Military veterans from the public and private sectors shared experiences and skills Thursday they gained during a Veterans Business Support Symposium in Richton Park.
Sponsored by the Southland Development Authority, speakers talked about how what they learned from military service prepared them for jobs, encouraging veterans to seek out resources such as help with college costs or starting their own businesses as they transition from the armed forces.
Rick Reinbold, a Navy diver in Vietnam and Richton Park mayor since 2001, said his military experience ingrained him with a “sense of responsibility, a sense of duty and a strong discipline.”
He said he joined the Navy when he was 17, and “college was not in the cards for me.”
Reinbold said leadership skills he learned in the military helped prepare him for public service, “something I could not have dreamed of” when signing up as a teen.
Rick Ringold, in the Army from 1981 to 1991 and deployed during the Gulf War, said as a young man “I needed instruction and guidance and that’s what I got” in the military.
Rick Ringold, a U.S. Army veteran and an owner of Galaxy Labs in Richton Park, speaks May 9, 2024, at a veterans symposium. (Mike Nolan / Daily Southtown)
“There are a lot of smart veterans who just need help to fulfill their dreams” of owning a business, he said.
Ringold and his wife, Michelle, own Galaxy Labs, one of the first craft cannabis growers approved by state regulators. They opened their 30,000-square-foot business, which has since added a dispensary, in a vacant grocery store in Richton Park.
He also owns his own construction business, Sergeant Construction. The couple live in Frankfort, and his wife is a certified public accountant with her own firm.
Nicole Mandeville, who was in the Army, is director of the Office of Contract Complaince for Cook County which, among other roles, works to increase the pool of qualified, diverse vendors eligible to participate in county contracting opportunities, according to its website.
Mandeville said her military service taught her to be flexible, disciplined and prepared. She said “every experience I had in the military I used as a stepping stone” to get where she wanted, including going to college, and later earning a master’s degree in public administration.
She said she came from a household where her father and brothers served in the military, and she joined the Army at age 17 with her parents’ permission.
With her military background, Mandeville said she learned about taking “each opportunity and each challenge and flipping it to your advantage.”
Bo Kemp, chief executive of Southland Development, said there are opportunities for veterans to “move from workers to owners” of businesses.
In a news release about the symposium, Kemp said skills veterans gained in the military are also needed by businesses in the Southland that operate in logistics and operations.”
“With a significant veteran population in the Midwest and the ongoing ‘silver tsunami’ of retiring baby boomers without succession plans, there’s a pressing need to connect these skilled veterans with available business opportunities,” Kemp said in the release.
The Southland Development Authority is a nonprofit business organization launched in 2019, and Kemp in the release, said it is “committed to facilitating this connection, ensuring veterans have the support to succeed.”
mnolan@southtownstar.com
