ST. LOUIS — A national nonprofit designed to assist veteran and military spouse entrepreneurs has established a presence in St. Louis.
Chicago-based Bunker Labs has launched a St. Louis chapter. The nonprofit group provides programming, networking and resources aimed at helping military veterans and their families successfully launch businesses. Bunker Labs, founded in 2014, has more than 40 U.S. chapters established or in the works.
The St. Louis chapter is led by Kellie McCoy, Chris Rojewski and Katie Rojewski. It will hold a launch party and ribbon cutting ceremony March 18 at the Soldiers Memorial Military Museum.
Bunker Labs St. Louis chapter leaders said the organization’s presence in St. Louis is another tool for the growing the local entrepreneurship sector. Key to Bunker Labs’ mission is creating a network and resources to help transitioning veterans launch businesses when they are hundreds and thousands of miles away from home. They are tools Chris Rojewski said he and his wife Katie could have used as they worked to launch a business following active duty. The couple runs a financial practice through New York Life Insurance Co.
“The long distance was hard to really establish a business in time and get everything set to be on track to be successful,” said Rojewski. “We know there’s a lot more entrepreneurs that are veterans or family of veterans that really all they need is to know who to get plugged in to first.”
McCoy said that only a sliver of transitioning veterans who want to start businesses actually end up doing so.
“There’s a lot of reasons for that, but one of the barriers is being in a new geography and having to start from scratch building a network. Bunker Labs was designed to help them find the quickest route to building a successful business,” said McCoy, who operates her own consulting firm, The Candra Group.
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