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Veterans know how to lead. The lessons we learned in the military form the foundation for bigger successes in business, entrepreneurship and community.
Host John S Berry, CEO of Berry Law, served as an active-duty Infantry Officer in the U.S. Army, finishing his military career with two deployments and retiring as a Battalion Commander in the National Guard. Today, his veteran led team at Berry Law, helps their clients fight some of the most important battles of their lives. Leading successful teams in the courtroom, the boardroom, and beyond, veteran leadership drives the firm’s rapid growth and business excellence.
Whether building teams, synchronizing operations, or refining tactics, we share our experiences, good and bad, to help you survive, thrive and dominate.
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[00:00:00.950] - Steve Hart
When you're starting a business, you can have a great idea, you can have a great widget, but if you don't know how to sell it, if you don't know how to get it into the hands of somebody else, it really doesn't matter. There are plenty of people that have great ideas or great thoughts, but how do you sell it, market that piece of it?
[00:00:20.440] - John S. Berry
Welcome to Veteran Led. I'm your host, John Berry. Today's guest is Steve Hart, and he's joined by Freddie Kim, CEO of MilSpec Talent. Welcome to the show, Steve.
[00:00:28.390] - Steve Hart
Hey, I appreciate it. Thanks, John.
[00:00:30.110] - John S. Berry
So, Steve went from being a Navy pilot to a healthcare leader. Steve, take us on your journey.
[00:00:36.130] - Steve Hart
So, I kind of had a unique journey to get into the military. So went to Virginia Tech, played football, had no intention of ever going into the military, uh, went to culinary school, was a chef, uh, and then after the Cole bombing in 2000, I got a hair in my ass and decided to join the Navy. And I came in on an aviation scholarship, but I failed. It's called NPQ, not positionally qualified. We call it the NAMI whammy in the Navy. Basically, medical says you're not qualified. So, I ended up going to be a ship driver for 3 years and then 9/11 kicked off and we were, we were in the fight and I was a Tomahawk strike officer, first lieutenant on a destroyer. Loved my job, but I knew if I wanted to stay in the Navy a long time, I wanted to transition to aviation. So went through the program, I got picked up, ended up going through primary flight training down in Pensacola and got picked up as a helicopter pilot and flew the H-60 Sierra, which is the Army's version of a Black Hawk. It's the one nod I'll give to the Army.
[00:01:37.830] - Steve Hart
They made a great helicopter. And then, you know, I deployed big deck amphibs overseas, multiple times and it was great. And then, you know, as my career progressed in the Navy, we transitioned from flying to a job, a staff job. I was a flight instructor at the FRS and then transitioned to be an admiral's aide for a 3-star admiral that ran all naval installations around the world. And that was a phenomenal look behind the curtain in government. It made me realize I never wanted to work with government. And then I transitioned to my department head ride and again deployed and then transitioned over to my last flying job where I ran a search and rescue unit where we were rescuing probably about 71, 70 to 100 people a year in Washington State. You know, the job of the rescue unit is to be there for the Navy if a plane goes down. Thankfully, that doesn't happen very often, but we need to practice. And what better place to practice on the civilian population of Washington State? Because there was a lot of people that fall down in those mountains or get lost and stuff. So, we got to do that.
[00:02:47.840] - Steve Hart
That kind of led me into healthcare. My mother owned a healthcare recruiting company that she had for 20 years, Coors Leadership, and she needed some help. And so, I kind of dove into it. I've always had that kind of salesy personality. I used to sell, you know, for those of you know Cutco Cutlery, I used to sell for Cutco and was their leading sales rep one year when I figured if you could sell somebody a drawer of something they already have anyway, you could, you know, probably sell jobs.
[00:03:14.820] - John S. Berry
And let's get into, I think, the fascinating story of your entrepreneurial journey. So, all of a sudden you're at a pitch competition, someone writes you a big check. So let's talk about that.
[00:03:23.880] - John S. Berry
So yeah, I, you know, my mother didn't want to sell the company and I wanted to do something. She had a lifestyle business and I wanted to take it to the next level. So, um, my partner and I had been working, he was a consultant we were working with, and he and I were like, hey, there's a there there. And so I went to EBV. It's a program through IBMF for Entrepreneurial Boot Camp for Veterans up at Syracuse University. And at the end of that, you do a pitch, and there's 5 random people in there who are business experts to tell you, hey, is this a good idea? This is what I would change. And I had a gentleman in there named Ted Lachowicz, uh, who is big Syracuse football player. He's done very well for himself. And at the end of that pitch, uh, he basically came out and gave my partner and I a check for $300 grand to start our company. And it was like, go forth and conquer.
[00:04:12.410] - John S. Berry
Wow.
[00:04:12.830] - Steve Hart
And I mean, it was, it was surreal because everybody tells you in a service-based industry, it's really hard to get capital.
[00:04:19.190] - Steve Hart
You know, you'll have to go to SBA. You're going to have to, you know, guarantee the loan with your house, your wife, your kid, you know, your dog. And he basically came in and gave us a check, gave us like phenomenal terms and like didn't ask for a credit check and basically said, you know, I never served the military, you're a guy I want to get behind. And he's been on our board the whole time. And yeah, we kicked it off, and that was in October of '23. Started off, we had a couple clients and we thought we were doing okay. Then the next year we exploded. We went from, you know, $60 grand that first couple months to over $2 million our first year. And then this past year we doubled that. We, uh, we broke over the $4 million range. And I'll tell you, a big part of it has been, you know, the relationships that we got through EBV, IVMF, the brotherhood and sisterhood that we have of Veteran-owned businesses that have reached out to us and said, hey, how can I help? And it's now it's about paying it forward. It's awesome.
[00:05:17.980] - Freddie Kim
So, Steve, let me, let me ask you what if you spoke to your investor post, obviously him investing in you, what was it about you that or your pitch that compelled him to write that check?
[00:05:32.120] - Steve Hart
I think the things that he liked when we've talked to him about it was I was a sales guy and he— his point was, you know, when you're starting a business, you can have a great idea, you can have a great widget, but if you don't know how to sell it, if you don't know how to get it into the hands of somebody else, it really doesn't matter. There are plenty of people that have great ideas or great thoughts, but how do you sell it and market that piece of it? And the way that we were able to line it out, you know, I, in our organization, I do a lot of the business development, right? I'm the lead-in guy, but I couldn't do what I do without having my partner Charles, who is the operations guy. I mean, he's the dot the i's, cross the t's, you know. I'm a, I'm an ADD guy. I mean, I'm bouncing all over the room. I got a million ideas. We call them squirrel moments. Um, but he's the guy who keeps it settled and balanced so we're able to move forward with what we're actually executing on.
[00:06:24.790] - Steve Hart
And I think that that's what Ted saw was like, hey, this is a guy who can sell things. He's got a plan. We laid it out really well for him. And then, you know, he came back and with Charles being the dot the i's, cross the t's, he's like, this is a good partnership. This is where we want to invest.
[00:06:41.110] - John S. Berry
And now Freddie being a graduate of the Kellogg School of Business, Northwestern, he knows how rare these moments are. So how rare is it, Freddie, that someone will do a pitch and get a $300,000 check?
[00:06:50.830] - Freddie Kim
Crazy.
[00:06:51.530] - Steve Hart
Yeah.
[00:06:52.160] - Freddie Kim
That's crazy. Who does that, right? In a pitch competition. And it was— I don't even know if he was a part of the judges evaluating or if he was just a guest in the audience that was like, I like this guy.
[00:07:04.580] - Steve Hart
No, so this is even crazier. It wasn't even a pitch competition. This at EBV, what they do is EBV is built for entrepreneur boot camp for Veterans. So, think of it as like an MBA on steroids in 9 days. Like we're going to give you a little bit of marketing, a little bit of finance. And there are people who had ideas But now it's like, hey, I'm going to vet it out by doing a pitch and develop it. So these people that come there are guys that are sitting there telling you, hey, this is a good idea or it's not. There was no expectation you could win money. There was no idea. It was just this guy who's like, I see something with you guys. And he did it. Now, and to Ted's credit, he's probably done this for 30 other Veteran companies over the last couple of years. You know, he's one of those that he'll tell you constantly. He's like, I never served the country. I think what you guys do is absolutely amazing. And if I can help you guys out in any way for what you gave me the opportunity to be in my life, this is how I can help.
[00:08:04.710] - Steve Hart
And I mean, it's been phenomenal. I mean, because you're right, it never happens.
[00:08:08.590] - Freddie Kim
I mean, I don't know if we've talked about it prior to us starting, but what do you do? Let's tell everyone what you do.
[00:08:15.020] - Steve Hart
Yeah, so, you know, when we got into healthcare, we look at it— our tagline for our company, H&H Leadership Solutions, is people, process, and purpose. So, the people side of it is the executive recruitment. So, we do C-suite through director level permanent placement. We do interims, which are temporary staff, and we do physician placement, provider services, provider placements. On the leadership side, you know, we took our skills in the military The things that we, you know, kind of took for granted, honestly. And then we go into healthcare and realize that there are a lot of places there that they'll hire, say, a rad tech or a med tech, and they're phenomenal at that job. Now we're going to make you a director. But they've never been taught budgeting. They've never been taught leadership, crucial conversations, any of that. And so, we go in there and help them. You know, we stand shoulder to shoulder with them and teach them that. And then— but we also find that in rural America, which is probably a majority of our business, board members have no healthcare background. You know, they think it's a soccer board and this is a hospital board.
[00:09:16.560] - Steve Hart
And so, they're learning about HIPAA laws and, you know, the duty of obedience and loyalty, all the things on being on a nonprofit board. Like, you can no longer go on Facebook and say your provider sucks. You, you can't do that as a board member. And then advisory was our long-term stuff as we got in there and we saw that, hey, we can assess and do operational assessments on rev cycle, on governance. And it was like, well, there's an opportunity here to lead into more business because once I give you a playbook, what we found in a lot of hospitals is that they don't know how to execute that playbook. So now we're in their organization, we're standing shoulder to shoulder with them, teaching them how to implement every piece of it. And, you know, there are a lot of great organizations out there, Huron, Deloitte, McKinsey, and what you would hear from organizations is like, yeah, we used them in the past and it didn't work. And it's why? Well, they came and gave us a book, but nobody knew how to actually do all that stuff. So, we kind of dive into it.
[00:10:16.790] - Steve Hart
And then the marketing side is we get in there and in healthcare marketing, especially in a rural environment, it's about community engagement. So, it's social media, it's, you know, highlighting that new provider that's coming on board so we can build them up a panel of patients. And so, there was, you know, Susie, who was 18, who kind of did Facebook for fun, but they weren't getting any traction. So, we came in with marketing programs and kind of again took that to the next level. And, you know, so everything from like an EMS levy in the county where they're trying to get approval, how do you get that word out to them? So, we started doing that. Well, as things continue to grow, we were approached by a nonprofit organization National EMS Management Association. It's a leadership organization within the EMS, which is emergency medical services. So, in a general entrepreneurial spirit, like, hey, can you— do you think you guys could do this? Absolutely. Yeah, I've done it 10 times before. We'll make it work. And so, we took that over. Well, then EMS agencies were coming, asking us to do the same thing we were doing for hospitals.
[00:11:24.190] - Steve Hart
So, Charles and I created another company, H&H EMS Solutions. So now we have healthcare, we have EMS, and it's just, it's continuing to progress that way.
[00:11:33.740] - John S. Berry
Outstanding. So, it takes us to the after-action review. Tell us your example of great leadership and poor leadership. Don't have to name names.
[00:11:39.960] - Steve Hart
Okay. Uh, great leadership. So, I think in my experience with the military, I worked for some phenomenal flag officers and, and O-6s, captains in the Navy, that what they taught me about leadership was you got to, one, take care of your people. You have to be humble, and you have to be empathetic. You can be the hard-charging guy who wants to get done, but if you don't take care of your people, you don't have humbleness, and you're not empathetic, it's going to be hard to get people to follow you to the next level. I'll tell you one individual, and I will name his name because I think he was phenomenal. Vice Admiral Mike Vitale was the one I worked for at Naval Installations Command. He also taught me assume positive intent, right? When people are doing things, we don't automatically think it's them. It could be a process issue or software or systems issue. People typically wanna do the very best they can. And so that was great leadership. I think the bad leaders that I've seen in organizations are the one that pass the buck, right? They don't take responsibility. They're never willing to say, "I don't know." They think they know everything or will try to pretend that they know everything.
[00:12:48.160] - Steve Hart
And I think the ones that don't take the time to get around and, you know, in healthcare we call it rounding. In the Navy, it's called going and checking on your people. You know, I think great leaders have to get out and go see what their people are doing. You know, in the military, you go stand on the flight line or you stand on the carrier and you're watching 2,000 people to get this one jet off the end of the carrier. Right. And bad leaders don't ever go down there to see what their people are facing. So they, when their guys are telling them they're tired and you know, the food sucks. They're not eating in the galley. They're not doing those things. They're up there in their high tower thinking life's great. And so those are the experiences I've seen with some poor leaders. But, you know, I think the poor leadership teaches you how to be a better leadership because you learn what not to do, right? Just like Edison learned 1,000 ways to make— not make a light bulb to get to the one that works. And I think that's what we see every day.
[00:13:39.670] - John S. Berry
So where can listeners learn more about you, Steve, and your company?
[00:13:43.100] - Steve Hart
Our website, we have hnhleadershipsolutions.com. Charles and I have a podcast we started about 3 months ago, which is— we're looking at your setup and I'm like, wow. All right, Charles, we got some work to do. But we have a podcast called H&H Impact that you can get off of Apple or Podbean or any of the other ways to listen to a podcast. And then we run a series of articles that are out there all the time, really focused on leadership, and healthcare and, and the challenges organizations face. And so, uh, we're excited because I think as we've continued to progress, we're starting to get beyond leadership— or, uh, sorry, beyond healthcare. Uh, we have other organizations and industries that are reaching out to us because they like the way we do stuff. So, we're excited what the future holds.
[00:14:26.010] - John S. Berry
Well, thank you for sharing your story, and thank you for your continued leadership.
[00:14:28.930] - Steve Hart
Awesome. Thank you, guys, very much for having us here. Appreciate it.
[00:14:31.250] - Freddie Kim
Appreciate it.
[00:14:31.870] - Steve Hart
Awesome.
[00:14:37.670] - John S. Berry
Thank you for joining us today on Veteran Led, where we seek to help Veterans build an even bigger, better future after military service. Unfortunately, for some of our Veterans, the roadblock to a better future is that they are not receiving all of the benefits that they earned. If you need help appealing a VA disability decision, contact Berry Law.