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> A fresh start
> What’s the appeal?
> The risks
> The franchise option
> Taking the plunge
> Sidebar: Resources for the Budding Entrepreneur or Franchisee

Many veterans are venturing into entrepreneurial businesses and franchises. But it’s important to find your professional comfort zone before making the transition.

In his best selling book, Blue Blood, chronicling his experiences as a third generation New York City police officer, Edward Conlon makes a powerful argument for “avoiding work that entailed a suit, a commute, and a cubicle.” In the rapidly changing and unpredictable world of law enforcement, Conlon found a career choice “sweet spot” where his skills, experience, and passions were combined with a reasonable economic motivator.

Career transition experts agree that when all of these imperatives — skills, experience, passions, and economics — are aligned, you are likely to be content at work. By contrast, overemphasizing any of these attributes — such as ignoring your passion for a higher level of compensation or greater stability in another career field — might not be in your best interest. For military people approaching the end of their time in uniform, finding the career transition sweet spot that Conlon found is easier said than done.

A fresh start

After years on a path with a known destination, the challenge of making a new start can seem overwhelming. In addition to the uncertainty associated with any career change, former military people making a career transition in mid-life often are flooded with conflicting emotions.

“Midlife is a time when parts of the self that have been neglected begin to bubble up,” says Dory Hollander, an executive career coach in Arlington, Va. “Bean counters may suddenly feel the urge to move into more creative work, while people who have been adventurous may need more stability.”

For this reason, career coaches often encourage re-careering baby boomers to seek outlets for their talents or aspects of their personality they didn’t have a chance to express in their previous careers.

Depending on your particular passions and experience, an impending career transition provides an opportunity to consider entrepreneurship and build your next career one brick at a time, the way creative entrepreneurs Steven Jobs, CEO and one of the founders of Apple Computer Inc., and Kemmons Wilson, the founder of Holiday Inn, built their careers. In fact, entrepreneurship takes many forms and involves about 4 percent of the adult population in the United States. Each year, one of every 25 Americans is actively involved in starting a business.

What’s the appeal?

Entrepreneurship is an attractive career choice for a variety of reasons. There is no guarantee of financial success, but entrepreneurship gives people a greater degree of control over their careers and, if properly structured, can permit better balance between work and personal responsibilities. For many entrepreneurs, independence and being the boss are far more important than the money.

One study of approximately 3,000 entrepreneurs reported in Business Week identified the following factors as “very important reasons” for being self-employed:

• to use personal skills and abilities;
• to gain control over their lives;
• to build something for the family;
• to seek a challenge; and
• to live in a location of their choosing.

One organization specifically focused on meeting the needs of entrepreneurial veterans is The Veterans Corporation (www.veteranscorp.org), a federally chartered nonprofit corporation that offers an array of classroom training, seminars, workshops, networking, and mentoring at no cost to participants. Judy Gillespie, the managing director of product development for The Veterans Corporation, also is preparing a distance-learning initiative specifically targeted to meet the needs of disabled veterans who are interested in entrepreneurship.

“Our goal is to respond to any entrepreneurial need, whether it’s a veteran with an idea who needs help getting started or an established veteran-owned business looking for bankers, mentors, or other support.”

The risks

As with any career choice, there are significant risks in starting a business. Foremost among these risks is the huge personal sacrifice required to start and maintain a business. Kit Darby, an Army veteran and a commercial airline pilot with United Airlines, founded AIR Inc. — Aviation Information Resources (www.jet-jobs.com) — in 1989 and nurtured the organization into the foremost career-transition service for pilots seeking flying jobs with major airlines. The unforeseen setback of the Sept. 11th terrorist attack caused a 75 percent decline in his business overnight as airline hiring dropped like the temperature in Vail after sunset. “It took substantial personal re-investment by me to stabilize the business and ensure its survival,” says Darby.

As a result of the financial sacrifice and extremely long hours required to launch and develop a business, there also might be little time left for recreation, family life, or personal reflection. The business often becomes the entrepreneur’s life. Personal relationships can be strained, and even the entrepreneur’s state of health can suffer from the stress of being alone at the helm.

In addition, entrepreneurs might feel a sense of isolation from the burden of running a business. Employees in large organizations are surrounded by peers, but the entrepreneur discovers early on that it can be lonely at the top. No one else in the company has invested his or her life savings; no one else sweats meeting the next payroll; and no one else shares the responsibility of adapting to changing market conditions. “Running the business within budget constraints and ensuring product competitiveness are huge concerns,” says Darby.

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