The Sacramento Bee and Nehemiah Leaders Programs are celebrating this year’s 60 Change Makers. Join them at our gala at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 13 at the Grand Sheraton in downtown Sacramento. Buy tickets at sacramentochangemakers.com.
When Timothy Swaney moved to Sacramento from San Diego in 2019 after nine years in the U.S. Navy, he wasn’t sure where he fit in.
“I felt lost and kind of alone,” Swaney, now 36, said. “I didn’t know where my people were.”
Swaney found connections with a group of San Francisco military veterans, but when the opportunity to help form a local group to aid fellow veterans came in 2025, he stepped up.
“We needed something like that here,” Swaney said. “We didn’t want people to feel that way anymore.”
Swaney co-founded Veteran Entrepreneur Tribe of Sacramento, or VETS. The community organization helps military veterans and their allies found their own businesses.
The organization provides resources, education and other assistance from the idea phase to scaling up phase, Swaney said. It serves the greater Sacramento area and has partnerships with local businesses and service organizations.
Swaney founded WatchUr6, a cybersecurity company, in 2022 after seeing news reports about a hospital crippled by a cyberattack.
The company helps businesses create their own cybersecurity systems.
“We help them secure that which is most important to them, which is their data,” Swaney said.
Tim Swaney, an advocate for veterans, is a 2026 Change Maker on Thursday, July 30, 2026. HECTOR AMEZCUA hamezcua@sacbee.com
Swaney, who had founded other companies in the past, decided he was ready for another challenge after a hiatus from running his own businesses.
“I was ready to jump back in, doing something I love to do,” he said.
Related Stories from Sacramento Bee
The Sacramento Bee
Don Sweeney has been a newspaper reporter and editor in California for more than 35 years. He is a service reporter based at The Sacramento Bee.