Vet News: Veterans Business Journal Launches to Assist and Unite the Nation's 4.2 Million Veteran-Owned Businesses

PITTSBURGH, April 22 - Victory Media Inc., a Pittsburgh, PA- based publishing firm, today announced that the company has launched a new magazine aimed at the nation’s 4.2 million veteran-owned businesses. Veterans Business Journal is the first-of-its-kind national magazine serving the unique needs and opportunities of small business owners who are Veterans of the U.S. military.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, a full 25% of all small businesses in the U.S. are owned by military Veterans; a staggering figure considering that only 10% of the total population has served in the military. "Veterans are incredibly over-represented as small business owners," says Chris Hale, Publisher of Veterans Business Journal, "which isn’t surprising, considering that indicators of small business success: leadership, discipline and persistence, are engrained into military training."

In addition to entrepreneurial and business-building content, the magazine plans to spend a lot of time helping veteran-owned businesses grow through government sales. Based on federal legislation passed in 1999 and strengthened in 2003, all federal agencies and contractors, and also many state agencies and contractors, are required to outsource three percent of all procurement dollars to small businesses owned by service-disabled Veterans. An estimated 10% of all military Veterans are considered service-disabled. " But the government also closely tracks ’non-disabled,’ veteran-owned business procurement, and legislation setting goals for them is likely to happen soon," says Hale.

Since the law’s passing in 1999, the federal government has fallen far short of its three percent goal. In fiscal year 2002, total federal procurement to service-disabled, veteran-owned businesses was a dismal 0.13% and to non-disabled, veteran-owned businesses a mere 0.56%. The poor performance is troubling, considering that 25% of all small businesses are owned by Veterans and that the government has little trouble reaching goals for other small business classes such as women and minority-owned.

Hale cites that the shortfall cause lies in the lack of a media vehicle to reach them. "Most government agencies have energetic small business staffs and a full calendar of outreach events. The problem is that the government databases used to market contracting opportunities contain less than one percent of all veteran-owned businesses. Veterans Business Journal is changing that by uniting veteran business owners and offering an advertising vehicle for government agencies, contractors and business services vendors to reach them. We will do for the veteran business community what Black Enterprise has done for the African-American business community."

Rich McCormack, the magazine’s Editor-in-Chief, is energized by the veteran cause. "Most government procurement goals are based on a birthright: gender, minority status, etc. Being a veteran is a hard-earned right and more than any other group, we owe them. We plan to bring national awareness in order to ensure these procurement goals are met and hopefully someday, exceeded."

For more information, visit the Veterans Business Journal web site at http://www.vetbizjournal.com

SOURCE: PR Newswire