Mary Kennedy Thompson, COO of Neighborly Brands, which has five brands on FBR’s Top Veteran Owned Franchise List of 2021, served eight years in the U.S. Marine Corps as a logistics officer before embarking on a long and successful career in franchising. She shared with FBR her top reasons why military veterans make excellent candidates for franchise ownership.
- Vets are disciplined: “Veterans spent their time in the military learning the rigors of discipline when leading an organization toward operational excellence. It’s a great match to franchising.”
- Vets can handle stressful situations: “The president of (our) Mosquito Joe franchise is a retired Navy captain. He flew F-14’s in Afghanistan and led people in some pretty hairy situations. Veterans are, for the most part, well equipped to take on any kind of stress.”
- Vets understand systems: “Franchising is all about working within systems, and the military is a system, the biggest one of all.”
- Vets are leaders: It doesn’t matter what “At just about every level of the military — whether a squad leader, flight line leader or a battalion commander —veterans come to the table understanding and knowing how to deploy the art and science of leadership toward getting a group of people toward accomplishing a common mission.
- Vets are committed to serve: “They were willing to take a bullet while serving our country and they’ll continue to do whatever it takes to succeed in business ownership. They are not looking for handouts.”
