How Jason Parker's Digital Initiatives Empower Veterans

[00:00:00] Hector: Hello and welcome to another episode of the "How to Scale a Business" podcast. My name is Hector Santiesteban and I'm your host for today. And we're here with Jason Parker and he is the game master at 'Tech for Troops'. That is exactly what it sounds like. He technically is a professional gamer, but in all seriousness, he's doing some really amazing stuff for veterans, helping them with mental health and giving them an outlet and tools and resources and community to come together.

[00:00:25] Hector: So all that to say, Jason, thank you for all that you do and especially also spend some time with us today.

[00:00:31] Jason: I'm extremely happy to be here, Hector. I'm doing what I'm doing because I feel like it would have made a difference when I first got out and as I'm going through things. So I'm incredibly proud to be doing what I'm doing. But I'm also very, very lucky that I'm surrounded by the folks at Tech for Troops and the Hunter Homes, McGuire VA center. Just a lot of veterans and veterans support that believe in what I'm doing.

[00:00:58] Hector: One of the things that we believe here on this show is there's so much value to be gained from hearing all the unique stories and the ways in which people are building organizations. We had Mark Casper on a few episodes before this to talk about setting up that nonprofit and all the different ways in which running a nonprofit is different, but the same as a business.

[00:01:18] Hector: And what's cool about today's conversation is that you've taken what Mark has started and you've really grabbed the baton and, perhaps ran in a direction that Mark didn't even see, you might've just taking a hop down the street, but you're really running with it in an important way.

[00:01:32] Hector: So share with us a little bit about what you're doing within Tech for Troops and how that whole thing came about.

[00:01:38] Jason: Sure. I completely believe you're right that I did head in a zigzag that Mark saw coming. But that being said, he has been nothing but supportive and probably the best mentor or one of the best mentors I've ever had, and a friend. I first came to tech for troops. I was lost out there on my own working jobs- minimum wage. I was a medic in the United States army. Before that, I was a Bosun mate in the United States Navy. The Bosun mate mostly, there's not a lot of civilian equivalent to it. And then as far as my time in the army, I did sustain traumatic brain injuries, which being a medic with memory issues or anxiety, could go very badly.

[00:02:18] Jason: So I didn't feel like working in an emergency setting was the best option for what I was doing. But I knew that my mental health and my recovery had to be a part of something that I was doing. My recreation therapist, and yes, that is another real job that it just sounds like somebody made that title up. She suggested that I go check out this place called Tech for Troops. I'm not a guy that ventures outside of his comfort zone a lot. but I said, all right, well, she's pointed me in the right direction. So many times I'll do this one thing. I walked in to what Mark likes to call the museum, but it is a hallway that has got things from the Apple 2 G S. It's got an old oscilloscope. It's got one of the dictaphones, where you'd put a wax reel on it and then record to that. And at that moment I didn't want to ever be anywhere else. That whole collection, I mean, they have one of the first thrust master joysticks and I don't even know if you remember what a zip drive is, the aisle mega zip drive, but it had those big, we say big now, I think it was like a hundred megabyte disc that went in. Just all those things.

[00:03:25] Jason: And then to see what they were doing and repurposing technology for veterans. I knew that, it was a place that I had to be involved with. Mark and I hit it off almost immediately. I don't want to say I was hired on the spot, but it came about very quickly. As I began to work more and see what Tech for Troops was doing. Tech for Troops is already giving to the veteran community by looking to place them in advantageous employment to bridge that gap, teach them how to use the technology that we were gifting to them, and move on with online learning that you can access for free within Tech for Troops and I just saw how they were improving people's quality of life, veterans quality of life.

[00:04:07] Jason: The one thing that I saw that tech for troops really wanted to be a part of but hovering around it was the mental health or the mental well being aspect of the whole veteran recovery process. That's not always the right word, but the whole process of being a civilian again, or going through that transition, especially if you've been injured in any way. And that can be really trying. So seeing that Tech for Troops was run by veterans, for veterans and that their actual psyche was important to the people here, I knew that I wanted to reach out to other veterans and use the resources and the connections that tech for troops has to, while we have the opportunity and we have the veterans coming through Tech for Troops, I want to let them know that it's a place where they can discuss their mental health that can come to us for support. And I've grown that to a digital presence as well.

[00:05:03] Hector: Yeah, the mental health side is so important generally, especially for men. And I would imagine that those who are in the military, I don't know the statistics, but I would imagine there's a significant number of men that are coming out with this and you compound men's mental health issues with the lack of resources, and of the trauma that veterans are going through, and it just creates this perfect storm of throwing up their arm or just not knowing what to do. Looking for answers that, aren't very apparent.

[00:05:30] Jason: I 100% agree with that. There's a term that I learned researching all this, and that's something that I do. It's not the most fun or the most, entertaining, way to pass the time- digging through records of veterans and their suicide rates, veterans, their recovery rates, drug abuse, but it's something that really needs to be done, because we need to look and see where the correlations are and how we can better serve veterans. I mean, they've already raised their hands, sworn in and volunteered. Now it's time for us as America, as people from the country that they defended, to step up and say, " we got the watch. Relax, we got you." The best way to do that is, through other veterans. It is a cliff of a transition when you go from military service to not serving. One of the things that comes up the most is even when trying to fill that void after service. I took jobs that were not ever going to really fill that void that you had because the military... it's a way of life. Your career has greater purpose and it's not always what the government is telling you what your job is.

[00:06:44] Jason: I was a medic. So my greater purpose was; " I'm here for these guys", "I'm here to get them back in the fight", and "I'm here to make sure that they stay healthy." There's a term. Excuse me. It's called 'eudemonic well being' and I'm going to spell it just in case anybody wants to look it up.

[00:06:59] Jason: That's E U. D. E. M. O. N. I. C. The exact definition is a sense of fulfillment that one gets from their job, from a task. And it's a fulfillment of fulfilling purpose, a goal that you've set. And I think that's so important when we look to do anything after the military, because without even knowing it, we've been given this eudemonic sense of principles and work ethic through the military and you got used to it.

[00:07:29] Jason: But I didn't even know what this was until I stumbled across the writing, a chapter in a psych book, and then look that up and went through it. And I think most veterans would agree with me that after having a job that fulfills you on different levels, it's real hard to go back to a job that is just minimum wage clock in clock out.

[00:07:51] Jason: And you're going to end up feeling, maybe worse, or maybe hollow in some way, because you're used to operating on another level. And that feeling is hard to describe. It doesn't always present the same, but when we moved into our digital space and opened a discord, which if you don't know what discord is, it is a communication software, primarily used around gaming, but it can be used for so many other different things. Just live meetings with video and sound. The way that we've found using it the best is a companion to our tech for troops dot org or our twitch stream, which we do broadcast, games throughout the week. We have meditation hours. It's actually on Wednesday. And this is crazy. I had no idea this was a thing until one of the guys brought it to me and we made a whole thing, but we have virtual NASCAR races. We have 38 veterans and veterans support across the United States. And they've got a racing rig set in their living room.

[00:08:51] Jason: They got the wheel, they got the pedals, the shifter. And these guys were racing stock cars every Wednesday night at eight 30 on the NASCAR tracks that you would normally see. And they're, so hyper realistic that. I've had people walk through my office as I'm reviewing footage and they'll be like, "oh my god, I didn't know there was a race last night or now" and i'm like, oh, there's not these cars are fictional, they don't exist in this world. They're a video game and people will walk away shaking their heads, just I don't believe you. Fine. Whatever. , I don't think our listeners can see, but I'm sure you can see. Over my shoulder here, there is a picture of a race car. that is one of the cars that is driven and it looks real.

[00:09:32] Jason: I know, but that car has never existed. It was created on the desktop where we're using right now to talk to each other, which I think is absolutely outstanding. And . It's an outlet for these veterans. You get in there, you design the car, you can have it marked up any way you want. You can promote whatever you want. It's a Tech for Troops Cup Series. Like I said, that's 8:30 Wednesdays, Eastern Standard Time. But not only is it Tech for Troops Cup Series, we are partnered with, the 1111 Veteran Project, U Haul, and some other sponsors and we have people come in and represent sponsors, by putting their logos on their cars and giving them shout outs. We have a competition tech for troops. If you paint your car to be an unusual original scheme, we give away a prize at the end of the race and it's not a million dollars, but it's for the bragging rights and it gets a lot of guys engaged. And just through that competition alone, we've grown our discord.

[00:10:33] Jason: As I was saying, that discord is the perfect accessory if you have something more you want to say to a guy that you were watching stream. We have a few different people that stream on Twitch for us, or you wanted to connect with one of the drivers that you were watching or driving against. You can go to the discord and you can look up that person and it doesn't always have to be a, "this person's up on a pedestal and they only exist while they're racing."

[00:10:58] Jason: This is a real person. They're a veteran and chances are they probably had a few of the same problems you have. So if you need to talk something through, or if you just need a kind ear, a lot of these guys and girls have been where you're at now.

[00:11:12] Hector: When we get back from break, Jason, I want to ask for some of these listeners who might be wanting to create this digital community or online community would love to hear some either do's or don'ts. We're going to get into that right when we get back from break.

[00:11:30] Hector: Hey, y'all. Today's episode is brought to you by Amplafy Media, and we are a podcast and content production company. Well, we like to think of ourselves as genius makers or genius finders, because chances are, if you're listening to this, you probably have a mission, a message, a passion, a purpose, something you want to get out to the world, but you probably don't have the time, the tech skills or the team to be able to do that. And so if that's you go to amplafy media dot com. It's A M P L A F Y media dot com. You can also check the show notes for info. And with that, let's get back to today's episode.

[00:12:00] Hector: Jason. You have taken the leap. And if I know anything about you, you're the guy who grabbed the baton and you're probably the guy that grabbed the keys before you figured out where you're going to eat. And you're deciding halfway down the road. And I think that, man, do we need those? The reason I say this, because I'm the one where I, "where are we going? Where are we eating? Do we have our directions? Let's print out the map quest!" All those sorts of things. But when you look back on that journey and creating this community and building these live streams and these platforms and such.

[00:12:27] Hector: Are there any things that you look back on and go, "I'm glad we did that because that really worked out". Or were there things that where it's like, "wow, that didn't work out the way we thought it would". And so I'm glad we adjusted and we changed it to do this instead.

[00:12:41] Jason: Yes. I mean, the answer is always going to be, I would have done a couple of things differently. You're right. I am the dude that just grabs keys, jumps in the car and goes for it. I pretty frequently just jump and then worry about looking while I'm midair. I do think that that's something you need to have on one of these teams, because if you were to get bogged down in the quagmire of little problems or "I don't know if you should do this. We haven't had a good results doing that". if you're going to adhere to every one of those, "I don't know if that's going to work out", I would be terrified to make any move whatsoever and it's just going to be plugging along, trying to fix one tiny thing after another. For me, it was important just to do it. See, I've been out of the service about a decade now, and there are a lot of nonprofits that I can tell have got the best of intentions, but when it comes down to what are you doing right now to help veterans, I have a hard time seeing the plans that a lot of these people come up with. Not for their lack of trying. It's just, they want to help in the best possible way and it's really not apparent until you get around a lot of veterans or see the guys that things haven't really panned out the best for. The thing that I felt was really important was to get this going because once it becomes big enough and once that community grows to the point that we're getting to now, and we've actually exceeded a lot of my initial impressions on how big the discord should be and how many followers we should have. It was really important that we just took those first steps and began holding tournaments. Our first tournament was this past August, with the disabled American veterans. The whole thing was fantastic. We had a great turnout.

[00:14:34] Jason: It was catered by Mission Barbecue that ended up donating the entire meal to us. But these are all things that we wouldn't have known what the possibilities are if we didn't just go for it. I've been scared, for my life before certain things while in the military and waiting at that DAV for the tournament to start was an equal amount of fear and anxiety because you just don't know what's coming down the pipe. And the fact that not only did we fill seats, but we got such a big reaction from that, that we immediately started planning another tournament. I was reached out to, by the head of Acer's marketing, who had donated gaming computers for us which was huge. I've been linked up with the head of Ubisoft, and it didn't just happen in one conversation, but a lot of explaining to him where tech for troops is coming from when it comes to our veterans and using that technology to better their mental health. He was very much behind it. And so we have a community license to play Rainbow Six Siege. That's what we play at tournaments. We are also forming an e sports team where our team of veterans, will play. Right now we have the e sports teams for VCU and William Mary signed up to be in our league and competing against us.

[00:15:59] Jason: We're looking to expand that. But again, I wouldn't have known that it was possible to partner with college e sports teams. I went to college from 1999 till 2001 or so. And eSports was not a thing. So, and now, when I'm meeting with the heads of these collegiate programs, I feel so blessed and lucky that video games are becoming as acceptable As they are currently. It wasn't always the cool thing to be a part of. I've been shoved in my locker a few times. Fortunately, not anytime recently. Just moving that program on and forward and giving those veterans that purpose, I mean, you absolutely have that practice time where you meet with other veterans and it's, so neat to see that click for them. Veterans, military, we all have a shorthand that we speak and it's once you've been in the service, you know how to communicate with each other. And it's different than how you would communicate if you just met them on a server. Things from the military really stick.

[00:17:00] Jason: And it's really apparent when you get these guys in the same room that they speak the same language. They have a neat shorthand where guys that are on the team that are civilians don't understand because they'll yell out a coordinate or a space on the map. And the other guys know exactly what he's going to do. And you're taking that bond and that willingness and ability to work together that was tantamount to their survival while being in the service. And now it's as important to their survival, but it's, rebuilding that mental space, that safe space for them, where they have people that understand what they're going through and can openly talk to. In the military, you may not like a dude, but you'll take a bullet for him. That doesn't translate outside of the service or it does very rarely, I should say. And so a lot of these guys or girls end up feeling lost and bringing back that communication and that, that, team mentality through our discord, through games we play on Twitch, it's what our mission is about. The ultimate goal... it's not a

[00:18:01] Jason: happy thing to talk about, but there is progress. So right now there are about 17 veterans a day that take their own lives. To me, that's unacceptable. Any number above zero is wrong to me. Now that number is down from 22 just in the year 2020.

[00:18:18] Jason: So progress is being made, but any integer bigger than zero sum I think is too much.

[00:18:26] Hector: Yeah, I don't know that there's much. We're gonna leave it at that. You're on such an amazing journey and such an important mission that I just want to honor you for, for taking that leap and getting started. One lesson that stood out to me is that you don't know what you don't know until you get in the, the terrible analogy is the arena.

[00:18:43] Hector: And I hate to use that when talking about and around veterans, because you guys have a different understanding of that than any of us. But in that same sense, you didn't know what they needed until you got around them. And you were willing and able to make those adjustments and create those solutions while you were on the go so big lesson to take away from there. Jason, if people want to get more connected with Tech for Troops, the community, or the discord server, the twitch, where should people go?

[00:19:08] Jason: The best place to get it all is tech for troops dot org. T E C H F O R T R O O P S dot org. We are searchable on Twitch. As of three weeks ago, we became a monetized Twitch affiliate. So subscriptions there do help us and directly go back as a donation into Tech for Troops. Something that people may not know- if you have Amazon Prime, you also get a free Twitch subscription a month with that. So if you want to go on Twitch and use that, use the thing that you didn't even know you were getting, we'd love to have it. Tech for troops on Twitch. Tech for troops dot org, on our site. And again, I'm on the site as game master at tech for troops dot org. I'd love to talk with you no matter who you are, because I think we can all support veterans. And the one thing I would speak to what you were just saying, Hector is don't let the not knowing where you're going or what direction scare you off of doing something, because every veteran that I know that is in some type of duress or has come through a crisis program will say," it was the thought that counted the most. The fact that somebody said, hi." So if you don't know what to say, but you think that you should, don't let that stop you, as just being a kind ear or a high five, It could change your life.

[00:20:31] Hector: Yeah. Y'all go get connected. I appreciate you being here. I know you're getting some value out of today, so we would love and appreciate a rating or review wherever you get your podcasts. If you know someone who's in the midst of scaling their business or someone who just frankly needs to hear this conversation, please send it to them.

[00:20:45] Hector: And then I would encourage you to today, go and check your Amazon Prime. I'm going to figure out how to do this Twitch subscription. Go do that, because that's free giving. most of you didn't even know that you had it. So go do that. Let Jason know how it goes. We'd love to hear about, about how you're implementing today's conversation.

[00:20:59] Hector: So as always, thanks for being part of the tribe. We'll see on the next one. Later, y'all.