Wounded Soldiers Gain Business Skills to Grow Career “Beyond the Battlefield”

BUSINESS WIRE--Wounded Warrior Project, a nonprofit organization that honors and empowers wounded warriors, announced today the inaugural “Beyond the Battlefield” Leadership Summit, an intensive four-day conference designed to maximize the leadership skills, financial success, and quality of life for men and women with serious injuries from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Sixty wounded warriors from across the country are expected to attend the summit, offered through a partnership between the Wounded Warrior Project and The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc. (NYSE: HIG), which will be held June 18-21 at TPC Sawgrass in Jacksonville, Fla.

“Through these leadership summits, The Hartford and the Wounded Warrior Project are giving the severely wounded men and women of our armed forces an amazing opportunity to improve their personal finance knowledge and develop the skills needed to form solid business relationships,” said Wounded Warrior Project Founder and Executive Director John Melia. “The leadership summits will help inspire and motivate the warriors to achieve their personal and business goals.”

Many challenges lie ahead for the nearly 31,000 wounded veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. The leadership summit is the latest addition to the growing number of services and programs Wounded Warrior Project offers wounded military personnel and veterans including career and benefits counseling, adaptive sporting activities and combat stress seminars. Thanks to a $250,000 commitment from The Hartford, veterans will attend the summit free of charge.

“These brave men and women are returning from the front lines with a diverse set of experiences, leadership skills, and knowledge that directly translate to the business world,” said Ramani Ayer, chairman and CEO of The Hartford. “As a corporate community and a nation, we have a responsibility to recognize the enormity of the sacrifice these individuals have made and to help them return from the battlefield to business.”

Programming at the summit will include:

• A forum on small business ownership, showcasing a panel of veterans who have successfully pursued entrepreneurial ambitions after leaving the service. The panel will feature Charles B. Perry, chairman and CEO, of Pinkney-Perry Insurance Agency, Inc.; Karl Dorman, co-founder of Front Line Medical, a national producer and distributor of American made, top quality orthopedic and sports medicine care products; Brendan Hart, founder and CEO of Quantum Executive Group, a management consulting firm that focuses on solving issues of concern for leaders of companies, governments, and institutions; and Michael Durant, a seasoned helicopter pilot and inspiration for the film Black Hawk Down, now the owner of Pinnacle Solutions, Inc., a company that provides flight simulator devices. Durant will also serve as the summit’s keynote speaker.
• A financial literacy seminar addressing the unique challenges of disabled veterans, based on content from The Hartford’s financial literacy program, Playbook for Life. The summit will also include one-on-one financial planning sessions for wounded warriors and their families.
• A career fair that will offer one-on-one sessions with The Hartford’s vocational counselors, who are experts at integrating disabled individuals into the professional workforce. The fair will also feature a number of companies that have committed to hiring wounded veterans, whose leadership skills are in high demand by large corporations.
• A seminar in business golf etiquette led by PGA TOUR professionals, followed by the inaugural Wounded Warrior Project Golf Tournament, where wounded veterans will play along with business leaders.

For a full schedule of summit events, please contact Ayla Hay at (757) 340-7425 or via e-mail at ayla@themeridiangroup.com. For more information on the business programs offered by The Hartford, please contact Kelly J. Carter at (860) 843-9420 or via email at Kelly.carter@hartfordlife.com.

Nationwide Effort Reaches Fayette County, Georgia

What started as one Ohio man’s idea to honor WWII veterans has turned into a nationwide movement that has reached Fayette County, Georgia, and donations are being sought to assist.
Earl Morse, a physician assistant and retired Air Force captain who also has his private pilot license, conceived the Honor Flight Network. The concept is to enlist the aid of private or commercial pilots and aircraft to fly WWII veterans on a one-day, roundtrip visit to the WWII War Memorial in Washington, D.C. free of charge. The idea was picked up in Fayette County by retired school teacher Gail Sparrow and local resident Mark Buckner and has led to Honor Flight Fayette Foundation, Inc.

After retiring from the Air Force in 1998, Morse started working for the Department of Veterans Affairs in Springfield, Ohio. In 2004 after the WWII War Memorial was completed in Washington, D.C., it became the center of discussion among his WWII veteran patients.
Over time, Morse noticed that many of the veterans who expressed a desire to visit the memorial couldn’t do so because of limited resources or physical limitations. He decided to do something about it. So he asked one of his WWII patients if he could personally fly him to the memorial free of charge. “Mr. Loy broke down and cried,” said Morse. “He said at his age he thought he would never get to see the memorial. He accepted the offer.”

A week later Morse asked a second veteran the same question and got the same answer. He realized that there was a need.

He addressed members of his flying club about the idea of flying veterans to the memorial with two stipulations: it couldn’t cost the veteran and the pilots had to personally escort the veteran at the memorial. Eleven pilots volunteered, and Honor Flight was born.

Honor Flight Fayette kicked off its effort with a sign-up blitz at local Chick-fil-A’s in early December 2007. That first initiative netted 50 veterans and guardians who signed up for the flights. Since the Chick-fil-A signups, the number has grown to 65. Each veteran will be paired with a family member or other volunteer who will pay their own way at a cost of about $350.

“Our goal was to get that first group of veterans signed up for the initial flight,” said Sparrow, whose father was a WWII Navy veteran but passed away before the memorial was built. “The WWII veterans protected my freedom and my way of life, and now it’s my time to say thank you for what they’ve done.”

It is estimated that as many as 1,200 WWII veterans are passing away each day across the nation. Fayette County has a high percentage of retired or former service men and women who were in WWII. This program is expected to generate many requests, so organizers are seeking donations.

Sparrow emphasized that they are not accepting any money from the veterans, but she and fellow organizers feel that Fayette County is populated by generous citizens who have the resources to help show appreciation for what these veterans did for our nation.
“As a 501 c (3) we are able to accept donations that are 100 percent tax deductible,” said Sparrow. She emphasized that donations can also be made in honor of or in memory of individuals.

Donors can make tax deductible donations to Honor Flight of Fayette, Inc.

“This trip will probably be their “last hurrah,” the last time they will be recognized as heroes and conquering victors that collectively and literally saved the world,” said Honor Flight founder Morse. “All day long at the WWII monument they will be thanked, recognized and admired for their service. These veterans will remember the kindness and adoration shown to them for the rest of their lives. They will all have a deeper appreciation for how much their country loves them and will miss them.”

For more information about Honor Flight Fayette, visit website http://www.honorflightfayette.org/ or call Mark Buckner at 770-231-6708. For information on the national program visit http://www.honorflight.org/.