Veteran business owners boost Fargo economy

Veteran Boost
Veteran Boost

Erik Hill, an Army reserve member, owns Immersion LLC, a wellness center in Fargo offering self-regulated saunas and cold plunging. He started the business after his last deployment in October 2023 to combat anxiety, stress, and guilt naturally. “I struggled with anxiety, stress, guilt, a lot of things.

And I just wanted to look for a natural way to help myself,” Hill said.

Justin Lindteigen, another veteran, owns Greenstone Construction, a contractor for several federal agencies, including U.S. Air Force bases, the Veterans Administration, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. “I’d gotten back from Iraq in 2009 and I had a free ride for college.

In one of my classes, I had to write a business plan. My facilitator encouraged me to actually start the business,” Lindteigen recalled.

Both Hill and Lindteigen credit the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) with providing indispensable assistance, including funding that can reach up to $5 million.

Alan Haut, director of the Small Business Administration for North Dakota, emphasized the role of the SBA in supporting veteran-owned small businesses. “We also have a Veteran Owned Small Business Outreach Center, called the VBOC, that provides additional hands-on guidance,” Haut said. “We conduct Boots to Business events at military installations to help train veterans who are retiring from the service to become business owners.

We also offer a variety of webinars.”

Haut added that the SBA assists hundreds of veteran-owned businesses in addition to more than 70,000 other small enterprises in North Dakota. “Small businesses, in general, are the backbone of the economy.

Veterans enhance Fargo’s economy

They support new jobs, new growth, new innovations, and veterans are a very strong segment of small businesses,” he said. The latest figures reveal that the more than 1,621,823 veteran-owned businesses in 2021 generated $983.9 billion in sales. However, the number of veteran-owned businesses has been declining as the veteran population ages.

A 2023 report from the SBA found that veteran ownership declined from 11% of businesses in 2014 to 8.1% in 2020. Veterans enter the business world equipped with skills gained in the military, such as leadership and problem-solving. However, they often lack the opportunity to build up credit or savings, which civilians have had more time to develop.

This deficiency can complicate securing loans, as banks heavily rely on credit histories and savings to approve financing. Moreover, transitioning from military to civilian life can take a mental toll. According to data from the business coaching nonprofit SCORE, about one-third of veteran businesses have limited access to capital or lack adequate financing.

This combination of challenges underscores the unique difficulties veterans face in launching and sustaining successful startups. Despite these hurdles, many veterans find entrepreneurship a natural fit after their military service. They are more likely to start a business than civilians and are more likely to out-earn their non-veteran counterparts.

The military-to-entrepreneurship pipeline is a strong one, with American veterans owning nearly 2.5 million businesses and employing more than 5 million Americans in every industry from retail to manufacturing. Veteran business owners in Fargo and beyond are playing a vital role in shaping the local economy, underscoring the importance of continued support and resources to help them succeed. As the nation celebrates National Veterans Small Business Week, it is clear that recognizing the future potential of veterans to continue serving through entrepreneurship is just as important as honoring their past service.

Adam Josefs

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