Formerly known as the Service Corps of Retired Executives, SCORE Hawaii will stage a workshop titled “Pricing Your Product” from 9 a.m. to noon Thursday. The $45 workshop is focused on contractors and food operators and is just one of many services the organization offers to help people become business owners.
Two of the targeted programs SCORE offers focus on women and wounded warriors, and what follows is about the latter.
Service members who return from combat wounded need to transition back into civilian life, and many have been aided in the effort by Vince Dydasco, vice chairman and volunteer counselor for SCORE Hawaii. By day he is Veracity Payment Solutions’ vice president for the Pacific Region. The business mentoring program has been successful to the point that Dydasco was honored by the U.S. Small Business Administration as Hawaii’s Veteran Small Business Champion for 2012.
Question: How did the effort start?
Answer: I decided to focus on veterans at Schofield (Barracks), the wounded warriors, and started counseling up there. I wanted the program to be relevant and reliable. The program started at Schofield Barracks as a program in the Wounded Warrior Transition Program.
Q: How often do you go?
A: One night (a month), two to three hours.
Q: What kind of help do you offer?
A: We take the soldiers’ startup idea for a business, and help with writing a business plan, and meeting with bankers over a four- to six-month period.
Q: Is this veterans’ transitional counseling available anywhere else?
A: The program expanded through word of mouth to the Kaneohe Marine Corps Base (MCBH), where it’s called TAPS, for Transition Assistance Program. We go up there every quarter. There also is another initiative there, an expansion of TAPS, which is a similar, longer, three-day program.
The (last) program we had at Marine Corps Base Hawaii was really good. We had 20 or more people there of all ranks, from the sergeant to a full-bird colonel retiring. Despite his knowledge of leadership and management, he too needed to learn the basics of registering a business. Despite the rank, the challenges were the same. It was exciting to have conversations with such a mixed body of people.
Q: Anywhere else?
A: We offer it quarterly also at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, at the Military and Family Community Support Program. It’s combined Navy-Air Force program.
Q: How many of the soldiers you counsel will stay in the islands?
A: More than half of those soldiers will not be starting a business in Hawaii, but when they leave, many can connect with their local SCORE office through the national SCORE website. At the same time, I focus on and highlight the resources available to soldiers who will be starting a business in Hawaii. The principles are the same.
I would estimate 30 percent stay in Hawaii while … 40 percent return to the mainland and 30 percent to the Pacific islands.
Q: Do you have an idea how many people you have helped so far?
A: The number of counseled military personnel or family members, to date in 2012, over 100, and from the start, over 350.
Q: In business, what is your background?
A: I ran Panasonic (Hawaii) for 20 years. My last task as vice president of the western region was to get out of the lease (for the former Panasonic facility in Halawa) and close it down. I gained a lot of business experience with Panasonic, through all economic times, offering business counseling to clients from smaller retailers to big-boxes.
Q: What else should people know about SCORE and what it offers?
A: We are the counseling arm of the U.S. Small Business Administration. We also demystify (the process) of registering a business, the process of getting a liquor license, all the realistic things in the business of starting a business. It can be confusing and daunting, but SCORE’s there to help. That’s where the reward is for me, is to see the guys move forward and take it to the next level.
Also, please explore our SWI (SCORE Women’s Initiative). It is led by counselor Eileen Hilton and Linda
O’Grady.
