Richard Morris, the Founder and CEO of Heropreneurs, the only military charity to help and support Service leavers, military spouses and armed veterans into business said:
‘We all know the obvious that the key to the future of the economy is nurturing bright people with great business ideas, but what we often forget is that entrepreneurship is not limited to start-ups.
‘The Armed Forces could nurture an entrepreneurial mind-set to take on the habits and behaviour of entrepreneurs. In this way Armed Forces personnel will automatically make small incremental innovations; they would be better agile thinkers.
‘Teaching enterprise and business from day one would allow people to awaken their creative innovative skills and possibly save money for the Ministry of Defence .
The contribution that small-business owners and the self-employed make to the UK economy is vast and no stone should be left unturned in seeking out and encouraging new entrepreneurial talent,’ Mr Morris added.
One of the businesses Heropreneurs supports is The Trades Brigade set up to use the many skills of the men and women who have left the armed services be it through redundancy or retirement – including electricians, plumbers, joiners and builders – from regiments up and down the country and to give them a chance to re-build a career.
It will harness not only the expertise of these former armed services personnel but the drive, determination and discipline they have called upon in the service of the nation.
William Garment, co-founder of The Trades Brigade said: ‘There is an opportunity when people join the forces and throughout their whole time in the army, Royal Navy or the RAF to learn enterprise and have an entrepreneurial approach to what they do in their chosen career. In today’s tough economic climate, there aren’t the same opportunities for service leavers in the job market. By learning enterprise skills they can identify opportunities to work for themselves.
‘We will be working with numerous ex-military trades people who have been made recently redundant so they can utilise the skills they learned while serving the nation.’
