How Mark Casper Helps Transform Veterans' Lives Through Tech and Education

[00:00:00] Hector: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the How to Scale Business Podcast. My name is Hector Santhe Esteban, and I am your host for today.

[00:00:06] Hector: And today we're here with Mark Casper. He's the president and c e o of Tech for Troops. And, he's a, a former veteran, he's public speaker and doing something really great for the veterans of our nation. So, mark, thanks for spending some time with us today.

[00:00:18] Mark: You bet, Hector. Thanks for having me. I look forward to this.

[00:00:21] Hector: Yeah, Just tell us the story. Give us, you know, as far back as you feel is relevant, we were talking before, we hit record that you guys had some early challenges early on, but have really found a way to make it through. So would love to hear kind of, the background experience about what you guys have been up to.

[00:00:34] Mark: You bet. So, you know, in, in December, 2015, December 17th, I was asked to be on the Board of Tech for Trobe. And I didn't realize it, but it's a, it was a small organization and when I walked in the door, I mean like, it's one of those God moments, whatever you wanna call it. My head exploded. I knew I was home, period.

[00:00:51] Mark: And I took the tour and it was 750 square feet. And then, the founder asked me if I wanted to be the executive director. I, I was successful. I had my own company. And I was definitely not looking for another job. I was looking to be on the board and support veterans. And when she asked me that, I was like, yeah, absolutely.

[00:01:08] Mark: I'm not, boom. And then I, went home and told my wife that, Hey, guess what? We're gonna run a nonprofit now and we're not gonna be, you know, making decent money. And, and she's like, you've never run a nonprofit before? And I said, yeah, I know, but this is what I'm supposed to do. Fast forward a couple months.

[00:01:22] Mark: My passed care of a couple day couple.

[00:01:28] Mark: Dove head first into tech for troops, right? what do I need to do? Cause I've never done it before. what is the veteran community? What, I don't know what that is, but what, what do we need? It's that digital divide that the words came out after Covid started for kids, but the recycling piece, everything that we do.

[00:01:43] Mark: And, she came to me in about April of that year, so 2016 and said, Hey, random money, we're gonna shut down. And I was like, oh no, we're not. Nope, nope. No. So we, we, you know, we did a little bit of headbut, a little bit, not bad, but just enough to, you know, backbone my steel up a little more. And, come September, let Labor Day, I was asked to either take it over or shut it down and I said, I'll take it over.

[00:02:05] Mark: And then I, you know, the board left. She left, I had a new board come on place and then by January we were growing. And now today, I mean, that was January 17, so, March or May of, 2023. Right. Almost 11,000 square feet.

[00:02:20] Hector: Such an incredible transformation and there's so much to unpack there, right? And you, you know, try the translations and then boom, 11,000 square feet. So take us back to that moment

[00:02:29] Hector: she is, you know, thinking about hanging it up, thinking about shutting it down and you have a totally different mindset. what kept, the fuel burning in your tank when the person who founded it wanted to, you know, close up shop?

[00:02:42] Mark: Yeah, good, good question. we were able to hand out a couple of computers to veterans in the Richmond area, and I saw the difference that it made in their lives, right? So if most of us, like today, we're using a computer to have this podcast and to talk and to record and do everything that we do, but if you don't have that computer, that device, that tool, you're not gonna be successful in life, creating a resume, applying for a job on your phone.

[00:03:08] Mark: It can be done, but it's next to near impossible. You wanna do it on a tablet or iPad? Again, it can be done, but most folks aren't gonna take the time to do it right when they're using one of those kites of tools. So I just saw the need. And then with the recycling piece, so we do the both sides, right? So we help the vets.

[00:03:26] Mark: And we also recycle responsibly. and we're at about 750 tons in eight years now. So it's just, it's exploding. And that's just one way we support ourselves, grandkids, kids around the world. I want the world a better place through recycling and then with the veteran community says, I'm a marine. I want the world a better place for my brothers and sisters out there.

[00:03:46] Mark: I mean, that's literally why my mindset and where I went, when she said, Hey, we're gonna shut down cuz I don't, we didn't have but. Two months in the bank maybe. If that, I didn't take a salary for a while. I paid my guys. But it was just one of those things where I'm, we're gonna be successful no matter what.

[00:04:03] Mark: I just got put in the right place at the right time.

[00:04:07] Hector: I'm wondering, and perhaps it's too, it's cliche to ask, but I'm wondering if your time in the service, if that plays out here. And this is also because I'm,someone who, did not serve but I am trying to. maybe just learn or, appreciate, you know, some of those lessons, you're talking about stick-to-itiveness and, you know, stealing up your back.

[00:04:27] Hector: I'm, I'm wondering if there's, and maybe it was just from your business success before, but I'm wondering how you were able, or what you were able to pull into this business, that you feel like you already had. because it seems like, you had prepared all your life almost for this kind of, you know, challenge if you will.

[00:04:44] Mark: Yeah, you are absolutely right about that. I go back from me all the way to bootcamp. In 1983, I joined the Marine Corps. I went in February 13th, Valentine's Day. Did not make my existing girlfriend at that time happy. But, I go through bootcamp and, and what it did to me and how it truly said there are things you don't think you can do, that you can do.

[00:05:05] Mark: And that right there was the end all be all for me. Right? Because when we're in high school, our teachers aren't telling us you're gonna be all you can be. You know, the Army motto. It's not that. They're like, I, some of us may have heard it could have been me. You know, you're not gonna mount to anything.

[00:05:21] Mark: Because I was that kid that sat in the back class, slept during class most of the time. Right. I still graduated. I still, you know, actually with honors, but, or relative honors, I should say. I was, I was top 100. but still, I, I didn't do much. And then the Marine Corps totally changed that because I wasn't skating through that and I wasn't skating through being in the Marine Corps.

[00:05:40] Mark: So, you're right, it was that. We call it gung ho in the Marine Corps, but that sticktoitiveness and that, hey, you think you can only do 10 pushups, guess what you're doing, 35. Let's go for it. And you make it happen because of what comes into your mind and how you make that happen. And that's what happened here.

[00:05:57] Mark: I was working 80 plus hours a week, or honestly, it was more than that, at that time trying to make us money. I was down to, reading the Ram and the CPUs and figuring out which ones literally would make us 10 cents a stick or a CPU or $28 a stick cpu cuz they were newer and I was shipping those out and I'd get in a check for $76 and 43 cents or something.

[00:06:21] Mark: And that was a big win in my book. I mean, I did that for months and months and months and months. So the sweat equity, as people call it, That's a real thing, and I, I hope folks who are listening use that because your, his history, the sweat you put into the brain, power you put into it is what's gonna make you successful in the future.

[00:06:41] Hector: I would imagine that in one other thing actually I wanna touch on before we get into kind of the scaling part is you mentioned you had success in, you know, a, I would imagine a for-profit business before, and now you're going over to this nonprofit sector. Was that at all a transition or an adjustment at all between.

[00:07:02] Hector: Just, was there anything different there for you?

[00:07:05] Mark: it's, honestly, it is a night and day. if you're thinking about doing a nonprofit, anybody out there understand that you have to ask for money. You may have a great product, i e Veterans and Digital Divide and recycling. You may have a great product, but folks don't flock to you because you're a great product.

[00:07:23] Mark: You have to go out and ask for it because we're not selling stuff per se. Right. So there's no product. So I had to change my mindset from a sales perspective on the, on the product side, which is a project manager. IT project manager. So I was selling my skill sets there to saying, Hey, We have veterans who are in need.

[00:07:43] Mark: We have their children who are in need. Help us support that cuz that's, that sales thing was completely foreign to me asking for help. I don't like to ask for help. I do most things by myself. And then that whole thing of saying, would you please help us is, I still have a hard time with it. I'm better, but I'm not good at it.

[00:08:03] Mark: I don't like, I don't wanna be good at, at, I call it begging.

[00:08:06] Hector: Yeah. What an interesting, dynamic though that

[00:08:09] Hector: I'm going through and realizing that I have taken a similar to you. I try and figure everything out on my own when I know that there are brilliant people around me. And part of the reason we started this show is so that I have a reason to talk to brilliant people and I have, you know, have an excuse to ask them questions because I would be the person that would try, like, you try and figure it out on my own and do it on my own.

[00:08:30] Hector: And I'd imagine that, that asking for help, like those really have. To go in conflict with each other. how do you practically navigate? Did you get people and you have people do it for you? Did you, you know, staff to psych, like, take us through that, that even that sales process or being able to get comfortable with that.

[00:08:47] Mark: Yeah. golly, that's, I've never thought of it the way you just described it, you actually described it true. how I got through it was, I made money by selling the stuff that we had, the CPUs, the ram, you know, if somebody wanted to buy a server, a server rack, te telephones, you know, Cisco phones, that kind of stuff, not asking for money.

[00:09:08] Mark: I'd never written a grant in my life. I, I don't, I still, I'm not good at it. but how that transition has slowly been happening is that the programs that we have are powerful enough to stand on their own. And I could probably honestly break out into three different nonprofits. One is the veteran side with the teaching 'em how to use a computer.

[00:09:29] Mark: The other is recycling side. just doing that on its own. And the thirds, we have a program for veteran suicide against veteran suicide, and we're not counselors, but we use the recycled or the technology that we receive to make that happen. So, I've had to take myself and and speak to all three of those pathways.

[00:09:47] Mark: Those really they're sales pathways, they're products that we have that folks can buy into if they want to, and then figuring out what each one means. There are some folks who are just. I am, I am an environmentalist. I don't want things going in the landfill. What do you, oh, I love what you do. I'm gonna support you.

[00:10:04] Mark: There are others that are like heve veterans. Right. You know, I was a, a captain in the army, you know, veterans are it. So I wanna support that. And now that we're doing the suicide prevention, there's that piece as well, because we have suicide survivors who support us in that realm. So it's this. I've, I've, I had to hire a couple of folks.

[00:10:24] Mark: Thankfully I had the money to do it that are running these pieces for us, but I still have to ask for it. And it all comes into reading their face, their body language. And then what do I hone in on? Do I, do I get a, oh yeah. When I mention, E-waste. And then it's like, gotcha. So you have to be able to read and be very much aware that when you're speaking, they're not listen or, or they're listening, but they're not talking and telling you what they think.

[00:10:50] Mark: So I have to stop a lot.

[00:10:53] Hector: Yeah. So many directions we can go. And one of them is just the old Microsoft surface that I, I plugged in to see if it still worked. And when I came in, the next morning was overheating and I was worried that it was gonna set the house on fire. So

[00:11:04] Mark: Yep.

[00:11:04] Hector: maybe there's another conversation there. But when we get back from break, mark,

[00:11:08] Hector: You seem like a real team builder. You seem like someone who, and that probably stemmed from your days in the, in the service, I would imagine. I'm, I'm just guessing because it seems like people. You know, they get behind you and they're gonna run through that wall, not necessarily for you, but behind you

[00:11:23] Hector: and with you. And so I'm curious how that plays out and, and what that looks like. And so we're gonna get into that, when we get back from this quick break.

[00:11:30] Mark:

[00:11:33] Hector: Hey y'all, thanks for tuning in today. Today's episode is brought to you by Amplify Media and we are a content and podcast production company.

[00:11:39] Hector: Well, we'd like to think of ourselves actually as genius creator. So if you have a mission, a message, a passion, a purpose, something that you wanna get out into the world but don't have the time or the tech skills or the team to be able to do it, we can help. Go to amplify media.com. That's A M P L A F Y media.com.

[00:11:55] Hector: You can also check the show notes for info. And with that, let's get back to today's episode. So Mark, we've kind of traversed quite a bit, but I think one thing that has stood out in your story is, this idea of leadership. I'm curious, your ethos, your thoughts, Just kind of take us into your mindset as a leader or, or what kind of core principles you try and bring into your organization.

[00:12:22] Mark: You bet. I am very much,ethical and moral, right? So my decisions are, based the un really, it's, it's the golden rule, do unto others type of thing, but at the same time, I know that everybody's like me, right? It's, it's sort of part of the Marine Corps as my parents, right? Tell the truth, the whole truth, and another but of truth, so help you God, type of thing.

[00:12:41] Mark: that's what I live by. I mean, I've been given or afforded the opportunity, I should say, to do things and say things I,wouldn't agree with. And I've always run with that. If you tell a lie, you have to remember. If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember what you said. So that's what I believe in, and I do it that way.

[00:12:58] Mark: So the folks that I gather around me, if they don't measure up or they start trying to guide me in a way that's not who I am, then I've got a a part ways with them in some way. Right? Some of 'em leave on their own. Other ones, got to go. And I'm okay with that because I want to build a team that if you come into my place, you can talk to every one of us and get the exact same answer because we're all working through the same sheet of music.

[00:13:23] Mark: So I got that from, quite honestly, watching my managers throughout life, whether it was my drill instructors, capital One, Northrop Grumman, I had phenomenal management. Then I had some not so, And I always look at, I'm gonna take the good from you and I'm gonna take the bad from you and never do that.

[00:13:42] Mark: And that's how I, I learned my management skills going up into my own company is I like you and I like what you say, so I'm gonna do it that way. I don't like you because you treat people like crap, or whatever that is. And that's not who I'm gonna be. So I, I've meshed the, what I call the best of both worlds.

[00:14:00] Hector: Yeah, what seems to be interesting is that there are these almost, a rigidity sounds is the bad word of culture, right? But that you have some standards that there is, that there are boundaries and there are standards to which, you know, if you don't meet those standards, then this is not the right place for you.

[00:14:17] Mark: I totally agree with that. we've worked with other companies who, We're not honorable. I'll just say they just weren't. they took us for a ride and you get the call back like two months later after you stopped doing business with 'em. I don't tell 'em why. I'm just like,I can't do business with you.

[00:14:32] Mark: I'm not gonna be in their face calling 'em a liar or a thief. But they are, and those are the ones that are gonna fail, right? they might make a bunch load of money in the beginning, but after everybody understands who they are, they're done. And then word gets out cuz this is a small world we live on.

[00:14:47] Mark: It's not like we live on Saturn, which is, you know, 87 times bigger than the earth. This is a small world and you run into people who know exactly who you are or who you pro Propose yourself as you are and you either get a, I know that guy, he's a good guy. Or Yeah, he's not really that good. You, you see that networking events and people, and you ask any of my folks, they're like, yeah, Mike, they were talking about you out of this thing, and they, they knew who you are.

[00:15:12] Mark: They love you. And I'm like, I, you know, I, I just live my standards to the best of my abilities on a daily basis.

[00:15:20] Hector: Yeah, I love a big theme of these. Conversations is how the personal side of things actually impacts the business. How something, as you know, simple as being ethical or telling the truth, you may not be able to trace the lines in the accounting books directly.

[00:15:39] Hector: it doesn't show up on their radar. But it's still present in the results of the business, and I think in the growth that you're able to sustain, right? Because going from

[00:15:48] Hector: 750 feet to, you know, 11,000 or, you know, what you had said, there's so much room to go off the rails that if you don't have that culture to keep everybody on, it could end up a disaster.

[00:16:00] Mark: I tell my folks, I don't want 'em to buy into who I am. that's not people who work for me. They're not me. They're their own people, and I'm okay with that. I want that. I want them to, to, to stand on their own two feet for the rest of their lives if they don't work for me. But at the same time, I want them to understand that there's things they can do that can hurt us, that I will need to step in and fix.

[00:16:19] Mark: But if they just do the right thing, I e tell the truth. 99.9% of the time after that, we're gonna be okay because, we'll, we will be able to come in as a team and fix that issue no matter what it is. So, I, I preach that to him. I talk to him about it. I've given them papers on leadership and ethics and morals and, you know, it's, I, I run the gamut of my employees from, 60, I think he's 67 down to a 19 year old, so they're all in there.

[00:16:51] Mark: All, all 14 of 'em are in the gamut of everything. So some of them have heard it. Others have never heard this kind of stuff, and I want them to go away when they leave me and I want them to leave me. And I'm not saying it in a bad way. I want them to get that, especially the 19 year old. I want them to get a job making a hundred thousand dollars a year.

[00:17:07] Mark: That's my goal for them. I want them to turn around and support us saying, you know, the company I work for has, you know, 450 laptops sitting in this room, and they're yours now because of who you are. it's altruistic. Sure. But at the same time, I want them, and when they get to that job, they can look back and go, you know, he had an impact on me and I'm doing the right thing because of what Mark taught us.

[00:17:26] Mark: And that's good. And what I call soul satisfying. It's, it's, it's my, it's my legacy, but my legacy is greater than me. Right. And that's what a legacy is. But I want it to be that ripple effect when you throw the pebble in the pond, right? That ripple effect that happens of people who, who are reacting positively to my message.

[00:17:46] Hector: Yeah. The last thing I'd,love to cover is I'd love to have you share a little bit about the programs that have, you've touched on 'em a little bit, but I wanna give you more of a platform to talk about them. But if you could also mix in why you chose, tech specifically, and, you know, why you chose that, why you chose the recycling.

[00:18:03] Hector: Obviously the suicide one's probably a little more obvious, but I'm curious from our listeners, thinking about a, product development, perspective, why was it those three, avenues that you guys chose to go?

[00:18:14] Mark: You bet. So the first was veterans. I mean, that's what the Tech for Troops is about. Although I didn't start it. That's what it was about. It was bridging that digital divide, which we all heard about when the pandemic hit, right, kids went home. Mil billion, millions and billions of kids it seemed like went home without computer.

[00:18:29] Mark: So where we doing? Same in the veteran community since 2015. So that was that first part. The other part of that was I had a veteran come in in 2017 to get a computer. He is with his, VA handler. And, the hair in the back of my neck went on, right. It was just like, there's something wrong here.

[00:18:44] Mark: So I said, Hey, turn it on for me. And he couldn't. And then once it got booted up, I said, Hey, can you, you know, get onto a, an, an icon, an app and open it up? And he's like, yeah, I can do that. He's BSing and he couldn't do it. I looked at his handle and I said, why are we giving this guy a computer when he can't even turn it on?

[00:19:05] Mark: And she said, we're gonna teach him all that. I knew that wasn't gonna happen. Right? The VA don't have time to teach. Every event had use computer. So that started our educational program, which goes hand in hand with the computers. So from there, we've grown, we have a 24 c training facility. it's beautiful, honestly.

[00:19:19] Mark: I mean, you go online, you can see a picture of it. It's, it's gorgeous. When it came to the recycling, we get in Old Tech. We get in new tech, so laptops, servers, routers, switches, desktops, Geiger counters, underwater drones, stereos. We get it all in. And so what am I gonna do with that? So we, we recycle it responsibly or we sell it on eBay, right?

[00:19:44] Mark: So I'm not gonna give an underwater drone to a vet. Does it make sense? I'm not gonna recycle it because it's almost brand new in a box. So we sell it on our eBay store. and then there's other things that we do with the, with the equipment, right? Some of it'll be torn apart from volunteers and companies that come in and volunteer with us, and we put it in these big.

[00:20:02] Mark: Big boxes, four by four by four cardboard boxes called Gaylords and ship those out. last one we just shipped out was 22 pallets, almost 50,000 pounds, added to our bottom line. My bottom line is a goal of a hundred tons a year, and we're gonna hit that this year pretty, pretty easily because of the stuff we're getting in.

[00:20:21] Mark: And then with Jason and my, my gaming community for the suicide prevention, Jason's a a, a vet, he's a, Boats and mate. But then he went changed, went army and became an army medic. So he saw a lot of stuff over in, in Iraq and Afghanistan and PTs. D three TBIs, three traumatic brain injuries. And we were in a staff meeting one day and we were talking about gaming, right?

[00:20:43] Mark: Just something gaming, cuz we get all this tech in, let's reuse it for good. And he is like, What do you mean gaming? And I'd threw it out. I don't know. I don't, cause I don't game. I don't know. It's a game. Right? And people do this thing with their hands and they do this and he's like, oh, I got you covered.

[00:20:56] Mark: I used to work for Nintendo. And then bam, we now have our own Discord and Twitch. we do events at other locations for the suicide prevention. We go like the disabled American veterans or the American legions and do that for them there. he's told me that we've had, we call 'em wins, three guys who were contemplating suicide that got online with us.

[00:21:17] Mark: And, and when you're online with Jason and the other vets, you can say what you want. And when somebody's talking about, you know, doing the, I call it the stupid, when they're talking about doing the stupid, they're like, no, dude, don't my phone number. This is my cell. Call me a day or night. But first you gotta call 9 88 for suicide prevention.

[00:21:34] Mark: Right. That's the national hotline. And we've had three of those wins and less than, oh golly, we're in eight months now. And that's just, and, and we started out with four people on Discord. So now we're at over 300 or close to 300 I think, and then Twitch is growing as well. And we have relationships with companies we never thought we'd have a relationship with, like Ubisoft and Acer and Riot and others, that he's making these relationships because of what we're doing.

[00:22:02] Mark: And his passion with my passion and then the passion for the recycling and then the veterans, it, it's a win-win win for anybody who really wants to support us. lemme just say this real quick, Hector. Anybody out there listening. If you have a product idea, like Hector just mentioned and you're thinking, nah, I'm not too sure about that, there's nothing wrong with trying it.

[00:22:23] Mark: Don't bankrupt yourself, but try it cuz the gaming thing was a whim and in saving law lives, that's a win. But if you have an idea, don't put it off and think, ah, tomorrow because somebody else may have the same idea and take it away from you.

[00:22:39] Hector: Yeah. This is so great, mark. I wish, I wish we could keep going forever. cuz I, I, I feel like we just scratched the surface on some of the, the wisdom here. But if people wanna learn more and find out about any of these programs, you know, maybe the, the Discord or the, tech for Troops, where do they go?

[00:22:54] Hector: Where can they find out?

[00:22:56] Mark: our webpage tech for troop.org, t e c h f o r t r o o ps.org. We have our Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and LinkedIn at the top. Discord and Twitch is at the bottom and you can go click on those. I am pretty sure Twitch is Tech for Troops and I think Discord is the same, although I'm not sure.

[00:23:15] Mark: I've been on Discord like twice in my life and I've been on Twitch once. They both scare me, so, so I don't do those.

[00:23:23] Hector: Yeah. Hey, I I'm impressed though, cuz I think it's, it's brilliant. And, how, how great of a, of an avenue to reach and, and reach out to people who, who need it.

[00:23:33] Mark: Who need it? Yeah. And, and I'm gonna tell your listeners as well, don't ever give up. Right? The win is around the corner. If you don't think it's there, it is literally around the corner. So keep your H head high. Stay up that extra 10 minutes and make it happen. You can do it.

[00:23:49] Hector: Mm. You heard it. Listeners, I wanna thank you all for sticking with us. I appreciate you being here and a part of the How to Scale Business Tribe. I'd encourage you to go and get connected with Mark's organizations. Go find Mark on LinkedIn, that's where we connected. take some action and, let us know how it goes.

[00:24:05] Hector: But otherwise, we appreciate you being here. We'll see you on the next one later,