Chef Jeff Fritz on Blending Military Experience with Culinary Entrepreneurship

What if the skills you honed in the military could transform you into a culinary entrepreneur? Meet Jeff Fritz, a retired Air Force chef whose journey from a SEER instructor to a successful food industry leader offers a masterclass in leveraging military discipline for civilian success. Jeff's story is a remarkable testament to adaptability and resilience, beginning with unexpected challenges during basic training and culminating in the national expansion of Chef Fritz Brand Seasonings, launched during the pandemic.

Jeff brings us into the world of an enlisted aid, where he honed culinary skills while serving top-ranking officials, eventually competing in prestigious culinary arenas like the James Beard House. This episode highlights Jeff's path from weapons director to culinary competitions, illustrating how the organizational and strategic skills from his military career seamlessly transitioned into his post-retirement culinary pursuits. His partnership with Liberty Life Farms and success at local farmer's markets exemplify his entrepreneurial spirit and dedication.

Transitioning from military to civilian life is no small feat, and Jeff provides invaluable insights into the resources available for veterans, such as the Transition Assistance Program and Hiring Our Heroes. His journey underscores the importance of strategic planning in finance, healthcare, and retirement, offering a roadmap for fellow veterans aspiring to embark on entrepreneurial ventures. Tune in to learn from Jeff's experiences and gain inspiration for your own post-military journey.

Chapters

• 0:00 Transitioning From Air Force to Chef
• 9:10 From Air Force to Culinary Entrepreneur
• 14:45 Culinary Career in the Military
• 17:57 Military Transition to Culinary Entrepreneur
• 28:22 Planning for Military Retirement and Entrepreneurship

Transcript

Larry Zilliox: 0:14

Good morning. I'm your host, Larry Zilliak, Director of Culinary Services, here at the Warrior Retreat at Bull Run this week. We're joined by Jeff Fritz. He is a retired Air Force chef and he has his own company, Chef Fritz Brand Seasonings, and I really wanted to talk to him about his transition after retiring from the Air Force and starting his own business, because we're exploring a lot of content lately about what it's like to transition from the tribe to civilian life and some of the things you miss, some of the things you don't miss, but we'll go all through that. So, Chef, welcome.

Chef Fritz: 0:55

Thanks for coming. Hey, thanks, larry. I appreciate it and I'm happy to be here.

Larry Zilliox: 0:59

Tell us a little bit about your Air Force career. You were in for 20-plus years I did.

Chef Fritz: 1:04

I did 21 years I did early. That was delayed entry back in the day, so I actually came in in October but didn't actually go to basic until January of the following year and then I retired in October. Wow, yeah, went through basic. I retired in October.

Larry Zilliox: 1:16

So, wow, yeah, went through basic Went, through basic Lackland, lackland.

Chef Fritz: 1:28

Okay, and then what was your first job? It wasn't a chef, was it? No, not at all. So prior to the Air Force, I was going to go to college, so I had got offered a hockey scholarship to go to play hockey. And then over the summer I met my wife and then that kind of changed things. So I decided, you know, I did various jobs for the Air Force but decided I was going to just go in the military to start a family. But when I came in, the first job I picked was to be a canine handler. So I was going to be security forces Thought it was something cool, love dogs, all that kind of stuff.

Chef Fritz: 1:54

But literally when I went through basic training, they changed the policy where you had to be a staff sergeant to be a canine handler. So they gave me the option of changing jobs. So, like, do I want to be a cop? I was like, eh, not necessarily, I'm going to do the canine thing Right. So they're like well, there's various jobs that will come in through basic training and you'll get to meet theseack and he's just pitching everybody on. You know, hey, do you like camping? You know this is all super amazing. You know you go out in the woods for a weekend every month and I'm like this is awesome, like what is this job? And then they're like, oh, you'll be a SEER instructor. I was like SEER. I'm like what's that? They're like, oh sure, I'll do that. So they're like, can you lift 40 pounds? I was like, absolutely so.

Chef Fritz: 2:40

You know, I went through the little rigmarole that you go through and then they don't tell you at first is you get signed up. And then they're like, by the way, you have to do psychobowls, basically throughout the rest of basic training, which was about seven weeks or so. And at first I was like this kind of sucks because you're on a computer taking psych evals and they're asking you the same questions over and over and just rephrased. But what I didn't dislike about it was it took me out of the regular basic training stuff. Sure, so I got, I got away from a lot of the BS kind of stuff that we all had to deal with. I still had to deal with most of it, but I had hours away from everybody else's stuff. Yeah, you know, I got to walk back or march back from you know the facility to you or march back from you know the facility to. You know my basic training, barracks and all that stuff by myself. So I didn't get yelled at, got to go to the BX from time to time too, which was pretty great, but yeah. So I came in and I was a SEER instructor and then going through training, it's you know, it's just considered time, is considered a special duty, special forces, special duty job Lots of physical, lots of you know working out those things.

Chef Fritz: 3:39

Is this at duty job? Lots of physical, lots of you know working out those things. To set up a cord, where were you stationed, mccord? No, so you, when you graduate from basic training, you actually go over to the Medina Annex. Literally you hop on a bus, they take you across and then you do your your first two weeks of in-doc there. So while I was there, you, they literally give you a hundred pound rucksack. You rock everywhere every day. There's no buses, no cars, nothing.

Chef Fritz: 4:05

You, you're working out all day and you have classroom settings and one of the things you had to do to pass through the indoor courses you had to rock. I want to say it's four miles and under an hour, if I remember right, with a hundred pound rock, and the course that we did was a dirt crack, a dirt track, so rain, all that kind of stuff. Like you know, there's divots and I'm literally rucking trying to meet my time. I stepped in a hole so I ended up hurting my hip really bad. So I went through two months of rehab and then after that had to go back through the course again and luckily, just literally just barely passed, because I'm short, you're short, you know how it is. Short leg people. Rucking fast is not easy to do because it looks like you're running when everybody else is strolling. So I literally passed with probably like 10 seconds before I, you know, before I had to.

Chef Fritz: 4:45

But but from there it took me on to Spokane, washington. So that's where I started. Basically you stage up there until you have enough class members to start the class and they do two classes per year. But while I was up there doing the classes and you do field training and a bunch of other stuff, while you're waiting for people to kind of get stuff knocked out, I got hurt pretty bad again and then I had to reclass.

Chef Fritz: 5:05

So I became a 1 Charlie 5 after that point and went to Keesler Air Force Base Weather Tech School. All that stuff did great. And then my first duty station official duty station was Tendler Air Force Base, right. So I did that for a year as a weapons director, or I should say 1 Charlie, right, you talk to actual aircraft, talk to air traffic controllers for passing off people, things like that and I was like that seems a lot cooler than just being the button pusher guy. So I volunteered to go to weapons director school. So I went to weapons director school in Arizona and then as soon as I got back they're like oh hey, congrats, here's your orders to Korea. Wow. So luckily at the time they were taking enlisted guys, weapons directors, as a family. So I was actually able to go to Korea. I had to do two years but I took my wife. Yeah, it was a company assignment. Yeah, was it cold? It wasn't too bad, I mean it's like here Korea gets cold.

Larry Zilliox: 6:08

People don't realize that when you come from Florida or Texas.

Chef Fritz: 6:10

Oh yeah, yeah, when we first got there it was summertime, so New York, so you know, cold is, you know it's not that bad, but but but no, we got to spend two years there and it was pretty awesome. I mean, I got to see some really cool stuff. Korea my wife's Korean, so she's American but she would, you know, of Korean descent, so it was pretty cool to be there for two years. We had two, two brand new babies. Literally we had to. We got delayed on leaving because our second son, gavin, was born. We had to wait seven weeks, I think it was, before he could fly, yeah, so we all flew as a family together and got to go to Hawaii for a mid-tour and stuff, and that was pretty awesome.

Larry Zilliox: 6:45

So, I'll tell you my short story. You'll appreciate that I was a cop, also security forces. I get to Guam, I go up to the armory to check an M-16 out and they're looking at me like, and the armorer says he says look it, wait a minute. He said I've got an extra car, a CAR. You know the short stock that the flight chief and the lieutenant carried. He says I got an extra one of these. I'm going to give you one of these. I don't want you to have that 16 over your shoulder. You're going to drag that barrel on the ground and wear it out. So I was the only other guy other than the flight chief and lieutenant who carried a car, which was really nice when I was in the trucker. It was a much shorter weapon, but, yeah, he didn't want me wearing down the muzzle on his M16. So well, that's so. At what point do you say, hey, I want to be an enlisted aide or a chef? How does that come about?

Chef Fritz: 7:43

Well, so basically when I came back from Korea, I was doing school and that's kind of where everything changed for me. So I was stationed in Arizona. I was a weapons director instructor at our schoolhouse in Phoenix. To be that instructor you have to meet so much of your schooling first. Basically you have to have a bachelor's at some point. And then so I started to go back to school, try to figure out what I wanted to do. Well, there was a local culinary school and I I was thinking about that, but I ended up doing an automotive class and they canceled that. Well, like right before I started. So one of the guys that I worked with was teaching like basic basic, like english part of the school for the culinary school. So he he said, hey, come check out the culinary school. So I literally went, signed up for it and then that changed everything. So I ended up doing like 21 hour days.

Chef Fritz: 8:27

If you're passionate, you probably understand what it's like to go through something like that, but it's probably not recommended for safety and all that stuff, cause I mean I literally would get up at four o'clock in the morning because we had to work at six. I lived with traffic through Phoenix, I lived literally on one side of the Phoenix and we worked in Scottsdale. So I literally drove basically two hours every morning to get to work. You know, started work, worked till probably 3, 3, 34 somewhere in there, and then did my homework from four to five, six somewhere in there, and then went to culinary school from six to midnight and then drove an hour and some change home. So I was literally getting an hour or two of sleep every day. Yeah, it's not good, but I did that for 18, 20 months, whatever it was, to finish the associate's degree and from there, just like everything kind of changed.

Chef Fritz: 9:10

I basically was working as a chef or cook on the side and I still did my military job for a couple of different assignments. So I helped out a couple culinary schools. I got stationed in Canada working at culinary schools and some other various things. But while I was in Canada in that assignment I decided to do some ACF the American Culinary Federation competitions. So the first one I ever did, I flew back to Idaho where I was stationed and did a competition. I came back with a silver medal.

Chef Fritz: 9:37

So my boss, who's a Lieutenant Colonel, was like hey, have you ever heard of this enlisted aid job. I was like nope, I mean, I'm a weapon, I was a weapons director, I was a weapons school graduate, um, which is kind of like you're locked into the career field for the rest of your life thing you know so well, you're lucky you escaped being a cop. For God, I know, right, I got a couple escapees, but I mean, I did miss a lot of being a weapons director and a weapons school graduate, because I was really passionate about that for most of my career. Not that I'm not now, but a lot of those things that I learned and the skill sets that come with that, like organization and things like that, or easy transition over to like a chef life from the military perspective Sure, just chef life. And military, you know, from the military perspective Sure, so. But yeah, so literally I talked to my boss and I was like, okay, and he's like sign up here. You know, here's what we want to do, sign up for this. We signed up for it and I put in a package and of course the career field was like nope, it's the right. Yeah, you're here, a weapons school graduate Of you can get it.

Chef Fritz: 10:37

And I think I applied seven times and then finally somebody, I guess, made up a clerical error and uh, and I got hired to to, basically, well, I got accepted and then I went through the hiring process but at the same time, um, I put on was putting on master sergeant and I really wanted to go back to the weapons school to be um, the superintendent for the weapons school for the enlisted career, my enlisted career field job. My old boss called me the same day that I got hired to or got accepted to be an enlisted aid, called me and was like hey, uh, we just hired you to be the superintendent over here. I was like, uh, I'm getting picked up by a three-star general to be as enlisted aid. I like it's kind of hard to tell him, no, you know, rank has its privileges. Yeah, so it was. So my old boss, mike, he's like dude. He's like just do it, it's going to be awesome. You love to cook all that kind of stuff.

Chef Fritz: 11:29

So Did you go to Fort Lee for an enlisted aide training? I did, yep, yep, becoming uh, general steven wilson, who was the by hand of becoming the vice chief of staff. So I did one year at um an off it in nebraska as him, as the deputy commander of us strategic command, right, and he got picked up to be the vice chief. So he's like, hey, you want to come. So I ended up moving with them and we did seven years in dc, yeah, with that.

Chef Fritz: 11:53

And then, um, I transitioned back. You know, I made um e8. I was like, hey, I probably should come back to the real Air Force and do some stuff. So helped out with J-Bab to kind of transition them back from the Navy run base back to Air Force run base. Right, right got out, yeah. So the transition for me and I'd recommend this to, if you know that you're going to well, things are different now, obviously, with retirement plan and things like that, right, so I'm still under the old retirement plan where I actually got a paycheck when I retired afterwards. Now you got to wait till you're 65 or whatever it is.

Chef Fritz: 12:30

But, um, but my plan ultimately was I wanted to cook or something like that when I got out. So I started up a company. Originally it was just literally doing catering events and things like that. But from there I ended up partnering with lots of people. Actually, the dinner that we did here when we did, was it 10 courses for 50 people. We had someone to work. You know people come out for that that kind of stuck.

Chef Fritz: 12:50

So, like my closest partner right now is one of the farms that we work with, liberty Life Farms and they're at Reisterstown. So, like I ended up working with them and that, um, they kind of solidified my trajectory of where we were going to go. So that's why we, when we retired, we stayed here, um, along with taking care of my mother-in-law and everything but um, so we stayed here in the in the Baltimore area where we're at the farm during COVID because COVID of course you know, everybody knows about that but uh, during that time they opened up a little farmer's market store at their farm and they're like, hey, we want to do some local product. Is there anything that you could make that we could sell? I was like, well, I do barbecue competitions and I'm a cook and all that stuff.

Chef Fritz: 13:28

I'm like, why not try it with my hand at seasonings? So that's literally how I started out doing seasonings. So they had more of a gourmet seasoning guy that they worked with. That has a little store but he was trying to help me with the transition, but he literally made everything in-house too. So the cost was too high for him to make it for me to bottle it, to sell it. So I was like okay, so I ended up doing it myself, and that's kind of where we're at right now. We're working on some co-packers to do things.

Larry Zilliox: 14:01

We're expanding nationwide those kind of things. Yeah, so when did you start thinking about that transition? A couple of years out, when you hit 20, did you say I can jump now, but let me wait a year and plan, or?

Chef Fritz: 14:07

how did that go? Yeah, for me, like I said, the whole culinary school. That was in 2007. So I retired in 21. So that was 14 years or whatever. Sorry, yeah, yeah, 14 years, wow yeah.

Chef Fritz: 14:21

So then that point was kind of where, you know, I started thinking about what do I want to do when I get out? Because I mean, you know, everybody knows, like that 10 year point, you're kind of like am I going to stay in or am I going to get out? Yeah, so when I had opportunity that has Cisco foods, um, when we're on station in Idaho there was a hey, we want to hire you on to come and like they're going to have a sous chef executive sous chef position, which is like not normal. They usually have just one executive. We had great friends there, you know, both civilian and military. Like I said, that point really kind of set my plans in motion. It was like what do I want to do? So I started looking at things and I started doing like non-traditional military stuff joining the American Culinary Federation, being part of boards, you know all that kind of stuff. So the military likes that stuff on paper. You know that you're trying to show you know leadership and those kind of things. But I used my passion in the culinary side, even before I was doing the enlisted aid thing, to kind of focus that stuff that I wanted to do. They also kind of hit those same wickets, but yeah, so probably like 2007, 2009 timeframe, I really wanted to do that.

Chef Fritz: 15:22

So I started volunteering um, both for stuff local and stuff out of state um, which was pretty awesome, cause me and you know my get words, those kind of my good words, words like we got to cook it the James Beard house. You know, we've done some really cool events. I mean I worked at that in New York, in New York City, yeah, wow, yep. And then I got a chance to stage which people that don't know that in the, in the culinary world, basically you get to work for free. So I got to do it's like three weeks up at Blue Hill, at Stone Barns, which is, you know, you know, just outside of the city, and then they have Blue Hill in the city, but working with chef Dan Barber and, like I think it was the only military person that's ever come through their, their kitchen.

Chef Fritz: 15:56

So I don't think they knew what to expect from me, cause, you know, I mean, like most people, you think Chow Hall, you know defat kind of food, that's right whole trajectory of where I was going and then actually going through so the enlisted aid course. That's at Fort Lee. I did the advanced culinary portion of it and then they transitioned where the Air Force had to go to the enlisted aid portion as well. But before that we went to a civilian school. It was taught by this guy, mr Jason King, who's from the UK. He was a trained butler, all that kind of stuff, and he did household management for, like some celebrities and stuff.

Larry Zilliox: 16:46

So let's just for our listeners, explain what an enlisted aid is.

Chef Fritz: 16:51

Yes. So from the broad perspective is basically you're a household manager and mixed in with it as a chef. So what that means is so you have a full-time role as a chef for your principals, what they call them your, and that can be anything from you know packing them a breakfast, lunch and dinner, you know taking them lunches at, you know at lunchtime. So I was here mainly in DC, so we would, you know, do dinner some time of time. Coming from J-Bab, we take it up to the Pentagon for them, those kind of things, and then the main role was any time that they had formal dinners that they had to do. We basically plan the menu with both our bosses, the people that were coming into the events, for restrictions, food restrictions, things like that. But you manage all that stuff. You have a budget and then, on the flip side, you also manage your principal as well, so you take care of their uniforms. You make sure all the common areas in the house are clean. So I treated their whole house that I had access to as basically my own kitchen, my own restaurant. So it's like I always wanted to keep everything as nice and nice and neat as possible. But you manage that and you just manage their property, which it sounds kind of bad.

Chef Fritz: 17:58

And enlistees get a lot of flack, I think in some of the online stuff it's kind of do I guess?

Chef Fritz: 18:04

I mean it seems weird that you have somebody else taking care of you when you're in the military, because you know everybody that's been in the military be like, yeah, it'd be nice to have somebody that you know do your dry cleaning and all that kind of stuff for you. You know what I mean. So you get kind of some flack for that. And on the flip side, like the amount of professionalism, because the people you meet, like you meet, you can meet the vice president, the president, you know you have dignitaries that come in, you have sheiks and anybody that comes into, especially the DC area here that's a counterpart to your boss or somebody that they're related to in their chain in some other country or something like that. You know you basically have to showcase the US and your boss to those people. So we had a lot of they call five eyes dinners. So, like a lot of you know UK, new Zealand, those guys, we had a lot of those kind of dinners. You work with the highest echelon in the military and the government, so it's pretty crazy.

Larry Zilliox: 18:55

I don't think people really understand the quality, the level of professionalism that military chefs have. I mean, they are some of the finest chefs in the country. Look, it's just like when you get to that level of a three-star or a four-star, your time is better spent dealing with real issues than going and getting your laundry or trying to cook something for dinner. Let me tell you, the enlisted aide is just one of the people the general has. They have a whole staff of people around them doing all sorts of things and so, yeah, you shouldn't be getting any flack, really. So you're getting ready to transition out. What kind of resources did the Air Force have for you, say, in the last year, and say, okay, you're going to retire? What kind of help did they provide?

Chef Fritz: 19:50

So I haven't retired three years this month now. So during my transition time the military was really pushing hard to start taking care of the people transitioning out, whether you were retiring or just getting out in general. So the biggest thing is everybody's probably heard of TAPS. So TAPS is a big resource, but what they've done is they've front loaded so much more stuff into it. That's really beneficial and they actually provide you with other people you know. So it's not just a person giving the briefing, but the other, the other organizations that are part of it that really can help you with whatever area you're looking for.

Chef Fritz: 20:22

The other part of it was trying to think of the program name what's slipping my mind but basically you can do an externship with a company so it's Willing Warriors, if I remember right, and Hiring Our Heroes, I think, is one.

Chef Fritz: 20:36

So basically what happens is they go and they help you build a resume and all those kind of things and you do classes and it's literally six months before you're done you retire, and then they also include in that six months is your, your leave that you take. So you basically get about if, depending on how you do it, you get about three months, four months of that time spent basically working to work with another company. And then what happens is during that time they will pair you up with companies and then you do like actual interviews and then the companies will actually not hire you necessarily, but they will hire you on as like an extern or an intern to come on with their company and you basically get an intern for them for a job of enlisted aides who are separating into restaurants and kitchens, to say this is really different than being an enlisted aide working that line for nine, 10 hours.

Larry Zilliox: 21:35

Is this really what I want to do? Or maybe catering might be a better way to go? All right, so you separate, you're out now. And what kind of resources did you look to to start the company?

Chef Fritz: 21:49

So, like I said, I had the company before the guy, mr King he's the one that talked me into going through like LegalZoom to basically start my own LLC. So that was the first part of it. But since then it's evolved I mean like most things because, like I said, initially it was just doing dinners and things like that and then I had to evolve it into doing the spice line. I will tell you this any job that you do, especially food related, every county is different, every state's different. So it's like there's a lot of legality stuff to it and a lot of it is literally just calling people. The websites are always nice, they give you some good information, but even the website doesn't really follow exactly what's going to happen. So, like so, we just opened a food trailer, also for Mike, and I did with our it's called carbon smoke. But even that process is different because they just view the states, you'd think every state would be the same because it's food safety, but it's not. You know, like the generic part of it is. But everybody has their own rules and everybody kind of picks and chooses what they want to. They want to pick at more with the resources. Like I said, a lot of it's phone calls. So I talked to someone in Howard County in Maryland. So I ended up calling and talking to some people on their board and was like, hey, this is what I want to do, what do I need to, who do I need to talk to? This is what I'm trying to do and basically they helped me with some local companies and some of the other boards and offices within the Maryland area and the Howard County specifically, of people talk to his health department, those kind of things. At one point, for the spices, I had to actually go all the way to the state level just to get a they call it a special ID number so I could actually sell my spices both like a farmer's market retail and all that stuff. And then to go outside the state you have to go through different chain. So, through different chain you actually have to get licensed, either via a co-packer, which is what we're working on right now, or you can basically just have a kitchen, which we have as a commissary kitchen.

Chef Fritz: 23:34

So but, like I said, a lot of the resources are, like I said, there's local stuff. It's a lot of phone calls and a lot of just talking to people and explaining what's going on, because, from what I found, every situation is a little bit different. There's no kind of this is what you like, even if you want a restaurant. Even you know what do you have, what are you cooking, what's your menu. You know if you add a sous vide into it, like it changes how and what you want to do. So it's really just trying to find the experts which in this case was like the health department to get that going.

Chef Fritz: 24:05

And, like I said, some of the programs helped out a lot during TAPS, so that again I think I had a notebook full of notes just from the week-long TAPS I took. Again I think we talked on the phone before. I was lucky because I got to go through the executive TAPS. It's a little bit different than just the standard TAPS, but the information's still basically the same. It's all the same content. It's just how much connections and where they can kind of guide you to. So a lot of it's that. And then the rest of the transition part, like VSOs are a huge thing for especially if you have medical, you know, if you're looking for retirement and then VA service assistance and things like that, and VSOs will help out considerably to help you file things like that. But have you worked?

Larry Zilliox: 24:45

with any professionals around the business so attorneys, accountants, any kind of services like that Because I'm I think one of the things that we find with service members who transition is that all of those services were provided for them while they were in the military. You had a problem with a lease, you walked down to legal, you handed somebody and they took care of it. And it's sort of a shock when you get out and you need that help and they say it's $200 an hour, yeah. And what we don't want is people to say, oh, I can't, I'm not going to pay that, I don't, I can't afford. Well, you can't afford not to pay that. And that's really a big hurdle for service members is to say I need these professional services and oh, by the way, you have to pay for them, but in the long run, it's just you can't live without them.

Chef Fritz: 25:36

Yeah. So when I started my LLC so I went through I'm not going to promote them but one legal Zoom and under legal Zoom they had like they basically had stuff you needed. They had a 1-800 accountants you could use. You don't have to use any of these services, but you know they had 1-800 accountants, they had a legal team, so it's part of the package when you get your, when you build out your LLC.

Chef Fritz: 25:59

So all of the initial things that I needed um outside of, like medical and things I had through going through LegalZoom to set up my, you know, set up my pay you pay for initially.

Chef Fritz: 26:09

I mean you're going to pay for it regardless whether you use the services or not, but you at least have the ability. They give you so many free phone calls, so many free, you know, set up sessions and things like that of those specialists you can talk to to make sure you're doing the stuff that you need to do. So and even outside that, the whole tax taxes is a whole other thing too, because 1-800-ACCOUNTANTS for us and I've had personal accountants before as I've used H&R Block like everybody else and those kind of things but there's still stuff outside of what a normal accountant will do for you, because you still have to file. When you have a business, you have to file your tax and sales stuff either quarterly or annually, depending on how they work it out. And then there's still other things you have to file which you have to go through the state for that stuff. It's not only the taxes.

Larry Zilliox: 26:52

There's a lot of reporting involved.

Chef Fritz: 26:55

Yeah, that's what it is. It's literally statistics reporting because they want to see basically how much money you're making, and things like that. Because I mean, at the end of the year you're going to file all your taxes anyway and they're going to, they're going to do that. But you know, what do they use all that data for? I don't know, but they charge you 300 bucks every quarter to file, you know, your your sales and tax use, plus if you, whatever sales and tax you've collected, you have to pay a percentage of that to them anyway. Yeah, so it's, there's a lot of stuff that's outside that, but again, that's.

Chef Fritz: 27:31

That's back to, like, making phone calls, and sometimes it was, I would get a letter in the mail from the state of Maryland like, hey, you need to do this, you haven't filed this thing yet, and it's like I didn't know. Yeah, you know what I mean because, like I said, there's no all-encompassing checklist on everything you need to do so. And business insurance is another one too. Um, legalzoom was good at that. They, you know, had recommended companies and since then I've I've used a couple different companies since then, um, but they kind of set you up generically to get you moving, get going yeah, yep. And then there's licensing and things like that.

Larry Zilliox: 27:50

Yeah, so think about your transition. As we kind of wrap things up here, what's the one thing you want our listeners who are getting ready to separate to know about the process, how it worked for you. What was the best part? What was the worst part, what, what, what's, what do you think?

Chef Fritz: 28:08

Yeah, I think like, overall, you as the individual person in your family need to have a plan, so it doesn't really matter. I mean it does matter, but as far as far as what you want to do and what your family wants you to do, cause you got to remember too. So when you, if you retire so, like I said, I'm on the old retirement plan but when you retire there you know, if you retire 20 years, like I did, I did 21, but they're like you get 50% of your pay and you're like, okay, sweet, but what you don't really realize is it's 50% of your base pay. So they take out all of your BAH, bas, all that stuff. So in reality, when you look at your pay stub the first, you know, your first retirement check you're really getting about 28 to 30% of what you were making before. So you got to take that into account. And that wasn't all that much to begin with either. It wasn't, I mean, even as a. I mean I made E9, but I ended up retiring as an E8. Even for me, still, that wasn't enough to live on. You know what I mean, because I already no-transcript credit card debts were basically gone. You know I bought a truck after I retired. We had bought my wife's truck before I retired, so that was, you know, we paid half that off, so we thought we were sitting pretty good, and then to see that transition, the first few months like how much pay we lost, you know, and then waiting for VA to kick in and those things you know for our ratings because that's the thing that I don't understand that part of the medical part is for the VA rating is you go through the whole process and nothing actually happens until you retire. Then they give you your rating after you retire. Then the process starts of how they pay you.

Chef Fritz: 29:48

But yeah, having the plan overall, I think, is the biggest thing and, like I said, without a plan for what you want to do, where do you want to live? Those kinds of things it's going to hurt you because now you're going to be trying to figure that out while you don't have the same income, you don't have access to medical, dental, legal stuff. Well, you have all the access for free. You need to do it ahead of time, like I. Legal stuff, you know. Well, you have all the access for free. You need to do it ahead of time, like I said, and then take advantage of taps because taps, unless they change the policy in the last three years, you can do taps, I think, as many times as you want two years out from your retirement or when you're going to get out.

Chef Fritz: 30:18

Yeah, it's a great program. Yeah, highly recommend. Do that as much as you need to and then use if you're trying to get into a tech world like I was kind of a one-off, like everybody in my class that was going through TAPS and then that transition into like the hiring our heroes they were mostly logistics people, somebody getting into like big corporations, which I have that background from my military side outside of the cooking aspect. So I looked at those things too. No-transcript kind of nice about that. But again, having a plan, I think that's the biggest thing and I know taps talks about that, all that kind of stuff but know roughly what you want to do, where you want to go, and then base that back, basically back that up from when you're going to retire and start working on that plan as much as you can before you actually get out.

Larry Zilliox: 31:37

So I use Chef Fritz seasonings. Where can our listeners get them?

Chef Fritz: 31:43

So the easiest way is chefjeffritzcom. It's all one word and you can do slash products if you want, if you don't want to actually have to click on the tab when you go there, so you can get those. You know we ship nationwide, which is awesome. If you're in Maryland, we have Westlake Ace Hardware. There's two locations, one in Ellicott City, one in Columbia, maryland, and we have several farm stores that offer them. If you've ever been down to Ocean Springs, mississippi, and you know the Shed Barbecue, you can go down to the Shed Barbecue if you're looking for some grub off of I-10 on Highway 57.

Larry Zilliox: 32:14

Okay, down there, yeah yeah, so when will they be available nationwide? They are, they're right now.

Chef Fritz: 32:24

I want to see them in Target. I want to see them. We're working on it. Okay, I want to see them everywhere. I go to Westlake, which is based in Kansas City, and they have 161 stores already nationwide. So what we're working on right now with them is, when you become a new vendor for them, they basically build a sales data history on you and then, once you get to a certain sales data six months or so then they can open up other stores to you. So hopefully we'll be into 160 plus stores for Ace Hardware. And then there's another company called Postal Express and More. So they're based in Ellicott City but they franchise out. They have 17 stores nationwide. So actually I have a meeting after this to go talk to them about getting some more stuff out there too.

Larry Zilliox: 33:19

So here's, I think, a store you might want to look at. I don't know if you've heard of them, but Walmart, walmart, walmart.

Chef Fritz: 33:27

I think I've heard of them. Yeah, all right, so Walmart, walmart. I think I've heard of them.

Larry Zilliox: 33:29

Yeah, all right. So hopefully we'll see them in Walmart and Target and all over the place, because they're phenomenal seasonings. I'd love to use them. The Cajun is my favorite, I got to say, and it goes on everything, even popcorn. So well, listen, chef. Thank you so much for joining us. I really appreciate it. Likewise, I appreciate being here. It's awesome. So, for our listeners, we'll have another episode next Monday morning at 0500. For those who like to get up early and listen to podcasts uh, if you have any questions or suggestions, you can reach us at podcast at willingwarriorsorg. Until then, thanks for listening.