78 U.S. VETERANS MAGAZINE WWW.USVETERANSMAGAZINE.COM

MILITARY

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ooking back at the early days of March and onset of COVID19, few knew the impact the virus would have on the nationwide shutdown and the thousands of military entrepreneurs and their families looking to launch or grow their business. As storefronts tivuufsfe-!pdft!dmptfe!boe! many small business owners scrambled to seek assistance through PPE loans, many new to the entrepreneurial space questioned if this was the right time to even launch a business. With a nationwide network of thousands of military entrepreneurs-spouses, veterans and transitioning service members to serve-in true Rosie the Riveter fashion, shutting doors and putting a hold on service was not an option for The Rosie Network team. In fact, now more than ever, this was the time to stay connected-leveraging the power and strength of the community we serve, along with today's technology-to be that accountability partner who's there for them at all stages of uifjs!cvtjoftt/!Xf!sfdphoj{fe! early on that despite physical distancing this connection would be needed, and what would be needed even more was the no-cost support, training and

Learning to Pivot Together When the Going Gets Tough

The Rosie Network helps military entrepreneurs learn the art of pivoting while moving to a virtual environment

By Leona Sublett, Director of Development, The Rosie Network

BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association.

huq !v!o}{q!}!uqlyu!olq!l p! l ovly! services, we are one of the largest employers in our state. We honor your service. We respect your abilities. We welcome your skill set. And with experience like yours, there's a place for you here. We are BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina. Go to www.SouthCarolinaBlues.com and click on Careers. We are BlueCross.

networking that our mission bt!b!opoqspu!xbt!cvjmu!po/!Jo! order for The Rosie Network to continue to successfully support our entrepreneurs, who we believed were at the heart of our nation's economic recovery, we had to rise to the challenge and make the pivot quickly to a virtual environment across all of our chapters nationwide. And rise, we did. Our leadership team across the nation came together and rolled out our Service2CEO curriculum in a virtual platform across all of our Rosie and Warrior Chapter current cohorts, not missing a single session during this challenging time. In fact, not only did The Rosie Network not experience any interruption in the delivery services, the cost was minimal, and surprisingly, the impact and reach expanded during this time. Our scheduled Rosie Chapter Open Houses and Cohort graduations and qjudi!fwfout!xfou!p!xjuipvu! a hitch in this new virtual environment; we hosted a virtual Veteran Business PopUp event, and launched our Rosie Talks Entrepreneurial Series. What we learned, together with our military entrepreneurs, is that with challenge comes opportunity. As entrepreneurs, we must always look at the ability to see opportunity by