On 5 Minute Salute, our host Chris Budihas talk to veterans making a difference in their communities. Today, Chris had the honor to speak with Martha Macphee of American Corporate Partners.
What’s one thing we should know that makes your company unique?
We are the only nonprofit whose sole purpose is to combat underemployment for veterans and military spouses.
What was the biggest obstacle you had to overcome in your business?
We need to find more people who want to be mentors and proteges!
How do you define success?
If what you are doing. makes you happy. You can make $4 a day and if you are happy then that is success.
How did you get started in your field of work?
The Marine Corps…all roads lead back to the Marine Corps.
Transcript
Speaker 1
Welcome to Five Minute Salute. I’m your host, Chris Budihas. And today’s segment is sponsored by the Military Affairs and Veterans Department of the City of Jacksonville. Harrison Connors is team’s scoring way. Our veterans with the military benefits they earned through their service. Joining me remotely from northern Virginia. I have Martha Macphee with American Corporate Partners. Martha, how are you?
Speaker 2
Good. Chris, thank you so much for having me on your show today.
Speaker 1
No, thank you for coming on. You know, when I reached out to you, you know, first of all, say LinkedIn is such a powerful tool. When we connected on LinkedIn and I saw what you’re doing, I’m like, I got to invite you because I, I when I was transitioning out and retiring in the military about 18 months ago, as I mentioned off camera to you, I used American corporate partners, better known as ACP, and then for block, and they helped me as I was refining my exit plan, so to speak, on how I need to prepare myself in order to be ready for my next, you know, chapter of life in the civilian world specifically.
Speaker 1
So, Martha, before we get to all that, let’s talk about you. Where are you originally from and what you do in the military?
Speaker 2
So I was actually born in Fort Lauderdale. I still have family that live in Fort Lauderdale and Jacksonville, but I was raised primarily in Missouri and went to college there.
Speaker 1
Okay, great. What you do in the military?
Speaker 2
I was a direct air support control officer. We basically took aircraft from the ATC to the ground units and kind of worked in a command center to coordinate close air support, helicopter operations, surveillance aircraft and everything like that in combat.
Speaker 1
That’s wonderful. Well, hey, thanks for your service. And obviously, if you didn’t do that, we couldn’t do this here today. And, and that’s just absolutely awesome to see what our veterans are doing, their post military career. And I’m going to highly encourage folks to connect with you on LinkedIn because you did a lot of stuff. Since then, we’ll get to that necessarily, because we’re going to be limited on time because I want to talk about ACP.
Speaker 1
Talk to us about American corporate partners. What is this organization and how do you guys do what you do?
Speaker 2
Sure. So ACP was created in 2008, and we are a free, fully customizable, one on one mentorship program. It is one hour a month for 12 months, and we’re really trying to combat under employment and that’s very different from unemployment. We’re not looking to necessarily get people jobs. Yeah. And that that happens a lot through our program. And we think that’s amazing.
Speaker 2
But what we’re really trying to do is find what people are passionate about, what they really want to do, so that whatever role or career or job or college, they’re getting ready to go to, they have something that they’re going to be really satisfied doing long term. And that’s really hard to find nowadays. And it took me a while to find that.
Speaker 2
And I probably wasted an undergrad degree. I wasted time in service trying to get into certain jobs, and I wasted my first job after the military doing something that I found out wasn’t really what I wanted to do in life. And had I had a mentor to kind of go through what it was really like, I probably would have been able to choose something I love to do for a lot longer, much sooner.
Speaker 1
That’s wonderful. No, I, I that’s huge. And I, like you were talking off camera and I got the Marines in 2000 and had a little break in service and come back on the Army. I work for General Electric, and I was one of the lucky ones. I actually enjoyed what I was doing. I joined who was doing it with.
Speaker 1
But what I saw on a recent figure about six months ago is 73% of veterans. Once they leave, the service will change. Their first job within three years. So I think there’s a, you know, so to speak, a individual product market fit. You understand what you want to do, who you want to do it with. You can help them do that one year program.
Speaker 1
Oh, by the way, who can’t afford one hour a month? That’s a huge opportunity with a mentor to kind of go through that self-discovery. Correct.
Speaker 2
It’s huge. And it also helps with people’s mental health and financial stability and wanting to enjoy going to work and making friends at work, where people will check in on you if you’re missing some day. So it’s a huge part of kind of the veteran transition or veterans journey that they are kind of going on after they get out of the service.
Speaker 1
Yeah. So one part of ACP is obviously the veteran. Can you talk about if somebody, you know, listening to this interview and they’re compelled like, hey, I want to help be part of ACP to help mentor, you know, veterans, how do they how do they get connected and, and, get more information about, you know, being a partner?
Speaker 2
Yeah, sure. We they can find us online. acp-usa.org, or just search American corporate partners, and we’ll probably pop up, soon. We’d love to have anybody who is looking to be a mentor. Two-thirds of our mentors are not military. They’re in the corporate space. They have about five years of experience, and they really just want to help veterans.
Speaker 1
Yeah, and I want to dispel a rumor, because I was over at Naval Air Station Jacksonville recently, and I was, you know, talking to a couple of younger sailors in the gym. I mean, ACP is not an officer. No. The organization. Who’s this for? Really?
Speaker 2
Sure. Right now, we have about 5200 pairs that are currently, doing a mentor protege program right now with us, about 79. So almost 80% are enlisted, which is huge.
Speaker 1
That’s good.
Speaker 2
But what I’d love to share is a little bit about the impact study that we did, over two years recently we spent about 400 hours, 20 plus people. We did it for the full year of 2024, 2025. What we did is we looked at all the proteges and how the program had helped them, and we discovered, on average, people that were after they got through our program, we’re getting jobs about 105 K, which is huge, especially if you think about 80% of them are listed and 25% don’t even have a degree at all.
Speaker 2
Coming coming to us. And then we had, we noticed that there was about a 41% increase on average in pay as well afterwards, that they that they went through the program as well.
Speaker 1
That’s great. I mean, those statistics are telling in themselves. Yeah. Under today’s modern economy. So that’s that that could be a huge game changer. And then the probably the satisfaction because these people are actually getting in positions and careers.
Speaker 1
And that’s why I tell folks, you know, if you leave in the military, you shouldn’t be looking for a job. You should really be looking for another career if you have the luxury of doing that. So ACP affords you the opportunity to, you know, look in advance. And then somebody asked me, you know, you know, how far in advance should be thinking about my departure from military.
Speaker 1
And it’s like it’s on the horizon, you know, it’s going to happen. So yeah, two years in advance.
Speaker 2
Absolutely.
Speaker 1
No way you got enough cushion with your opportunity to you know, take take that information with your, your mentor, to, to, to kind of calculate and what your next career change is going to be. So, so Martha, as we get ready to wrap up, what else about ACP, would you like to communicate to the audience?
Speaker 2
I would just like to say is, we don’t have to take someone who knows exactly what they want to do in life. Most of the people that come to us are just like, I have no idea what I want to do, or my job in the military like mine, doesn’t really translate into the civilian space.
Speaker 2
We even have folks that are like, I know absolutely what I want to do. I want to be an entrepreneur. I understand the entrepreneur space, but I just need help in one specific area, like marketing or social media. And we’ll set them up with a mentor that can help in just specific areas.
Speaker 2
Maybe people are in a job and they want to become a manager, or they just need help in that specific job. They’re they’re transitioning and it’s different from the military, and they just want a mentor to kind of talk through that situation with and kind of help them in that new job or process that they’re going through.
Speaker 1
That’s wonderful. Martha, number one, thank you for your service. The nation number two, one more time. Where where do you how do folks find American corporate partners?
Speaker 2
Sure. You can find us at acp-usa.org
Speaker 1
Okay. We’ll make sure we put that in our show notes so folks can find it. We’re going to encourage folks to connect with you. And on LinkedIn. And if they got any more questions they DM us and then we’ll get them to the right people. They will get the answers.
Speaker 1
So hey, thank you for your service, the nation, and thank you for all you’re doing for our veterans over at American Corporate Partners.
Speaker 2
Thank you so much. I appreciate you having me.
Speaker 1
Absolutely. Hey, folks. You know, again, connect is on LinkedIn. You know, take a look at what American corporate partners is doing to help our veterans out. Spread the word. You know, that’s a it’s a big piece of this.
Speaker 1
You may not be a veteran or you just, you know, you’re supporter of our our great military, community. Please spread the word. Let them know that this is a great way from the connect. And as Martha mentioned, a number of the mentors out there don’t have any military background, and that is not required.
Speaker 1
You’re just going to take the knowledge that you’ve gained through your career and pass it on and kind of pay it forward to our veteran community. So I’ll see you next segment.
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