Jennifer Winstel: Welcome to the Purpose Unlocked podcast. We are your hosts. I'm Jennifer Winstel.
Leslie Kincheloe: And I'm Leslie Kincheloe.
Jennifer Winstel: We're with the Winstel Kincheloe team in Charlotte, North Carolina. You can reach us at jennifer.winstel@ubs.com. We are financial advisors with UBS, one of the largest wealth managers in the world.
Leslie Kincheloe: We are so excited to have meaningful conversations with a variety of guests. We'll be exploring their passions in business, entrepreneurship and philanthropy.
Jennifer Winstel: Our mission is to bring purpose to life beyond the numbers.
Jennifer Winstel: I'm excited that we have Jim Whaley, CEO of Mission Roll Call, joining us for this episode.
Jim Whaley: A pleasure to be here. Happy to be with both of you. And I love your podcast and what you've been talking about.
Jennifer Winstel: Thank you, thank you. Well, I think this one is so appropriate with Veterans Day and an opportunity to recognize our veterans in the service to this country. And more importantly, talk about what Mission Roll Call is doing for these veterans and how you're starting to change the opportunities that they're given. And I love when we were talking about this before this podcast, you talked about being the AARP for veterans, right?
Jennifer Winstel: So maybe we can start with that and a little bit of your background in the Army.
Jim Whaley: Sure. Well, Mission Roll Call, if you think about it, is an advocacy organization that just amplifies the voices of veterans. So right now, there's 18 million veterans in our country. When you think about all of their family members, their spouses, their kids, dependents, you're talking about a sizable portion of the American public, probably on 25, 30 million people, half of those veterans, half of those 18 million veterans are not associated with the Veterans Administration, and they're not associated with any veteran support organization.
Jim Whaley: So, their voices are not being heard. And so, what we try to do through polling that we give to our veterans through our podcast, through our YouTube videos, through our website, is to harness that energy, harness their unfiltered opinions, and share it with decision makers, both at the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee as well as the House Veterans Affairs Committee.
Jim Whaley: And we also share it with the VA. These are important things for us to be doing because there are many things that are affecting veterans and their families right now. In terms of getting the health care, when and where and how they need it. Homelessness. And we're still dealing with a scourge of veteran’s suicide.
Jim Whaley: So, all of those things, are confluence, that we're trying to make sure that not only decision makers know about it, but the general American public. My background is, as I served 20 years in the Army, as a helicopter pilot. And my family's kind of committed to all this. My wife's a West Point graduate.
Jim Whaley: My youngest daughter is a West Point graduate. And she’s in special operations. My middle daughter works for a veteran support organization. And my oldest daughter is in the Coast Guard. So, I'm committed to the cause. And my team is mostly veterans. I have ten people on the team and seven of those are special operators, Delta folks, as well as CIA operatives and things like that.
Jim Whaley: And the reason for that is all of them have a great passion. They're self-starters. And they want to help veterans across our great country.
Jennifer Winstel: So can you share a little more about how Mission Roll Call was founded in 2018. You became their CEO a couple years later. Can you speak to what was the passion behind the cause, how it's grown under your leadership? And what are some of the things our audience could learn about Mission Roll Call and how they can support?
Jim Whaley: Yeah, that's a great question. It started, out of the vision of a gentleman named Bernie Marcus. Your viewers may know Bernie from his history of writing two books on, you know, entrepreneurial ism as well as starting The Home Depot. So, he was one of the co-founders of the Home Depot. And then, started a family foundation with his sizable fortune.
Jim Whaley: And one of his key areas of support is around veterans. He himself was a veteran. He was in the reserves, and he felt that veterans weren't getting the health care they needed. So, he founded many brick and mortar, traumatic brain institutes across the country, serving the majority of veterans who have suffered traumatic brain injuries out of his pocket.
Jim Whaley: In the second area, focus for him was he didn't feel that veteran’s voices were going to be heard. So hence, mission roll call. It started as a program under another organization. And then I got a call from the Bernie Marcus Foundation. They had looked at my background. I came and talked to them about it. I was excited about it.
Jim Whaley: I had taken a couple months off. I thought I was going to retire. And then this wonderful opportunity came that really combined my corporate communications experience. Running corporate communications for two fortune 500 companies. And then my experiences being a veteran. And so, this gave me an opportunity at this part of my life to go back to my tribe, my people.
Jim Whaley: And that's veterans and their families. And so, we were able to stand up a 501(c), do all the things that that requires, right standing up my bank accounts and, insurance policies and all those sort of things. Although, the granularity that comes with starting a business and now we've, at the year and a half mark, we've gone to a followership of about 25,000 to, a million on our website, and we reach about 7 million veterans through all of our platforms.
Jim Whaley: And that's been a sizable growth in a shorter period of time. And that's because I got a great team of self-starters and operators that know how to get the mission done.
Leslie Kincheloe: Can you give us a success story that you've experienced so far in advocating?
Jim Whaley: Yeah, we've had a couple big ones, but the most recent one is called the Veterans Access Act. So, what that means is kind of what it sounds like is to allow veterans to get the health care when and where and how they need it. So right now, the current way to do it is you have to go to a VA facility to get the, health care that you need.
Jim Whaley: And in some cases, if you live in the rural environment or you're unable to drive, that's next to impossible. Or maybe you'll have to wait 200 days. Well, if you're dealing with mental health issues, you're talking about it, and it should be minutes to hours of time, not months. So, we pushed really hard through our polling and working with the House Veterans Affairs Committee and others to lay out that 88% of veterans want access to health care when and how they need it.
Jim Whaley: There are some in Congress, and we're apolitical. So, I'm not going to make names, but they want everything to stay in the VA. And they want that process to be there. And they look at it as, conflict that we allow veterans to get access to health care at Novant or any other organization. And of course, that's not what veterans want.
Jim Whaley: So, we've been able to push that through, showing that the majority of veterans want this and sharing it with Congressman and our data. We can break it down by congressional district. So, think about the power that that gives us when we go into a congressman's office or congresswoman's office and say, hey, listen here. We know there's a blank amount of veterans in your area.
Jim Whaley: Your jurisdiction. And here's what they think, and this is what they want. So, we've been able to do that same thing with the Veterans Second Amendment Act and a number of other things. The challenge is it takes a long time. And this process is designed by our forefathers. Right, to take time and take the emotion out of it.
Jim Whaley: But the problem is, is that regardless of the billions of dollars that have been spent, we still have at least 30 to 40,000 veterans homeless on any given day, and we're losing about 20 to 25. Some will say even higher of veterans due to suicide. So, time is not our friend, and we need to move out with a purpose and get behind this.
Jim Whaley: And when I talk to the media, I always say that veteran’s issues is corollary to recruitment issues. You're not going to be able to recruit the best and brightest if they see people come back from serving in the country in a bad way. They have to have a path to success and to build wealth and to do all those things that are important for them.
Jim Whaley: And so we're very appreciative of the Marcus Foundation to give us this money, his, foundation, family foundation. He passed away last year. I had a chance to talk to him and meet with him. And he was an outgoing, gregarious, thoughtful man and, a heart of gold. And was able to use his vast fortune to help us as well as a number of organizations.
Jim Whaley: He built the Atlanta Aquarium. You've probably all been there, and I urge you to try to go find the plaque that says the Marcus Foundation built that because he was so humble. You can't find it. It's on the bottom of a water fountain.
Jennifer Winstel: Was there one specific thing he wanted to accomplish with mission roll call prior to his passing?
Jim Whaley: He wanted the VA to be held accountable.
Jennifer Winstel: Okay. And be more.
Jim Whaley: Like a private, type of health care system. Responsive, competitive. Thinking outside the box. I mean, right now, the VA is bigger than the United States Army. And in a budget of $470 billion. So, a lot of that money could be better spent. But we're helping them think about that. And we have new leadership in there.
Jim Whaley: And so hopefully those things will happen. But we’re buoyed by the fact that there's a conversation and they're there valuing what we're bringing to the organization. We're not going in there and saying, this is mission roll calls, opinion. We're saying this is what veterans want, and we're the only organization that's doing that. So, when they call us and they do directly and ask for a poll on a certain subject, they say to us, we want to know what veterans are thinking.
Jim Whaley: And that's important because they know they're going to get it unfiltered in a political nonpartizan way. And sometimes we're surprised by the data we get back. But that's, that's important.
Jennifer Winstel: So, have you seen recruitment numbers slowing?
Jim Whaley: Recruitment now is up. It was down for quite a while. I think they've made some adjustments in marketing and some other things, but I also feel that there's kind of a shift in the country to some degree. And service and people are more apt to do it. I mean, I joined the military because I needed a way to pay for college.
Jim Whaley: Quite frankly, I was the first one in my family to go to school. And there was really no path financially to do that. And like most young people, I wanted adventure and a little bit of danger. And Army is a good place for that. Right.
Leslie Kincheloe: Well, thank you for your service. Pleasure. Jennifer and I are both daughters of veterans ourselves, and we know what a sacrifice that is.
Jim Whaley: Now, did your dad ever make you. I'm assuming it was your father, but it could have been your mother as well. Father made you do pushups. Anything physical like that? Because I did that with my daughters, and they give me a hard time about it.
Jennifer Winstel: Well, it was just legitimately about rules and discipline. That's right. So that parlayed right into how he governed his children.
Jim Whaley: Look how successful you two that is, because of that.
Jennifer Winstel: So, Air Force. My father was in the Air Force. Your father.
Leslie Kincheloe: Was Marines.
Jennifer Winstel: Yeah. Yeah.
Jim Whaley: That's awesome. That's great.
Jennifer Winstel: So, can you talk a little bit about how you found your purpose? I mean, coming from you have a family of military. But what was specific about this calling for you that allowed you to serve your purpose?
Jim Whaley: Well, I think the first time I got the purpose was, not really in college, you know, in college or just kind of, you know, just getting through it and having fun and doing all those sort of things you do as a young person. I don't feel I really got my purpose until I probably went into the military and then met people and then went to my first assignment and as a young helicopter pilot and in, in the division and flying and doing things and flying medevac, you know, I found my purpose there, in the Army, I think I started to develop, more of a purpose to humanity and wanting to leave things
Jim Whaley: better than I found it and helping people as much as I could. And, and I think I got that as I, I think it was a slow burn for me. It was a moment. It was all those years in the military understanding that, you know, you're part of something bigger than yourself. And this is a noble profession, and you need to take care of the people that are with you and that you command and that you're leading.
Jim Whaley: And I brought that to the business world. And, boy, it stood out, because when you put the needs of the people that work with you above yourself and you care about them more than you care about yourself, you stand out in corporate America. And I think I realized that there was so many people that were successful, right in business, but were miserable.
Jim Whaley: They were stressed out. They weren't confident in who they were and what they were doing. And what I tried to do is always make sure that, to be as kind as possible, to be patient as possible and understand that on any given day, anybody that comes into your office, is it 100%, you know, the dog is ill.
Jim Whaley: Their kids are not doing well in school. They may have some marital problems. They may have some financial struggles. So, if you show a little grace and a little kindness, it goes a long way and it builds loyalty. And it builds camaraderie. And I think that's an important and I think that's one thing the Army really teaches is that esprit de corps and camaraderie and being part of something bigger than yourselves.
Jim Whaley: And you will work harder and be more focused, if you have that. And I think, corporations and, and, and even small mom and pop organizations can figure a way to do that, not be transactional in the way they do things. I think you'll get a lot more out of people.
Leslie Kincheloe: How do you mentor those who are coming up the ranks, whether in mission, role, call, or in other organizations where you're involved?
Jim Whaley: I think it’s a constant discussion. You know, I always hate those, in-progress review things at the end of the years. Like, how do you do, how do you think you did and all that. I try to do it through the year. And as I have time with them one on one or in and talking with them, because goals change, conditions change.
Jim Whaley: And I think what I try to do is as much as I can, I learned through my three daughters. You know, when a guy talks to a guy, they want the guy to solve this problem. When a guy talks to their daughter, it is listen and let them talk about it. And ask open-ended questions and listen and maybe not solve the problem.
Jim Whaley: And I think that taught me, I mean, being a father of three daughters fundamentally made me a better man. It certainly made me kinder. And I think it made me a better listener, although some of my daughters would probably say you still got some work to do, but that's okay.
Jennifer Winstel: Can you share with us a person who impacted your career? Did you have a mentor or somebody who really led you on the path you're on today?
Jim Whaley: Yeah. It's interesting. I think my first commander in the Army was very influential to me, and I think most military people will tell you their first assignment is key if they stay in or not. At first, commander makes a big difference on the trajectory because the Army is any other branch can be very miserable. A lot of time away from home, sleeping outside, very poor food.
Jim Whaley: Not enough sleep, you name it, it's happening to you. But if you have a good first boss, you're in it together. And my first boss, I remember I reported it to him. I think I was maybe 22 or 23 years old. I don't think I needed to shave every day, you know? I mean, I looked really young and I remember I reported in and this was in Germany, a long time ago and I reported in camp detention, saluted, presented myself.
Jim Whaley: And the first question he asked me was, how old are you? And I told him, he said, “Where are you from?” So, I explained myself and I talked to him a little bit, and he didn't know I was showing up. It was just the way the Army worked back then. And, he said, well, I'm going to put you in this platoon and you're going to have this platoon sergeant.
Jim Whaley: You're going to do that, and, you know, come over to the house tonight. We'll send we'll get you picked up at the hotel, and I want you to meet my family and have dinner. That was huge. And then he said something to me, very important. He says, I want you to start working on your master's degree. Well, I just finished four years of college, a year of flight school.
Jim Whaley: Right? I was been at that point in my life, in school, my entire life. All I wanted to do was anything opposite of sitting in a desk and listening. Right. And I told him, I said, sir, I appreciate that. But I really don't have the money for that right now. He said, “That’s okay, I'll pay for your first class.”
Jim Whaley: Well, I did have the money for it, so I ended up paying for it. But it was important, I think, for him, to mentor me and say you need to start working on your advanced degree, an MBA now as a as a young guy. And it took me three years because I took the gentleman's course of one course a semester and dragged it out because I didn't really want to work too hard.
Jim Whaley: But I think that caring and showing “I'm investing in you” was important. And it showed to me that, okay, this guy believes that I have a career, and he just met me. I'm going to do all I can to make sure he's successful. And I think that's the one thing when I mentor people, I would tell them two things or three things.
Jim Whaley: One is you need to make yourself indispensable to an organization. So don't run away from the fire. Run to the fire. So, every time there's a big project to be worked on, something that doesn't look glamorous, go after it, do it, to be kind to people and help others along the way. And three, make your boss look good.
Jim Whaley: Try to wake up every morning and think about, well, what's going to be on his or her plate, that I can take off his or her plate to make their life a little bit better today. If you do those three simple things and smile along the way, you're going to have to do some of that stuff anyway. But if you add to it in a way that it's enthusiastic and makes yourself indispensable, you're going to stand up and you're going to become successful no matter what your degree was in the way you placed in class.
Jim Whaley: Yeah, right.
Leslie Kincheloe: I think that kindness goes a long way. It's obvious.
Jim Whaley: Yeah, I think especially today, because it's just a very polarized world. And I think a lot of leaders are walking on eggshells at work, and they don't know how to really mentor people or how to really talk to people or really kind of encourage them. And sometimes, let's face it, you have to be a little tough love and say, well, listen, you know, you did eight out of the ten things I've asked, but why do I have to keep asking you?
Jim Whaley: Right? What's in your life that's not making these things happen? So, it's not coddling. But it's kindness. But you can do both. You can. You can be, I think, a leader that expects the very best out of people and demands that. But you can also do it in a way that shows some empathy and kindness, that understands that everybody's different.
Jim Whaley: Right? Then adjust your leadership style to every person to some degree.
Leslie Kincheloe: There's a lot of great organizations in our country that support veterans and want to hire veterans. Is there work that you're doing with jobs?
Jim Whaley: Yes. We have a YouTube page right now, and we've had it for a little bit. That kind of helps veterans think about transitions. So, there's a number of organizations that do the actual getting veterans to do the you hire heroes and some other ones, that, that, that does that. Our podcast talks about, you know, everything from dressing to success, resumé building, how to network, how to tell your story.
Jim Whaley: I think the challenge most veterans have is they've never really applied for a job before, and they really have never interviewed for a job before. For most cases, their interview process is word of mouth. What they've done, their reputation that gets them into positions, of higher leadership and things like that. And I also think veterans wait to the absolute last minute to start that networking process.
Jim Whaley: So, the veterans I talk to, I will tell them, you need to find out what makes you successful, what are the things that you're good at. Hopefully they align to things you like to do. But you need to do what you're good at. And you need to start that process of researching companies and organizations that you think you want to be part of, because they just don't understand networking.
Jim Whaley: And so, I suggest to them, call a company that you're interested in, talk to the HR and say, listen, I want to sit down with you and understand your company a little bit. I'm thinking about doing a transition from the military, and I'm exploring organizations these years. And then top of the list, I'd like to sit down, understand that they'll take that.
Jim Whaley: Most HR people will sit down and have coffee with you and have that meeting, and that way your face is known and you've asked some questions, and you can find out a little bit about the climate of that organization and see if it's a good fit for you.
Jennifer Winstel: So, as we started the podcast Veterans Day, what does Veterans Day mean to you? And if you could share a call to action for mission roll call. What would you challenge our audience. How can they get involved or how can they support.
Jim Whaley: Sure. Well Veterans Day of course is holiday where we celebrate veterans that have served their country. And we acknowledge the fact that they've stopped their live lives. They broke Rose their right hand and they took an oath to defend their country. And that's a blank check that a young person is, is signing over to people they don't even know that says, I'm willing to fight and defend and possibly give up my life or limb to fight for this idea of a republic.
Jim Whaley: And to do this, in a way that is, embracing the unknown. So, I have great respect for anybody who has served at any level in any organization. As always, great rivalries between the services. But at the end of the day, we have great respect for fellow veterans, and we see each other. That's immediate eye contact and a respect for each other.
Jim Whaley: You know, for me, and how people can get involved with mission Roll Call. You don't have to be a veteran to be concerned about veterans’ issues. And I would urge anybody who's running a company or, in the C-suite or in the position to hire somebody that you should think about, veterans, let's face it. Our whole economy, our whole way of life is brought to you by those that have served.
Leslie Kincheloe: That's right.
Jim Whaley: Because without that, there are bad forces out there to this day that want to bring this all to a grinding halt. They would give them nothing but gladness to see another September 11th. And I don't say that to scare the audience. That's just facts. If you're an adult, you need to address the facts, and the facts are it's a dangerous world out there, and everything that you go on Amazon and you click and you buy.
Jim Whaley: Well, that's transported usually by ship or somewhere in the country. You have to have freedom of the seas to do that. Works with choirs and navy. To do that, you need to be able to bring to bear our ability to influence the world so we can enjoy capitalism, because there's a vast amount of this, this world that doesn't embrace capitalism.
Jim Whaley: So, I think all of us, regardless of where we grew up or our political background or where we are social, economic, needs to understand that our way of life, our freedoms are only here because you have a strong military that defends our country to do that. And it's not a guarantee, it's not our for sure thing.
Jim Whaley: And any casual person who studies history knows that that's the case. And intellectual curiosity is a good thing. So, you should read about history to understand that. So, in that way, I think anybody who wants to go, and look at what we're doing on our website and see how we're helping veterans, chances are there's somebody in your family, that is a veteran.
Jim Whaley: This for Veterans Day. We have a veterans honor war where you can go there, write a small sentence or two or as much as you want, post a picture of your loved one or your uncle or your dad and put it up there. And it's going to be up there forever. And it's a memorial for veterans that have served our country both alive and dead.
Jim Whaley: And we think that it’s very important for that digital memory to be there. And it's free. And we've already had hundreds of people start that process. And so, I would urge anybody who's got a family member or a friend from high school or college buddy or gal to go ahead and do that. I think it's important to remember those that have served.
Jim Whaley: And if you've asked anybody who's just served for a few years, they light up when you ask them, what did you do in the service? You know, I know we always say thank you for your service, and that's important to say, and we value that. But understanding what that person did in the service makes that person stand up and there, and you could just see the glow in their eyes and the pride that they have.
Jim Whaley: I'm very proud of my 2400 hours plus in a helicopter. I'm very proud of my service running, communications and marketing for West Point. I'm proud of the soldiers I lead in different parts of the world. I'm certainly proud of my daughters that are continuing to serve. And I'm also, you know, equally proud of the team and being able to focus on veteran’s situations now.
Jim Whaley: I mean, right now, if we could talk a little bit about homelessness on Veterans Day, I know it's a little bit of a downer, but we have veterans on Veterans Day that are homeless. And the only reason we know there's 30,000 veterans, because one day a year, we ask the volunteers to go out and count the homeless, okay.
Jim Whaley: That's the way we come up with that number. So that number is not a very accurate number. California does seem participate and they have the most veterans in the country. Some states don't count veterans that are living in a car. It's homeless. Some states don't count. Veteran who's living in a tent. I don't know about you, but if I'm living in a tent, I'm considering myself homeless.
Jim Whaley: So, this is like any other big problem. Unless you know the scope of the problem, you probably can't solve the problem. So, it's things like that, issues like that that we're trying to bring to the forefront. And I think all of us as Americans are saddened and somewhat embarrassed by the fact that we're still losing so many veterans, to suicide and so many veterans to homelessness.
Jim Whaley: But this is a small portion of veterans, the majority of them are in business, starting businesses, working in nonprofits, invocations that are making a difference in our community. So, it's a balance to understand that most veterans are doing very well. But there are some that have been left behind for any reason. Right? We all know that by the grace of God.
Jim Whaley: Right. There go I so, bad things can happen.
Leslie Kincheloe: Well, thank you very much for the work that you do and the advocacy that you've done with the military.
Jim Whaley: It's a great honor to work with this team and affect a little bit of the world, and try to make lives better for people. And at the end of the day, I think that's what all of us want to do. We want to leave the world a little bit better. We want to affect the people around us in a positive way.
Jim Whaley: And, and we want to take on tough problems and do our best to solve them.
Jennifer Winstel: Jim Whaley, CEO of Mission Roll Call. Thank you.
Jim Whaley: Thank you.
Jennifer Winstel: We will share information about your organization on our website. And, we hope to have you as a guest. Again, this has been very informative. And again, thank you for your service.
Jim Whaley: My pleasure.
Leslie Kincheloe: Thank you. I'd like to take a minute and thank all the veterans who are listening to this podcast. Thank you all very much for your service to our country.