SAN ANTONIO \u2014 The Small Business Administration (SBA) opened a new Veterans Business Outreach Center (VBOC) in San Antonio, the first expansion of the program in 10 years.<\/p>\n
Before the San Antonio location, VBOCs in Texas were limited to Arlington and Edinburg.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were created to bring services to veteran entrepreneurs and their families through the entrepreneurial process,\u201d said Megan Tamez.<\/p>\n
Tamez is the director of the San Antonio VBOC, as well as the director for veteran entrepreneurship.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe VBOCS are special for veterans and their families only,\u201d said Tamez.<\/p>\n
An Army veteran herself, Tamez says having staff members in the VBOC is crucial to helping veterans with their business needs. She says there is a special understanding between veterans and their backgrounds that could affect a business\u2019s health.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t always know what\u2019s going on with somebody, or what happened during their military career,\u201d she said. \u201cI was blown up in Iraq. I have a brain injury, but you would never know that [just] looking at me, right? I had to teach myself how to remember things, how to write again. When my husband and I opened our first business, we didn\u2019t have that help, and I really wish that somebody was there to guide me through it and not send me an email to follow some links.\u201d<\/p>\n
Michael Pendleton is another veteran who says he would have loved to use VBOC resources when he started his business.<\/p>\n
\u201cLearning business, for me, was baptism by fire,\u201d Pendleton said.<\/p>\n
Pendleton is the CEO of AI Cowboys, a tech startup serving both private and public sectors. He began his business during his transition from military to civilian life.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was trying to figure out who Mike was and what made me happy. Those were the two questions I really went on a journey to try and figure out the answer to,\u201d he said. \u201cI think I came to the conclusion that people lie, but the data never does. That started my journey into data science, which led into AI and machine learning.\u201d<\/p>\n
One service offered at the VBOC that attracted Pendleton\u2019s attention was the assistance applying for SBA funding. It’s a process he underwent independently, which is not the easiest task, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would say it\u2019s like the movie \u2018300.\u2019 It wasn\u2019t quick, and I didn\u2019t enjoy it,\u201d he said. \u201cUnderstanding the \u2018why\u2019 from a subject matter expert goes a long way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Three more VBOCs are expected to open in El Paso, Houston and another location to be announced this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO \u2014 The Small Business Administration (SBA) opened a new Veterans Business Outreach Center (VBOC) in San…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":360652,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[12926,4998,132,910,1570,102,138,223,82,84,83,27,1569,835],"class_list":["post-360651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-andres-rendon","tag-app-local-business","tag-austin","tag-business","tag-ctv","tag-dallas","tag-el-paso","tag-news","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news","tag-texas","tag-texas-what-you-need-to-know","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=360651"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/360651\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/360652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=360651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=360651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=360651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}