nuance of purpose.
Speaker 4 (11:35):
Oftentimes we think that.
Speaker 2 (11:36):
Hey, I'm going to get a good job, I'm going
to make a decent living cool, I've got purpose. Well,
there couldn't be anything farther from the truth. Like some
of us are going to fill our cup with work,
with owning a business or being an executive or whatever
you do. But there's a huge category of individuals and
service members and veterans who that's never going to fill
(11:56):
your coup It doesn't matter how successful you are. You're
just going to keep pouring liquid into that cup, but
it's going to keep going out. So you've got to
identify other things that are going to get you at
when you get out of bed that day, put your
feet on the ground, you're going to be jacked up
and pumped to go get after. It can be something
that you're doing in your local church. It could be
coaching at your kid's sports team, or any sports team
(12:17):
for that matter. It could be mentorship, it could be
big involved in a veteran nonprofit. There is an endless
amount of things that you can lean into and really
identify purpose. What's going to fill you, what's going to
make you feel inspired to live the best version of
your life. And there's so much nuance around that. That's
such an important piece to be able to dissect and
(12:38):
share that with men and women so they understand that
I don't have to reinvent the wheel here. There are
millions of individuals who have come before me. So let's
build out a playbook. Let's be data driven and outcome
oriented to how we can support people so that we
don't have to make the same mistakes. As an entrepreneur
and investor, over the past twenty years, I have screwed
(12:59):
more things up that I've had successes.
Speaker 4 (13:01):
But I've I've learned for that.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
That's you know, as long as you're as long as
you're like baseball, as long as you're patting averages around
three hundred, you're doing well in business and investing in
companies and building them and so, uh, that is something
that you know, we know, fail fast, fail forward, but
it's it's only there's only no value and failure if
you learn if you don't learn from it. As long
as you learn from it and you apply that and
(13:23):
you improve upon it, and you can share that knowledge
with other people, your team, your organization, yourself, there's tremendous
value and failure and all too often we're letting our
service members poke around in the dark without giving them
resources and playbooks that are already there.
Speaker 3 (13:39):
Yeah, that's all well said wayco and really resonating words
when it comes out, and you're not the first one,
and almost every leader in the series has talked about
the umpteen failures that they had and learning from that
and eventually getting went out there. And then my final
takeaway I think with this is for a lot of
people that are going to tend just to be seen
and heard at this conference is really important too, isn't it.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
Well, that's exactly right.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
Sometimes we don't feel like we have a voice and
also are there's around fifty thousand betteran nonprofits.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
Some are huge national organizations that you've.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
Heard of, like when Warrior Projects, THEFW American legion, and
you know, Blue Star families and so on. Others are
much smaller regional groups, but that doesn't matter how big
or small you are. The impact of saving one life
or the impact of helping somebody get a job or
get them out of homelessness, whatever the scenario is that
(14:32):
you're supporting or employing a military spouse, there's tremendous impact
in that, and so being able to understand, wait a minute,
I don't have to reinvent the wheel over again if
I want to have my voice heard. There are other
organizations you've already done this, learn from them, leverage those things,
and apply that to your community in a really powerful
and profound way because you can also do it and
(14:53):
it's much more data driven.
Speaker 4 (14:55):
Is the other piece, and that is a huge part
of what we look at.
Speaker 3 (14:58):
Your speaker lineup is huge, and I'm not it's incredible,
and I know you can go through all of them,
but I would love you to go symptoms that you're
excited about and also maybe some of the topics that
are going to be explored. Can you go through some
of them for us?
Speaker 4 (15:12):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Absolutely, you know, this is a this is a hard one.
I intentionally didn't put a short list together because there
are so many great people and I don't want anybody
feel like I left them out internationally, because they're all incredible,
you know, in their own right, and so you know,
I got to call out, you know, a good friend,
but also you know amazing executive.
Speaker 4 (15:28):
That's doctor Tina Athrol. She's the CEO of psych Armor.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
They do incredible work across our entire military community with
cultural compency training and other types of things to ensure
that community care providers understand how to engage.
Speaker 4 (15:44):
And work with veterans and their families.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
There are there are so many preventable outcomes, negative outcomes
that we could help with if you simply if the
care provider simply identifies that somebody is a veteran so
you can ask additional questions and she and her team
partner with them. On imcon health, where we're talking about
human performance, we are talking about reinventing the continue of care,
(16:07):
economics of care delivery, community partnerships.
Speaker 4 (16:11):
We've got six pillars that we built out and this
is all about how.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
We drive different outcomes. Dennis, you're probably feel familiar with this.
A lot of listeners are, but for the past twenty years,
we have not been able to put a measurable dent
in active duty and veteran suicide despite spending more money.
And so this program, it's very intentional that it was
in Washington, d C.
Speaker 4 (16:31):
Or part of the usual places, and I'm DC all
the time.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
There are so many amazing men and women who work
very hard, you know DC at the agencies and nonprofits there.
But we wanted to get outside of the traditional forum
that are there, the DC bubble, so we can have
different conversations.
Speaker 4 (16:47):
We're bringing in different amazing speakers.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
One example is a Green Beret veteran got a Mike Emkes,
the co founder of Function Health. Function Health is the
fastest growing health tech company in history. Went from it
went from zero to i think almost four hundred million
dollars in three years.
Speaker 4 (17:05):
They just did a raise. Is all public.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
They did a raise earlier this year to two point
five billion dollar valuation. And it's all about how you
test and you look at different a much broader array
of biomarkers so that you can be preventive in nature
with how you look at your own personal health care.
So they're democratizing how we can do that and the
same thing for everything we're doing around this, we're looking
(17:27):
at upstream oriented solutions so that you eliminate men and
women getting to point a crisis or dealing with issues
before it even happens. But one thing on the health
piece before I move on, that I'll talk about is
a term that we use is called brain health. Shifting
away from this notionure of mental health. Brain health, this
great organ up here floating around in our brain in
(17:49):
our heads, is the most important organ in the body
because it informs and influences everything else.
Speaker 4 (17:55):
But we think about it in this.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Very subjective terms traditionally around mental health. And that's not
to demonize you know, mental health professionals in any way,
shape or form, but we need to eliminate the stigma
associated with how we think about mental health and brain health.
You know, therapy is no different than going to the gym.
You know, you want to improve, like how heavy the
(18:17):
spots that you can push or your bench press, You
got to put in the time in the gym. If
you're dealing with something that's going on with the chemistry
up in your brain, you've got to put in the work.
But the science is showing us that we can make
cognitive measurable improvement if we work at it, if we
employ these different therapies that are out there, and so
it's really incredible that we're able to showcase a lot
(18:39):
of these different modalities and transformative therapies to our community
and executives and professionals from different agencies to actually affect
change and look at how we can implement them and
furthermore research. So that's the health and wellness piece of it.
And we've got cold punch pools and UFC providers do
a combative expos so tons of cool stuff as it
relates to that, but you.
Speaker 4 (19:00):
Know, some of the other stuff that we're doing, you know,
I want to call out a gentleman, Tyler Gray.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Tyler is a Green Beret, you know, Army Ranger stiper.
He was a Delta Force operator and you know he
got you know, got injured pretty in a pretty hoarly way.
He's come out since, had an extraordinary story and a
TV on CBS or TV show on CBS. Now he's
a best selling author for a book he just dropped
(19:26):
and he's going to be talking about his own personal
journey and kind of what we alluded to earlier. People
were talking about you know what, I was in a really,
really horrible spot. But here is how I pulled myself out.
Here's here the resources that I tapped in to do that.
You don't have to go this alone. And look at him.
He is one of the most highly trained operators in
the world at that level and he still struggled with things.
(19:49):
So everyone take a minute and pause and think about
that for a moment.
Speaker 4 (19:53):
You know, regardless of where.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
You are or you're the low the different types of training,
if you were an admin, or even if you're a
pavilion and you're you know, you're not an All Star
athlete or anything. People at the highest lea because that's
one of being a professional athlete going to the All
Star Game, you know, every year, and those individuals are
being vulnerable and forth rine transparent about those journeys. So
(20:16):
it's incredibly inspiring to see people who are willing to
put themselves out there in service of others.
Speaker 4 (20:21):
And that's a that's a theme that continues to permeate.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
And then we foster and I'm calling is you know,
service never stops at the end of the day. You know,
there's a number of other you know, really incredible folks
that I you know that I want to call out
as well. Gosh, who let's uh, let's so. Another person
is a Charlotte Creach. She's the chief program officer at
Higher Heroes USA. They do absolutely incredible work on the
(20:47):
hiring side, the transition piece. They have an incredibly data
driven approach to every dollar that goes into you know, supporting.
Speaker 4 (20:55):
A veteran and hiring.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
They've been able to push that number down so that
they're able to to be as efficient as possible. With
all of the brand partners that are putting resources into that,
they're just doing extraordinary work.
Speaker 4 (21:06):
You know.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
Some of the other ones that I want to call
out is Blue Star Families and some of the work
they're doing with Starbucks Target Shabani. From a brand partnership piece,
they are They're what winning looks like at the end
of the day. Both partners are engaged, believe in the mission.
They're both taking a very data driven approach to it.
(21:30):
They're looking at how they build out authentic and impactful.
Speaker 4 (21:33):
Programs, not one or the other.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
And the corporate brand partners they're not taking a check
the box. So we're just doing this because it feels nice.
They're doing it because they want to understand every dollar
that they contribute or every resource they contribute, it's not
just about money that is going to make a huge
difference in that.
Speaker 4 (21:50):
So we've got just an amazing group of people there.
Speaker 2 (21:53):
And then the other piece of that is General Rudi
Rae is marine recon veteran, TV shows on Fox and
other places, just on HBO, just an amazing human. He
just was always so vulnerable and inspiring with the stories
that he tells. So he's going to be out of
Range Day with us doing some incredible things and other
pieces of that. The other thing I want to call
(22:13):
out his own Range Day that we're hosting on Friday.
That's the big kind of the consumer part of the
event that kicks off at Clark County Shooting Complex.
Speaker 4 (22:21):
And we've got, yeah, we're slinging arrows down range. We're
having a blast.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
We are you know, we have you know, we're working
with the National Shooting Sports Foundation, We're walking to the
USCCA ARC on firearms and a bunch of amazing groups.
But one of the things I'm really proud of is
what we're doing around the topic of secure storage, and
it's about cultural change. And Dennis, I don't know if
you are if you're familiar with the Edelman Trust Barometer,
but Edelman's a huge global agency. Every year they do
(22:48):
this survey of over thirty three thousand consumers, and what
that survey tells us is that consistently consumers, the individual veterans,
and every wise all of us.
Speaker 4 (22:58):
You mean, we trust corporate.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
Brands more than NGO's, more than media, and more than government.
And so corporate brands have a powerful, powerful opportunity to step.
Speaker 4 (23:08):
In and affect change and influence change.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
And so we're really thrilled to be partnering with the
firearms industry, the outdoor industry to help to reshape culturally
how we think about secure storage. And why that's important
to call out is over seventy percent of veterans that
die by suicide use a firearm. And I want to
be very clear, I'm not picking on firearms when I
say that. It is just a statistic, and quite frankly,
(23:33):
it represents an opportunity to dramatically reduce suicide if we're
able to create more time and distance if someone is
in crisis or if they're struggling, and so you know,
the response we get all to oftens when individuals and
firearms owners aren't locking up the weapons. Is you know what,
I need my weapon accessible if something goes bumping the
night you protection self defense, totally understand that. But the
(23:53):
reality is is there are gun lock boxes now today
that you can have open and sub two seconds and
get access to that weapon. But you can still keep
it locked up and you can still protect your family,
members of the community who might be in your home
get access to that firearm or from theft. And so
we're reshaping that cultural narrative around training. And so we're
(24:15):
going to have a number of different training exercises out
there or were actually gonna be demonstrating putting people in
the clock to start in one position, move to numbers
another position, open the gun, block box, load it, taking
a number of steps, engage your target, clock stops. So
we're going to demonstrate and showcase and also have a
lot of fun and gamify it that Hey, guys, there's
no excuse if self defense is a priority. You can
(24:36):
still keep your firearms locked up and ready when you
need them. So the cultural change you see continues to
be a permeating theme for im CON and that's a
big part of it, and then some of the other
things we're doing on Saturday Sunday, We've got musical performances
for local artists who are veterans, some.
Speaker 4 (24:52):
Which who are veterans.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
We've got amazing authors and you know, amazing authors.
Speaker 4 (24:59):
We've got amazed pro athletes.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
I mentioned we're gonna have UFC profile it fighters doing
a combatives expo and Naval Special Warfare and Air Force
Special Operations. We're doing that with the WEE to five Foundation,
which is going to be really incredible.
Speaker 4 (25:12):
So the.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
Group of people, organizations, that's hundreds of organizations, hundreds of
brand partners.
Speaker 4 (25:21):
We're expecting, you.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Know, almost six thousand attendees this year. We're just looking
to have a great event for people to come together
and walk away with amazing resources, and we have a
really great times standing.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
I appreciate you sharing all that WACAN. At the end,
I promise, well, we're going to give the website how
to get tickets, all of that, the dates where it
is at the expo in Vegas, and everything you need
to know if you already have in Google that I
did promise. I wanted to talk about leadership WACO, and
I think there's so many correlations once again between military
and sports and the private sector what you do, and
I know that not only am con, you do so
(25:52):
many other things that I'd love for you to talk
about without embarrassing you, because I know you're very busy
with your different buckets that you work with when it
comes to the military and all these different projects you are.
But when you hear the word leadership with what you
grew up with and where you are today and how
you access it and how you use it, can you
talk a little bit about leadership for our listenership? Please?
Speaker 4 (26:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
I think for me, leadership is something that's always evolving.
I look at when I was a young entrepreneur, a
young CEO, and some of the leadership traits that I
exhibited not the greatest, you know, and I'm completely honest
about that. But you're constantly evolving, You're growing as a person,
(26:34):
You're learning, you're reading. And I love Michaelangelo's quote. I
think it was in the sixties when he said it.
Speaker 4 (26:40):
I am still learning.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
I won't even embarrass myself and try to pronounce it
in Italian, but I'm still learning. You have one of
the greatest, one of the greatest artists in history, still
in his sixties saying I am still learning, and I
think that is one of the most important aspects of
leadership is being vulner and being openness, because I think
that I actually know when you when you lead with
(27:02):
leadership in that capacity where we're always constantly evolving and learning,
that triples down to the organization, from your your executives,
your managers, the individuals, because it informs that we can
respectfully challenge each other, we can try new things, we
can innovate. And one of the things that we see
all too often across different pockets of government agencies, I think,
(27:23):
and you know some of them which are directly you know,
in charge with supporting veterans, is there can be this
complacency or we can get we can trip over bureaucracy
and red tape in a in which ultimately hurts the
warfight or the service member and their family. And I
say that not picking on individuals that work there because
they're part of a bigger system, but constantly learning and
(27:45):
evolving and trying new things and measuring that measuring and adjusting.
Measuring and adjusting is incredibly important and so from a
from a leadership standpoint. We always try to instill that
in folks. And then the other piece I touched on earlier,
the mistake. You know, people are going to make mistakes,
your your contractors, your employees, your partners.
Speaker 4 (28:06):
You know.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
I had to develop this over time with my father.
And forgiveness is a really important aspect of And granted,
there's certain things that you don't come back from that
you don't forget obviously hopefully those are obvious and there's
nuance step, but you know.
Speaker 4 (28:21):
People are not perfect.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
I am not perfect, and being able to allow people
to stub their toe and come back from that, makeup
for it and still be a good contributing member of
your team is something that's I think a really important.
Speaker 4 (28:34):
Aspect of how you build a good, healthy culture.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
At some point, you know, if someone goes too far,
you know, or there's not performing to the standards, you
got to you got to make a change. Obviously it
goes without saying, but like I said, the forgiveness piece
and the continual process improven piece are such important aspects
of leadership.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
Well, my takeaways from what you just talked about, and
it's very prophetic what you had said, but there's a
lot of humility to being a leader and also self
awareness and it really takes those kind of things and
then counting on your team all the time. I did
mention a lot of the things that you're working on,
and I know, don't we can have our own separate
podcast all the amazing things that you're doing, but I
know you're very proud of some other things that you're
(29:11):
working on. Can just for a few moments share what
you're doing?
Speaker 4 (29:15):
Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
There's a number of programs that we're involved in that
there are absolutely incredible.
Speaker 4 (29:19):
You know. One of those is some of the work
I do with the American Legion.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
I chair the American Legion's national suicide prevention program called
Be the One for two point six million members and
it is in an extraordinary program where.
Speaker 4 (29:32):
We first launched it about a year and a half ago.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
In the first ten months, we trained almost thirteen thousand
of our members and staff on suicide prevention. We worked
with the Columbe University with the Columbia Protocol, and we
built an app called the Be the One app where
you could literally go through it and you know, Dennis,
you me or the lay person, not a clinician, if
you are dealing with somebody who may be potentially in crisis.
Speaker 4 (29:54):
It is a very easy series of.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
Checklists to go through and figure out out if somebody
is at low monitor high risk risk of suicide again
using a scalpel like I talked about earlier. So we're
incredibly proud of that work, you know, that we've done
to educate men and women and think of it as
CPR for the brain. It is a community health based approach.
You know, CPR saves hundreds of thousands of people's.
Speaker 4 (30:16):
Lives every year.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
It's millions of lives since it was first you know,
rolled out, you know, back in the eighties and nineties,
and we need to take that approach with suicide prevention
in this country so that you me, other people are
informed and equipped to identify somebody who may be going
through struggles because oftentimes you signals are not obvious at all.
And so very proud of the work that the American
Legion is dealing would be the one and other things.
(30:39):
Another great program that we're dealing with the Department of
Veterans Affairs is two years ago we stood up a
program a venture studio inside the VA and so we
launched what's called the Veterans Health Venture Studio with a
good friend and colleague, doctor Andresendahl.
Speaker 4 (30:54):
She's the brain child. She has the brain child behind
all this.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
And the idea is to bring in men and women
from outside the walls of the VA and also inside
another partner organizations to tackle to look at the biggest
points of friction, the biggest challenges to improving quality of care,
and we're going to build tools, technology and AI driven
platforms that can help solve those problems at scale. And
so the Venture Studio is a year long program where
(31:20):
teams get selected and continue to go on through those
different programs ultimately and at the end of the year,
certain teams are selected and will ultimately be piloted in
different organizations and hospital settings across the VA, and the
ones that demonstrate the most advocacy are then.
Speaker 4 (31:36):
Scaled across the enterprise.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
So it's a very innovative, fast moving program designed to
improve care, improve access, and prove quality care for veterans
in those who serves.
Speaker 4 (31:46):
That term is amazing.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
And the other thing that I do that really sits
across all of these programs is, you know, I co
founded a brand strategy agency called Impact Group and what
we do is we specialize in working with large corporate
its foundations, other organizations to build out programs for organizations
that are looking to support and create impact programs for
(32:11):
military service members, veterans in their family. So that can
be you know, employee resource group inside the corporation, it
could be building out a robust impact social social impact
program working with nonprofits. But what's unique about us is
we align the corporate goals and objectives with the organization
(32:31):
of the itty and we match that up with the
impact conditions they want to lean into so that they're
data driven and we ensure that they get a creative
impact not only on the organization employees and customers, but
they also are able to really in a detail, in
a data driven away, measure the outcomes for those nonprofit
partners that are serving to ensure that those resources are
(32:53):
having the most impact. So there's a number of other
groups that I'm invested in, but those are at a
high level. Some of the things that I'm most proud
of and really related to the great work that myself,
our partners, and our other stakeholders and team members are
doing to support veterans and their families.
Speaker 3 (33:07):
Well, I appreciate you sharing all that way. It never
sees it to amaze me in this series when we
talk to CEOs and leaders and entrepreneurs, they're involved in
so many things, they're just not that many hours in
the day. Yeah, you somehow make it because of all
the energy and passion that you have, and that comes
through tremendously as I talk to you. Well, let's we
promised to give the website and also the dates of
m CON twenty twenty five, how to get tickets where
(33:30):
it's located the Expo in Vegas. So if you could
kind of give everybody just one last thing about how
they can be a part of this, let's let's let's
get them all set up absolutely.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
M CON twenty twenty five is coming up October twenty
third through the twenty six in Las Vegas. It's at
the Expo at World Market. If you want to get tickets,
learn more, just go to MCON dot Live, mcon dot
l I ve you can get all the information you need.
You can inquire to our team if you want to
get more information, or you can get your tickets right online.
Speaker 4 (34:00):
Hit the website.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
Understanding, well, Waco, I can't tell you how much I
appreciate your time. First of all, thank you for your
service to our country, but also the things that you've
done after service is just absolutely incredible, and we need
more people like you out there helping our military out there.
But this MCom just sounds like an amazing thing to
be a part of and help people at least take
a look at it. If they can't go, just get
online because the Speaker series is amazing. All the things
(34:21):
wrapped around in Vegas are just absolutely truly incredible. It
is hercule and what you and your team have done
to put this together. Thank you so much for your time,
and we really appreciate focusing and having you on CEOs.
Speaker 4 (34:31):
You should know I really appreciate it. Thank you, guys.
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