PALM BAY, Fla. — A veteran-owned business based in Brevard County is aimed at helping and promoting other veteran businessowners.
- Brian St. Ours's network verifies veteran-owned businesses
- Network boasts it has about 35,000 members nationwide
- More business headlines here
Brian St. Ours founded Veteran Owned Business, a network for people to find businesses owned and run by veterans.
It created a verification badge that businesses can put on storefronts, vehicles, or other locations to let consumers and supporters know the business is veteran-verified.
“We say the military is the ultimate fraternity," St. Ours said. "There’s millions of people that served for our country and they like to talk to each other and work with each other. And when you tell them there is a business owned by a veteran, they will go out of their way to do business with them.”
Air Force veteran Keith Giles, who founded Verus Health Partners, says he got into the insurance business after his parents, who are also veterans, went through hardship over inadvertently choosing the wrong Medicare plan. Giles says they didn’t have anyone to guide them in the right direction.
“The way I got started in it was that my Mom and Dad were put on the wrong Medicare plan, on a plan she had with an employer, and by the time we found out, we are paying penalties for life,” Giles says.
This upcoming Veterans Day will be the network's 11-year anniversary. It boasts about 35,000 members nationwide.
“Every business in our system has been verified," St. Ours said. "We have a couple of ways of knowing if someone is a veteran-owned business or not."
Giles agrees with St. Ours that veterans support one another and continue the brotherhood and sisterhood even after leaving the military.
“Once we put our names in there, we started getting a lot of traffic,” Giles said.
The network's new badge launched just in time for National Veteran Small Business Week, which starts on November 4-8.