Ok, i would like to introduce our panel, if i can. First off, let me say to our second panel. Thank you for setting through the long questions of the first panel. Let me also say were hoping to get your information and your statements and the advantage of that is we wont be asking you a lot of questions because right now it looks like about two of us against you and just not against you but for you. But first we have mister joe gilardi, and hes president , chief executive officer of the tona victoria llc, correct . All right. And then also uh we have uh mr chris mayor, owner of daniel deans clothing store. Um i want to welcome you both, but i want to say a special welcome to chris and chelsea to um to washington dc. Uh to talk about veteran Small Businesses, employment issues they own and operate a, a store that is actually in my hometown right across the street from our own business. And uh in, in daniel deans is, is where you can purchase a wide range of clothing and outdoor accessories and through their Small Business. And chris and chelsea are active in helping veterans within the community throughout the services and building connections with local veterans organizations. Its a pleasure to see them uh to do this work and, and what, what theyre already doing in murfreesboro, uh and helping our local community. This commitment is, is excited to hear about and we want to, we want to continue to grow veteran owned Small Businesses across the country. I want to thank you both for being here today. Uh both and, and then were looking forward to uh your testimony. Uh so with that, i will um have you both stand if i can do you solemnly swear under penalty of perjury that your testimony you are about to provide is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Thank you. You may be seated and let the records reflect that all witnesses have answered in the affirmative. Uh you are now recognized for five minutes for your opening statement. Thank you, chairman bost, esteemed Committee Members. Uh thank you for this platform to discuss a pivot overall of veterans and veteran ter entrepreneurship in our nations economy and security. Having served uh with exemplary veterans throughout my own 23 year, uh navy career. Most of the time was spent, uh flying f14 tomcats and f18 hornets. Uh before founding it. Uh, throughout that time, i witnessed firsthand veterans unwavering dedication and integrity and these qualities remain intact as they transition to civilian life. Uh enriching our businesses and communities. Entrepreneurs employ nearly 6 million American Workers and generate about 1. 2 trillion in annual revenue. Businesses, large and small veterans represent just 2. 3 of the workforce. But veteran businesses account for an oversized 7. 3 of the us private sector economy. This isnt just a statistic. Its a testament to their indomitable spirit and the value they add post service, including the experience and Mission Insight that they bring to critically needed in the department of defence. However, as secretary of defense austin observed earlier this year in his Small Business strategy, the participation of Small Business in the Defense Industrial base has declined by over 40 in the past decade. And the number of Small Businesses receiving contract awards has dropped by more than half while the secretarys initiatives to provide new Training Resources is commendable. His observations reflect a dire need to reform, not Small Business training. But our approach to acquisitions acquisition professionals need more education to better understand how their decisions, policies and processes, create increasing barriers to success that hurt veteran entrepreneurs and professionals, the war fighter and the nation as a whole, our veterans find themselves up against a burgeoning regulatory maze that can be discouraging and disheartening and stifles the very innovation we need to maintain our technological edge. Take section 174 the tax cuts and jobs acts for instance, which effectively penalizes veteran Small Businesses for tackling our nations most Challenging Technology needs. General brown, chairman of the joint chiefs previously challenged the air force to accelerate change or lose in the face of growing peer threats. But left unchecked section 174 is a massive speed break on veteran participation in Small BusinessInnovation Research and puts our Competitive Edge at risk. Other programs intended to level Playing Field for all such as the Alaskan Native CorporationProgram Makes it much harder for ve veteran businesses to compete by giving it nearly 20 times the contracting power of other Small Businesses. The transition from active duty life to civilian life to participate in in business and the economy is is fraught with challenges. Existing transition programs miss the mark because information and assistance often comes too late in the process. And training is often out of touch with current private sector Business Practices to remedy this. We must revamp transition programs to be more adaptable to service members, unique needs and schedules and be more reflective of the differences between military and business culture, transition challenges are not just about the economics, theyre also about the human cost without adequate support. Pressure on our veterans can lead to heightened emotional stress and Financial Insecurity which exacerbates Mental Health issues and Substance Abuse in some cases resulting in a veteran suicide rate of 22 per day. A National Tragedy that speaks volumes about the urgency of improving our support, infrastructure and transition programs. Robust support is essential, not just for the well being of veterans, but also for businesses and the nation that depends on them by equipping veterans with the tools for success in the business world. We honor their service and encourage future generations to serve knowing that their skills and sacrifices will be valued both in and out of uniform. Veterans lead in combat in business in innovation and in government. I urge this committee to champion reforms that will empower veterans to contribute further to our nation through entrepreneurship and innovation. By doing so, we not only repay our debt of gratitude, but we also invest in the very fabric of our nations future. Thank you for your unwavering support to veterans and i look forward to supporting you in enacting meaningful changes. Thank you for your testimony. Now, the written statement of mr gerardi will be entered into the hearing record uh mr mayor, you are now recognized for five minutes for your opening remarks. Chairman uh members of the committee. Thank you for your opportunity today to provide my remarks to this critical issue as a 15 year Army Combat Infantryman with three tours to iraq. I never imagined myself opening a Small Business for a large part of my life. Ive had the opportunity of relying on my fellow comrades for support. My life changed once i got out of the service, transferring from military life to civilian life, i did not have a meaningful purpose in my life. If it was not for family and friends, i might have been one of those 22 veterans today. When we leave the service, you feel like youve lost the purpose you had in the military. In 2017, i married my wife and she showed me that i did have a purpose, a drive to succeed, not only for myself and my family, but also my fellow comrades. I started back to school at college, receiving my degree in heating and air. In 2018, i became an active member of the local vfw and moved all the way up and chairs become district commander. About the same time i took a job open my own business and i was having a difficult day with ptsd. Finally, after some work in mensing, in time i would start my own Small Business. We wanted to open a store. Andy a local presence in the community. We recently learned it was no walk in the park starting her own business. She had multiple long hours, phone calls, back and forth. With not understanding any of the rules or regulations of all the programs, it became difficult to try to figure out would even fall for any of them. There is such a high demand for veterans trying to move forward in life. We want to focus on getting more Service Officers. We may have more veteran owned businesses. Maybe if we took things back to those times and focus on getting more Service Officers out helping veterans, we might have more veteran owned businesses. If we develop something for veterans to help other veterans, we might get a better turnout. I believe civilians do care about veterans but they do not understand the bond of a veteran taking care of another veteran. Theres no other stronger comraderie Service Officers are underpaid and overworked. And as a result of that reason, we dont have many left. If we must keep all the resources for grants and funding opportunity on websites, i would like, i would like to recommend it be developed to present it in a way we say in a military kiss, keep it stupid. Simple. A user friendly website, three buttons, veterans, disabled veterans, women veterans, the user could easily click their category, fill out the application and the paperwork and apply for grants and funding automatically. We appreciate your time today, giving me the opportunity to further discuss struggles for trying to open a veterans Small Business. Thank you, chairman boss. This concedes my testimony again. Thank you for Ranking Member connell. An opportunity to testify on this opportunity issue before the committee. Im prepared to take any questions you Committee Members may have. Thank you, mr mayor. Um um we are going to open it to questions now and ill take the first five minutes. Um, so as a veteran yourself, mr mayor, what do you think the barriers that still exist in hindering veteran Employment Opportunities . Are there opportunities to start new businesses . I know when daniel deans and i know you just opened in september, what were some of the barriers that you faced at the beginning of trying to get it open . And what are you, some of the barriers youre facing now now that youre open . Well, were, we looked into getting grants to help us and we couldnt find any one website we called them and there was like, whats on the website . Figure it out and that shouldnt be the case. Um but so we just started funding ourselves. So, um, we put ourselves in debt now and were trying to get out, but were also trying to grow. So that would be, youre, youre also still trying to keep up with both. You and your wife are keeping up with jobs on your own by, uh, i actually work at the college at night time on second shift. Uh, my wife does a lot of it. I worked on a day and then i go right back to work at night time and then also trying to spend time with five children in your testimony. You mentioned that when you left the military and tran transitioned into civilian life, you did not know the meaning of life. And i think it is statelevel bso jobs. I will ask her level gives you level. Are there any out in the rural areas . Statelevel, she is working three county. With that is a hint not only to Small Business but to other things that bso provides for. I just wanted to bring up the fact that he had a veterans Small Business. I give these away whenever i was running for a Ranking Member. I hope his testimony would be given later on to explain how he found a way to become the entrepreneur that he is with his moms as well. I just wanted to follow up with one other question. I am going to mention it. When it came to excess and capital, was there any excess through this that earned his average centers or the veterans Lending Program at your bank or financial institution, sir . Uh we, we come from a Small Community and no, did not know anything of that. Ok. Um and then so in, in order to put it together, you depended on your own resources. Um have you heard of or is there anything that advances any type of assistance Going Forward as a veteran for Small Businesses that you have been aware of . Uh no, sir, but weve, weve been reaching out to other veteran businesses and trying to grow with them and offer their products in our store and try to, i, i get phone calls all the time from local veterans. Ones trying to start up a uh a car cleaning business and another ones starting up a Coffee Business and theyre asking me, where do i go to these grants . And im like, uh im not sure, but as soon as i find out, im gonna give it to you. So, um, so it doesnt go unnoticed because were here to learn from your experience when you said you went on a website and then you contacted them and they said whats on the website is whats available. Can you share what the website was that . That would have been my wife that did that . Because i dont have the patience at the time when it, when it comes to that. Fair enough. Um, i, a hard charger. So, um, it, it just, its, its, you know, for a veteran that, you know, with fighting ptsd and tb i and all that, it shouldnt be so hard to look for veteran benefits. It shouldnt be dinged in front of us. Heres this or not even know about it because it, i just, i believe that we need to come up with a way to help our veterans, especially in small communities. And i think um every member who sits here, uh who um protects and advances veteran benefits want to make sure that its not a facade that they exist so that they have a purpose. So your message is loud and clear and we can do our best to be able to take that experience that you had to be able to translate that to the va and va benefits. Who provide those . How do we get to rural areas . How when people are discharged, do they get that information . And so there is a benefit to you being here and i thank you very much with that. I want to get a, just a quick demographics of the both of you. How many years . Active duty . Uh, 14 years . 23 sir. Ok. Um, so what i, what i heard you say, uh mister mayor was, i just wanna make sure i got this right um, on, on the vso piece more state level did i, i wanted just to give you a chance to expand on that a little bit about what you meant. So usually Veterans Affairs is through the state level who hires i believe, i mean, dont hold me true to it, but i believe thats a, a state department job. So the state like state of illinois would hire their local vso and then assign them to the communities. So, um, since we have 50 states in four territories, um, the model for each state could look a little different, uh, based on, on that states desire and under that states, you know, commander in chief, which is their governor or their legislative bodies as to how they structure it. And do you, do you see and i ask you for both your experience, what do you see as the interaction today between the, the veterans at the local level . That person who went back to Virginia Beach or somewhere in illinois or michigan or wherever they went . Do you, do you see them as being able to connect the dots. Uh you know, maybe tap didnt catch it all. You know, because with you, if you got 20 plus years and youre gonna look at life one way because you walk out the door with a pension. Ok, so you have now a little bit of income coming in so you could maybe pay your basic bills when you walk out with less than 20 unless theres a disability. You dont have, you got, you got zero cash coming in the door. And so now you have to figure out what youre gonna do next. Go to work for somebody or start a business yourself. Any, any thoughts on how, what this committee should know from a National Level because we represent all 50 states and the four territories and anything youd want to share with us in your, in your challenges there. Well, we, we certainly have will well, we, we certainly have very different backgrounds and experiences and i, and i definitely commend you for what youve overcome. Uh, in my experience when i was making the decision to, to, to start a business, it was in a, in a very different field, more into providing Knowledge Based working, consulting with a focus on trying to help solve war fighting challenges that we struggled with when we were on active duty. Um and, and my challenges in dealing with how do we offer these capabilities to the government was the frustration with working through the regulations, the long lead time to work through acquisition processes and dealing with a government that doesnt understand Small Business. So government was part of the problem, not part of the solution. Absolutely. And ii, i honestly feel like we are in a battle every day with the government. You couldnt have articulated it any better. Ill, thats a great way to end this. I think i echo the sentiment of my colleagues here and, and a lot of what you said here when we say that veterans are crucial to our local economies, both as employees and as owners of Small Businesses. I want to thank you for being here today for both of you being here. I know its also a sacrifice to leave home, leave the business and then fly to dc uh with a schedule thats never really steady and things have changed. So i just want to say thank you for being here. As i heard the testimony um specifically from mr mayor, you talked about the challenges of even starting your Small Business and i think it is important for us to understand as elected officials. Uh just what are the kind of things that are necessary to make it easier for us to support our Small Businesses, particularly our veterans. So i have a couple of questions specifically for you. Um you talked a little bit about the challenges when you were even beginning to, to open up your business. Uh, talk my wife into. It would have been the hardest part. Uh, second would be, um, just trying to, to, i mean, we sell clothing so we have to purchase the clothing first to wholesale it back and sell it back. So just coming up with the, the money, you know, uh, we started looking into grants, started looking into the websites, didnt come anywhere. So we, we turned to credit cards and we started purchasing stuff with credit cards. Uh i mean, were, were making our make payments. Were, were not taking a paycheck, were re putting it back into our business. Im, im going to continue working at night time until i can, but as right now were just going into debt to get us started. So thats ii i hate debt. So its, its not a good word. It doesnt fit me. I like to have everything taken care of. And this is, its a, its a heartache trying to make sure not only if youre paying your employees, but also staying on top of the vendors to have the product to sell, to move forward. And we know also when you put things on credit card, those credit cards dont we . And that 19 apr is very real and accumulates. Its really unfortunate where, you know, as you think about, particularly as a veteran, what are the points i think you think of outreach and the places where you think veterans can access more assistance. When thinking of entrepreneurship, either of you can answer. Actually, if you know theres a va in every community, if we just had an office in there that could help veterans with questions or guide them to the correct area would be the greatest, what are other things. And maybe this is just to follow up in addition to your answer, you know, you hear from members here, we anxiously want, figure out what are those impediments and how do we address them . What are other ways that you think members of congress can be helping . Um our 2. 5 million veteran owned businesses and the many to come overwhelmingly, its the complexity of regulatory requirements. The the regulations are unknowable and when youre very small and youre starting out, it is, it is the biggest challenge. Its daunting. The there are a lot of really excellent people at the Small Business administration and in, in the acquisition process in apex accelerators and other Small BusinessAssistance Centers who uh you know, try to help. But most of the time in my experience, the Small Business administration folks are spending more time enforcing compliance than they are actually trying to help us. And so it, it just becomes this giant time that is not actually returning, you know, value or providing us real assistance in, in moving forward to, to become more effective and grow our business. Did you wanna add anything . Yeah, i just, i wanna just echo what youve heard from my, my colleagues here. We have a responsibility. Uh you gave everything, you risked everything so that we could be here. Uh and theres impact in ptsd and all the other challenges and family and housing and all the costs associated with it. Making sure that Small Businesses are able to thrive is a priority for us. And i want you to hear this that for me, as i think about the connection of housing, economic development, Small Business, it all interest and so we have to do better and, and i appreciate you explaining some of those specific ways to do that. Im from the state of illinois, the beautiful state of illinois. So im just also thankful to see another illinoian with us here today. Uh so thank you mr mayor and also mr geraldi uh for your passion and for your dedication to serving our communities, particularly for you serving illinois. I yield back and im going to do just one follow up question. And before we go into our closing, um i need to ask both of you when you left the service, what did you receive the tap program . You see, i came from an era that they didnt have a tap program. I tell everybody that my Commanding Officer tapped me on the shoulder and said, see you later. That was it. So and, and was it, what, what, what was your experience with tap . I did participate in a tap program. I didnt know what i didnt know. I realize now in hindsight that that was wholly inadequate and we help a lot of other veterans that are transitioning now. And so we, we, we stay in the pulse of the experience, big shortcomings with, with any transition assistance. Now is when as service members, when we enter the service, we train as a team, we go into combat as a team, but you transition alone and you dont really have a network we build throughout a career of a huge network of, of service members. But that network looks backward. It doesnt look forward into business or nonprofits or whatever career field you wanna move into. So you go into it alone, the transition assistance programs, when you walk out the door, theyre done with you. Theres no follow up. Yes you we knew that they were making new value they created in their lives and the lives of others. We could tell that story. Not just of what their military career was going to look like but how it would launch them into the next phase of their life. That is all lost. The military does not look for longterm return on investment. I went through the warrior transition. Hired heroes did a great job. There is a big transition difference in colorado springs. There are no opportunities for the smaller communities. It is great to get that training. It needs to transfer to your local area. Just because we dont have numbers doesnt mean if we could create new areas to help. Ok. I am trying desperately to add to the tap program. You would think they worked well together. They are all different. I want to thank you as a witness today. Leaving your business, come into washington dc, take you for doing that. We are grateful to the men who serve this country and are continuing to serve in adding to the economy. I ask unanimous consent that all members should have five legislative days in which to revive and extend the remarks. Hearing no objections, so be it. The hearing is now adjourned