VETRN’s President, Lee Goldberg and Program Manager, David Ferrara are thrilled to announce the graduation of 14 veterans and family members from the 2021 VETRN MBA Online program on April 16, 2022. The 2021 online cohort included veteran small business owners and family members from 10 different states across the country. This class completed our 7th year of the VETRN MBA training program, teaching veteran participants how to successfully grow their veteran owned small business. With this class, VETRN has now graduated 90 veteran small business owners and family members from the VETRN program, with numerous successes and successful pivot stories to date. So, congratulations once again to our 2021 program graduates.
At the Graduation, the VETRN participants presented either a three-year growth plan or a twelve-month turnaround plan to a distinguished panel of judges from the business, banking, SBA, VBOC, SBDC and turnaround management communities. At the conclusion of their Final Presentations, a graduation ceremony took place where each graduate was recognized and officially received their VETRN 2021 Program Certificate of Completion. The recording of the introductions of the VETRN graduates, the panel judges and the guests, including the graduation ceremony itself has been posted on the Home Page of the VETRN website.
This year, VETRN was proud to honor Amy Amoroso, VBOC Director for New York, New Jersey, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands and Bob Nelson, SBA District Director for the MA SBA office. Amy received national recognition from the SBA as one of three 2022 National Small Business Resource Partners honored for their outstanding work in support of women, veterans, military spouses and veteran small business owners. Bob Nelson received a Certificate of Appreciation from VETRN for his ongoing support of veterans and small businesses and the outstanding work by Bob and his Staff for their historic achievement in FY 2021 of almost $1 Billon in combined 7a and 504 loans, which was a 43% increase over the prior year.
To all of you who have provided VETRN with sponsorship support in 2021 and in prior years, thank you for your support and for helping veterans and family members achieve their dreams and goals of becoming successful small business owners.
As the VETRN MBA program has grown into a national online program, identifying local mentors for each of our class participants has been challenging. In addition to our own list of mentors, guest experts and professional resources, who have selflessly volunteered their time, our heartfelt thank you goes out to TMA Global and its local Chapter Presidents, Ray Milano and the SBA VBOC regional offices and regional SCORE Chapters for providing access to local chapter resources so that every VETRN participant across the country had access to a personal mentor.
We would also like to thank our VETRN Board members, guest experts, mentors, panel judges and professional resources for volunteering their time and expertise to the VETRN program.
David and I are very appreciative of everyone involved with the VETRN program, and we are both looking forward to and cheering on the successful business growth of our graduates as well as continuing to expand and support our VETRN small business network and our VETRN graduate community in the years ahead.