CHANGING THE FACE OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP

MissionAccomplished

30th Anniversary SUPPLIERSPOTLIGHTS

GlobalCONNECTIONS

STATE OFTHE STATE:Texas

REAL TALK

Rudy J.

URIBERecruit Veterans

HISPANIC HERITAGE ISSUEHOSPITALITY, FOOD &

BEVERAGE FOCUSJuly/August 2015

www.mbemag.comVolume 32 Number 4 | $5.00

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Minority Business EntrepreneurP.O. Box 15685North Hollywood, CA 91615-9114

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Departments 1 Publisher’s Page 4 Behind the Scenes with MBE

33 Master Your Brand38 People/Places

41 Classi ed 41 Calendar 44 Advertisers Index

July/August 2015 • Volume 32 Number 4

6 Mission Accomplished by Tanya Isley Rudy Uribe ful lls the call to recruit and place fellow military veterans.

14 State of the State A look at the state of diversity in Texas.

15 Corporate Strategies: Southeastern Grocers by Ryan Hamilton Favoring local avors.

17 Workforce Diversity: Cultural Intelligence in Recruiting by Gerry Fernandez Effective strategies for recruiting top talent in a multicultural multigenerational marketplace.

19 Corporate Strategies: C.H. Robinson by Alice Gordon Logistical Successes.

20 Different Drummers: Heart & Soul by Carolyn Muse-Grant Patricia Curry of MAZAL Nursing.

22 Honoring WBEs Who Rock MBE magazine recognizes 14 WBEs who are pursuing excellence.

24 Different Drummers: 30th Anniversary Supplier Spotlight by Charmain Lewis Dana Hali of CeteraMarketing.

26 Serious About Sustainability by Barbara Wichmann Sustainability and the supply chain imperative.

27 Real Talk by David Feldman Changing the game for the better.

28 Different Drummers: 30th Anniversary Supplier Spotlight by Charmain Lewis Dot Ward of Dot Ward Photography.

30 Global Connections: Government for Women Business Enterprises by Susan Baka Supplier Diversity Roundtable spurs government action for women in Canada.

37 Conference Roundup: WBENC National Conference and Business Fair by Charmain Lewis

September 11, 2001 will forever be embedded in every-

one’s minds as the day that changed how people work, live,

and play. The terrorist attacks that destroyed the World

Trade Center’s twin towers, damaged the Pentagon, and

took almost 3,000 lives represent a turning point in

history.

Since that day, the United States has been embroiled in

an international military campaign dubbed the War on

Terror to root out terrorist organizations and the regimes

that support them. For U.S. Marine Corps veteran Rudy Uribe, 9/11 not only reignited his passion for military

service, but also set the wheels in motion for him to begin

a business that would meet the needs of military veterans.

Uribe, who served in the Marines for 11 years before

receiving a medical discharge in 1999, was so moved by

the events of September 11 and his love for the United

States that he contacted the Marines to re-enlist. “There

were all of these emotions that obviously went through a

lot of people, as well as me. I felt it was still my patriotic

duty to try to get back into the Marine Corps,” he says.

Mission Accomplished (con tin ued)

Unfortunately, due to an injury, he was no longer medically qualified to re-enter. Not one to be discouraged by such a setback, Uribe brainstormed other ways in which he could help his country and his fellow veterans. After reflecting on his own prior experi-ences, he decided to open a staffing company that would help military veterans find jobs once they returned home.

Uribe saved his money and in 2006, founded Recruit Veterans with no out-side funding and the blessing and support of his wife, Michelle. The minority business enterprise and service-disabled, veteran-owned company specializes in providing professional and technical services, staff augmentation and direct-hire placement. Based in Cedar Park, Texas, the company has employees throughout the state, in New Hamp-shire and Rhode Island, and is expanding into Louisiana and the D.C., Maryland, Virginia area.

Today, the overall unemployment rate for veterans is 5.3 percent, slightly lower than the national rate. But for veterans who served after September 11, the rate is 6.7 percent. Many of these American heroes are still strug-gling to find work. 

Since its inception, Recruit Veter-ans has grown year after year, achieving a positive cash flow within its first full year in business and making the Inc. 5000 list of the Fastest Growing Pri-vately Held Companies in the United States f rom 2011 through 2015. Making the list once is an incredible achievement in and of itself; making the list five years in a row makes the company an Inc. 5000 Honor Roll member, a distinction achieved by only a fraction of companies in the United States. Furthermore, in 2013,

the company was also recognized on Hispanic Business magazine’s list of 500 largest Hispanic-owned U.S businesses.

Uribe notes that when he formed the company, it was the only staff-ing firm that focused specifically on recruiting military veterans. Since then, there has been a concerted effort among staffing agencies to hire veterans in response to the bleak employment prospects many service

members face after coming home from Afghanistan and Iraq.

“There were job boards that were specific to military, but there was not a staffing company that was specifically putting themselves out there and mar-keting themselves as a military veteran hiring agency,” Uribe says.

In addition to new staffing agencies targeting veterans, many large staffing agencies have now added departments that specialize in placing military veterans. The White House also has joined the ranks of those seeking to help veterans get hired through First Lady Michelle Obama’s Veteran’s Employment Initiative, which en-courages companies to hire military veterans for jobs in government; the Returning Heroes Tax Credit, which provides incentives of up to $5,600 for firms to hire long-term unemployed veterans; and the Wounded Warrior

Tax Credit, which awards firms up to $9,600 for hiring long-term unem-ployed veterans with service-related disabilities.

Uribe believes that this uptick in activity is the result of a generation of people who witnessed the struggles of Vietnam veterans once they re-turned home. The Vietnam War was a deeply unpopular war and divided Americans. As a result, many Vietnam veterans were not given the respect

nor the opportunities that many of our veterans have today. As the na-tion galvanized behind the War on Terror in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the Iraq and Afghanistan wars haven’t been as po-larizing.

“I think that we’ve learned a valuable lesson about taking care of our military veterans. Now we have the opportunity and the power to prevent what happened to the Vietnam veterans from happening again,” Uribe says. “For the most part,

I think we all stood behind our mili-tary and we, as a society, have to take responsibility for the fact that we sent them to war. It is our responsibility to take care of them. I think our genera-tion felt that we needed to step up for our military veterans.”

And step up is what Recruit Vet-erans does. The company’s mission is to “relentlessly recruit, hire, and place military veterans and spouses into po-sitions with our government and com-mercial services clients,” ensuring that having outstanding military veterans and spouses in those jobs provides the best-quality services to clients. It also aligns with the company’s vision to be the “nationwide veteran staffing and recruiting company of choice.”

“The reason that we want to grow is so that we can affect the lives of military veterans not only in our backyard, but all across the country,”

(Left to right) Recruit Veterans’ office staff includes Trevin Wright, Kimberly Carella, Michelle Uribe, Uribe, Veronica Guzman and Jeanne Hobson. True to the code, all are either veterans or a spouse of a veteran.

Mission Accomplished (con tin ued)

Uribe says. “We realize that the bigger we grow, the more opportunities we’re going to have in terms of jobs, which means that military veterans all across the country will have more opportuni-ties to get hired into those jobs.”

Uribe believes that military veter-ans’ experiences give them a unique understanding of a company’s core purpose when they’re hired.

“When you’re in the military, the primary goal or objective during any mission is to get it done—to accomplish the mission or the goal,” he says. “Many government agencies and commercial firms have a mission statement. It stands to reason that military personnel and military veter-ans understand mission accomplish-ment. When you go into a company and they have a specified mission, the military veterans are going to be able to identify with getting that job done and making that mission happen for the company.”

It is that “mission accomplish-ment” mindset that led Uribe to adopt “Accomplish the Mission” as Recruit Veterans’ slogan, because it translates well into most organizations within the government and commercial worlds. “The reason that we picked [it] is because it rings true, both in the military and out of the military,”

he says.Recently, Uribe has noticed several

developments that directly benefit his company. Commercial firms such as AT&T and Ford Motor Company are beginning to establish spending

goals for doing business with service-disabled veteran-owned businesses. AT&T’s Operation Hand Salute, for example, is a groundbreaking education and mentoring program for service-disabled veteran busi-ness owners. The national initiative provides cutting-edge training and mentoring for qualified CEOs with the goal of improving their business operations and enhancing their abil-ity to win corporate contracts. The company has a 1.5 percent spend goal for service-disabled veteran-owned businesses, which translates to a significant amount of money for companies like Recruit Veterans.

“Government agencies—back in the beginning, in the ’06, ’07 time frames—were really looking to do business with veteran-owned and ser-vice-disabled veteran-owned [com-panies]. Now, commercial companies have started to say, ‘Okay, we need to include veteran-owned and service-disabled veteran-owned companies in our supplier diversity spend,” he says. “When you see the commercial

entities starting to follow the gov-ernment’s lead on establishing goals to do business with veteran-owned and service-disabled veteran-owned companies, there are huge opportuni-ties out there for companies like ours.”

Recruit Veterans seized upon those opportunities with commercial business-es and now partners with Manpower, a leading human re-source consulting and recruitment firm. Recruit Veterans is one of the company’s premier suppliers, and Uribe is a member of its Supplier Diver-sity Advisory Board (see MBE magazine, September/Octo-ber 2013, Corporate Strategies: Manpower Group).

“Manpower is a big proponent of doing business with minority-owned companies. They’re also very pro-military veteran and have been very helpful in guiding us and mentoring us,” Uribe notes.

With all of the accomplishments his company has achieved in its short existence, Uribe believes that the key to Recruit Veterans’ success can be traced first and foremost to its dedication to excellence and his company’s ability to provide the best services and veteran talent to execute the contracts and staffing opportuni-ties that it receives.

“We hire military veterans, and that has become a huge initiative in corporate America. We’re doing what people want to do, and we are a service-disabled, veteran-owned company. Small businesses and sup-plier diversity officers are looking to increase spend in that area, but it’s not only that. It’s about excellence in doing what we do,” he says.

Uribe’s commitment and dedica-tion to veterans and their families is

Pictured with Uribe (fourth from left) are U.S. Army veteran Steven Johnson, U.S. Marine veteran Travis Aleshire, U.S. Army veteran Leslie Mudd, U.S. Army veteran Tremaine Lacott, U.S. Army veteran Lucia Briones, U.S. Army veteran Leonardo Morales, and U.S. Army spouse Sandra Garza. All were placed by Recruit Veteran.

Mission Accomplished (con tin ued)

deeply rooted in his family’s military ties; the San Antonio, Texas, native comes from a long line of military veterans. “My father was a Vietnam veteran. Both of my grandfathers were military veterans in World War II. My father-in-law is a Korean War vet-eran. The men in my life, obviously, all had a huge impact and influence on me,” he says. “I think that was a big part of why I became a Marine.”

Uribe enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1988 and rose from the rank of Private to Captain through the Marine Enlisted Commission-ing Education Program, a highly competitive program designed to prepare outstanding enlisted Marines to become officers. While in the program, he attended the University of Texas at Austin, became Battalion Commander of the Naval Reserve Officer’s Training course, and when he received his commission, was recognized as the Honor Graduate of his graduating class.

He then went on to become an Air Traffic Control Officer in the Marine Corps and subsequently commanded one of 10 active-duty Air Traffic Control Detachments. Uribe attended night school and earned an MBA from Webster University. When he left the Marines, he was formally recognized with the Navy and Ma-rine Corps Achievement Medal for superior performance of his duties.

Uribe’s commission made him a member of an exclusive group in the Marine Corps. “At that time, less than 1 percent of all officers in the United States Marine Corps were Hispanic, and I happened to be one of them,” he says proudly.

While the military influences came from the men in his family, his en-trepreneurial zeal came from another source—his mother.

“My mom, Josie Uribe, was a mili-tary spouse and also an entrepreneur.

Learning from her experience made me think, ‘Hey, I can go out and run my own business.’ My mom did it for some time, and having that entrepre-neurial mindset, the experience of working with her in her store from

time to time when I was little, and learning that she had the initiative and the drive to start and run her own small business, influenced me to start my own company. Had my mom never started her own company, maybe I wouldn’t have thought of starting my own company,” he states.

Uribe also credits his wife, Michelle Uribe, with supporting and encourag-ing his drive to start Recruit Veterans as well as playing a significant role in the company’s success. She stood by his decision to quit his full-time job and start the company in 2006 with-out hesitation, and today, she serves as the company CFO.

“We were working out of our home office, which was only about probably a 12-foot-by-14-foot space in our house, and it was my wife and

I,” he says. “Had she said, ‘No, I don’t think you should quit your job,’ then I probably would still be working at that company or some other company. But having the love and support of your spouse, who’s also a big part of the company, is a huge part of our success.”

There’s a saying, “Once a Marine, always a Marine.” And, for Uribe, that saying rings true. The core values he learned in the Marine Corps—honor, courage and commitment—have served him well in his entrepreneurial endeavor to help his fellow veterans. Each day he leads Recruit Veterans to another level of success, he lives out the Marine Corps motto of Semper Fidelis, which guides Marines to remain faithful to the mission at hand, to each other, to the Corps, and to the country, no matter what.

“It’s all about accomplishing the mission. And, Marines know how to accomplish the mission. We know how to get things done. We’re not going to quit, we’re not going to give up. That’s what our country depends on us for: to go out there and do what you’ve got to do to get the job done.” ◆

Tanya Isley is an award-winning journalist with more than 20 years’ experience in traditional and online news media. She has managed news media content strategy for more than 50

websites, and her ex-perience has included stints at The Manna Network, Cox Com-munications, Cyg-nus Business Media, and WTVD-TV in Raleigh-Durham,

N.C. Isley has under graduate degrees in journalism and history from North Carolina Central University and a graduate degree in interactive journal-ism from American University.

Uribe on the steps of the Cedar Park Veterans Memorial in Cedar Park, Texas.

Reprinted with permission from the July/August 2015 issue of Minority Business Entrepreneur

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