Welcome Home - A Podcast for Veterans, About Veterans, By Veterans
Welcome Home is a Willing Warriors and the Warrior Retreat at Bull Run project. The program highlights activities at the Warrior Retreat and issues impacting all Veterans. For questions or feedback, please email us at podcast@willingwarriors.org.
Welcome Home - A Podcast for Veterans, About Veterans, By Veterans
Rebuilding Purpose: How Veterans Grow America Through Entrepreneurship
The transition from military service to civilian life represents one of the most challenging journeys many veterans face. For Donnell Johns, founder of Veterans Growing America, this transition sparked an innovative mission to transform how America supports its veteran entrepreneurs.
After 26 years of distinguished Army service spanning Desert Storm, Somalia, and leadership roles in recruiting, Johns found himself struggling with his post-military identity. "I wanted to find out who Donnell was," he shares, describing how his entire adult identity had been shaped by military service since age 18. Like many veterans, he faced isolation, purpose loss, and the daunting challenge of building a new life without his military community. The solution emerged unexpectedly at a veteran networking event where Johns realized something profound: instead of focusing on veteran challenges like PTS and homelessness, America needed to see veterans as capable entrepreneurs, leaders, and innovators.
Veterans Growing America evolved from this insight into a comprehensive ecosystem supporting veteran entrepreneurship. The organization now operates storefronts in Virginia and Maryland exclusively featuring products from veteran and military spouse-owned businesses. These spaces serve as more than retail environments—they're community hubs hosting business boot camps, networking events, and even veteran-led activities like line dancing classes. Johns powerfully notes that "veterans can't eat 'thank you for your service,'" emphasizing that economic opportunity through entrepreneurship provides the meaningful support veterans truly need.
Ready to support veteran entrepreneurs? Visit veteransgrowingamerica.com to explore their business directory, learn about upcoming events, or make a donation. Better yet, visit their storefronts at Stonebridge at Potomac Town Center (Virginia) or Clarksburg Premium Outlets (Maryland) to discover quality products while directly supporting veteran business owners. Your purchase does more than complete a transaction—it validates a veteran's new mission and purpose.
Good morning. I'm your host, Larry Zilliox, Director of Culinary Services here at the Warrior Retreat at Bull Run this week. Our guest is Donnell Johns. He's the founder of an amazing organization called Veterans Growing America. It's a 501c3 tax exempt organization that provides entrepreneurial education and resources to Military-Connected Communities. I want to be transparent here for our listeners that are local to Northern Virginia, especially Prince William County. Donnell and I are both commissioners on the Prince William County Veterans Commission. What we are doing here today is a podcast. It is not a meeting of the Veterans Commission. We do not need to give notice of this. It's just the two of us All that notice stuff and freedom of information and all that kind of stuff kicks in when you have three or more commissioners get together. There's nobody else here, it's just the two of us. So I want to be clear about that to everybody. Donnell, thank you for joining us. Welcome to the podcast.
Donnell Johns:Happy to be here and yes, this is not an official commissioner meeting, that's right.
Larry Zilliox:So if you would tell our listeners about your military service, your background.
Donnell Johns:Yeah, so I served 26 years in the United States Army. Wow, I did 10 of them active Army where I served, funny story. So when I joined, I joined the military with four friends. I was looking at joining the Air Force. I actually tried to join the Air Force three times Back in 1989, we had the rotary phones but we didn't have cell phones or anything like that, sure.
Donnell Johns:So I caught the bus three times to the Air Force office. I wanted to be Air Force office. I wanted to be an airplane mechanic. Luckily I didn't do that, there would be a lot of casualties in the sky. But I went to his office. He was never there and I just gave up. And then, during the summer of 1989, a friend of mine's mom, I stayed at their house over the summer. I have two friends, ken and Keith and Eric, who lived in Vallejo, california. I'm originally from San Francisco. We were working at Marine World Africa, usa, and it was an amusement park and after we got off work we would sit in the basement and make a lot of noise, invite a bunch of people over. So his mom was really tired of us time to go yeah, he was really.
Donnell Johns:She was really tired of us. And so one day we came home and the recruiter was sitting there in the living room wow, dren johnson, I can remember it like it was yesterday. And, dren, he asked me. He was like you know, are you interested in joining the military? I said, well, yes, but I'm not interested in being infantry. I said do you have any jobs where you can work inside? I want to do something. You know, I want to have my own office. He was like absolutely, we have stuff like that, I want to have my own office. He was like absolutely, we have stuff like that.
Donnell Johns:At the time, you know, I really didn't understand. You know what that meant. But as long as I had a job that was working indoors, that had AC and that I wasn't going to be outside because I had terrible allergies. I'm going to fast forward a little bit. Well, I ended up going to basic training, ait, and in my mind, because I had an administrative job, I never thought I could go to war. But the entire time I was in basic training and AIT, they kept telling us you're going to go through basic training, ait, and then your first duty assignment is going to be Desert Storm. I laughed at the drill sergeants. I was like, yeah right, what am I going to do? Throw a typewriter at people. I had no idea that. You know, in the theater of war we have everything.
Larry Zilliox:Well.
Donnell Johns:I didn't throw typewriters at people, but I did get deployed my first duty station. Probably my class is probably the only class that did this, but we went directly to Desert Storm straight out of AIT no unit whatsoever. And before we went there we went to Fort Lee to do grave registration school and it was supposed to be a two week long course. They did it in two hours and got us on the plane out of there. I was an administrative specialist and that's what I did while I was there. I did the awards, I did a lot of stuff with the active army and the reserves. We made sure that, you know, people got manifested in, manifested out. There was a lot of stuff that went on. It was different for me because I was 18, and so I felt like I was invincible. We lost a couple people while we were there, but I still felt invincible, like nothing could ever happen to me. So the things that happened, you know, during that period of time I didn't realize it affected me until I got a little bit older. I went from there to my first duty station, which was Fort Eustace, and immediately after we got there, about a year and a half later, somalia kicked off, ended up serving in Somalia for almost four months and you guys know exactly what happened in Somalia all of that type of stuff and I served a total of 10 years active army. The two assignments that I had after that was Korea, where they put me in an infantry unit. I was like what is going on? And it was an infantry unit that patrolled the DMZ. Were you there in the winter? Yes, it's cold, it's super cold, it is super cold. And I met my wife in Colorado. My last duty assignment while I was on active duty was I worked at the military engine processing station. Okay, they gave me a follow-on assignment back to Korea. I was like I'm not doing that, I'm sorry, I don't want to go back to the Joint Security Area, panmunjom, to this infantry unit. It was a good assignment, but it was just not good enough, and so I found the opportunity to be an AGR in the Army National Guard. I actually transferred into the Army National Guard on Christmas Day of 1999. I actually transferred into the Army National Guard on Christmas Day of 1999. The cool part about that was I was definitely afraid of talking in front of groups, but the job that I signed up for was a recruiter where I had to talk to people, and so I still, to this day, don't like talking in front of groups. It still scares the crap out of me, you know, as far as talking in front of people, but I do it all of the time and I get better and better at it. But I work my way up in recruiting from a recruiter all the way up to the recruiting command sergeant major for the state of Colorado and I was so happy to get an AGR job that I promised the sergeant major. When I met him I was like hey, I'm your recruiter and I'm going to be the best recruiter that Colorado Army National Guard has ever seen. And I achieved that. I was rookie of the year, runner up, top recruiter, top recruiter when I made E8, my team was top team three years in a row and then I became the command SAR major of recruiting and all of my recruiters made mission the first time in Colorado National three years in a row. And then I became the Command Sergeant Major of Recruiting and all of my recruiters made mission the first time in Colorado National Guard history that happened. And then I got a distinct opportunity to serve at the national level and become the Army National Guard G1 Sergeant Major, and so I was the first Army National Guard G1 Sergeant Major in Army National Guard history. We improved the readiness of the Army National Guard by 30 percent in less than nine months and I used the leadership that I learned as far as being a recruiter to persuade states to listen to what we have, because the National Guard we have a bureau, we're not a headquarters, and so we have 54 different armies and they can do what they want to do. However, I use my recruiting skills to get them to do what we asked them to do. And then my last assignment on active duty is I got the opportunity to go back into recruiting and I was the recruiting command sergeant major for the DC Army National Guard.
Donnell Johns:Oh wow, and that was one of my favorite assignments, because I got to take everything that I learned as a tactical recruiter, a recruiting SAR major and a G1 SAR major and pour it all into the state excuse me, the District of Columbia and all of my recruiters. We went from worst to first in the nation when it came to recruiting. In less than a year we made that happen. We had the highest strength that we've ever had in the DC National Guard, and then I retired from there in 2016.
Larry Zilliox:How was that transition for you? Was it like you thought it was?
Donnell Johns:going to be. So I had a picture in my head. I actually started a business. It was called a Vision Worldwide Leadership Consulting Firm and I did my business plan. I went through boost to business, all the schools, and it's a funny thing about planning right. You can plan for success and I had short term success when I left the military.
Donnell Johns:When it came to my business, when it came to leadership consulting, however, I was yearning and missing a lot of stuff. Transition was very hard for me. The first three months that I was out, I got to sit in the house trying to figure out this business thing and demons started coming, thinking about things that I've never thought about before. And I got to see you know, being in business, you gotta, you gotta do everything. You know. You gotta do your administration. You have to. You got to do everything. You know. You got to do your administration. You have to do your marketing and advertising. Yeah, you got to do everything when it comes to business. And so I started seeing my weaknesses, which I'd never seen before, because I had a team of individuals around me that I'm good at my job. Everybody else is good at their job. We can empower people to do the things that they're good at, and you really rarely see your weaknesses and you always have somebody right there to have your back. My PTSD started kicking in and the only thing that I can do to stay motivated was run. So I felt like Forrest Gump. Right Every morning I woke up and I went on a three-mile run. I ran every day for three miles or more for seven months. One day I put on my pants to go running and my pants fell all the way to my knees Got so skinny.
Donnell Johns:One of the things that I walked away from also was being a part of the military. I didn't let anybody know that I was a retired Command Sergeant Major. I wanted to find out who Donnell was. I had no idea who I was because I joined at 18. And so my identity was the military, and so I'm like what relationships can I build? You know, when I walked in the room, nobody stood up. You know, when I said things, nothing happened unless I made it happen, trying to figure out my place in the world. Luckily, who I was in the military and who Donnell was was the same person. I was able to create the same type of excellence, but I was missing a team.
Donnell Johns:It was painful not to have a community of people around me, people that I could talk to things about, and there was no trust. I remember one day I was at I joined the chamber the Prince William Chamber of Commerce, and I was sitting there and I was like you know what? I'm going to let these people know that I served in the military because I had a leadership consulting firm and I had a tablecloth and my company was a Vision World and I put my picture up there and in all the things that we did for organizations. This lady named Nancy Jean Louis you probably know her walked over to my table and she was like hey, young man, do you know about AUSA? And I was like in my head I was like, look, lady, I'm trying to stay away from the military. I don't want to be involved in any organizations. I don't want to wear any type of fake military uniform or anything like that. But she invited me to come to an AUSA meeting and at this AUSA meeting it was refreshing, it was amazing to be a part of something that people valued. Who? I was? Sure it's tribe. Yes, it was a tribe. I was like man Missing this. Yeah, I was missing the part of the military, where that camaraderie? I missed the camaraderie, I missed the fellowship, I missed the banter, I missed all of that stuff. And so I went to AUSA and that was my tribe and I said you know what, let me try and figure out what other things are available out there.
Donnell Johns:I went to another event. It's called Burbiz and it's bourbon and business and it's basically a networking event for veterans, a networking event for veterans. I went to that and just kind of walked in there and I was like I saw all of these people. I didn't know that they were veterans or not. I was just hoping, you know. And I ran up upon this guy and I started talking to him and he was telling me about his business and I was intrigued. I was like I need to know this guy's story and people need to hear about his story and that's where Veterans Growing America was born, in that spot. I talked to him and he was telling me about his business and all the great things that he was doing and I was like this is cool, because the stuff that I was hearing about our community, it was all PTSD, suicide and homelessness.
Donnell Johns:Sure, even when I briefed my business, you know, this lady was like. I was like, yeah, I'm a veteran and I have a business. And she was like you know what? You ought to go in our disabled group. I'm like what? It blew me away. I'm like why would you have me be on a part of your disabled group? I said do I look disabled to you? And I'm not one to tell people about my, my disabilities or anything like that. You know, I don't. That's nobody's business. You know where I'm at when it comes to my disabilities. But that's what she said to me and I was like I got offended.
Donnell Johns:And then I started hearing it more and more and more and I was like you know what? We're bigger than this. I was like veterans are some amazing people. We need to start telling these stories in a way that people see us as leaders, as heroes, as entrepreneurs and as human beings. And so, as I started doing my research, I started figuring out that the founder of Nike is a veteran, the founder of FedEx is a veteran, the founder of GoDaddy is a veteran, the founder of Walmart is a veteran, and so on and so forth. I'm like people need to hear these stories, but I wanted them to hear about the local stories of the individuals within their community and what they're doing and how they're adding value to our community. So they will see us as leaders, as heroes, as entrepreneurs and as human beings.
Donnell Johns:And so when I went into Burbiz and I started talking to people, there was one guy that was in there and I interviewed him with my iPhone. And I had my iPhone in front of me like this and I just asked him three questions what's your branch of service? How long did you serve? Tell me about your business and how can my community get in touch with you? Those were the three questions that I asked him. It lasted about one minute and then I posted it on LinkedIn. I didn't have any LinkedIn friends.
Donnell Johns:I woke up the next morning I had 700 views on that post and I was blown away. I was like, okay, I'm going to do this every Monday. I'm going to have a different business on my LinkedIn and I could tell these stories, my LinkedIn and I could tell these stories. And I just continued to do that and I continued to find out that more and more people served, but they didn't see the value in their service. They didn't tell people about their service because they didn't see that there were benefits to serving and telling people about your service and that got me to thinking about how can I create a community around veteran entrepreneurship and while I was in the military. This is pretty cool because I wanted to create a community after the military that kind of mirrored the military structure and I'm still creating that through Veterans Growing America. But it allows me to tell those stories of veteran and military spouse entrepreneurs and their unique gifts that they offer the world.
Larry Zilliox:So I do think that that's a problem that we see, where there's so much focus on the issues of PTS, traumatic brain injury and all homelessness, traumatic brain injury and all homelessness, justice-involved veterans, substance abuse issues that some people begin to think that all veterans are like that Right and really listeners. You got to go to the webpage and you got to check it out. It's real easy. It's veteransgrowingamericacom and check out all the resources. There's a directory there of businesses that you can reach out to and we'll provide you with services in exchange for your money. Okay, check every page of the webpage out, because it's just full of resources, for if you need some services or if you're a business and a veteran owned business and are you looking for a way to network and to get the word out about your business, this is a perfect way to do it VeteransGrowingAmericacom.
Larry Zilliox:Remember that this is a nonprofit organization, so you're going to see a button in the corner up in the right. You click on it. It's donate. Go ahead and give what you can, because every nonprofit has expenses. And this is such an amazing program because now you do. You have like two stores, one in Maryland and one in Virginia. These are storefronts where all of the merchandise in them is from veteran-owned businesses. Talk a little bit about that if you would Absolutely so funny story.
Donnell Johns:I look for how people can support our veteran entrepreneurs because I hear all the time thank you for your service, and I love when people say thank you for your service. Continue to say that, even though what I'm about to say is funny, right? Well, you may not find it funny, but veterans can't eat. Thank you for your service, right? It's one of those things where we appreciate it, but, at the same time, we want to. We don't want to hand out, we want to hand up and we want to create opportunities, and so I wanted to create an opportunity where veterans find their passion again. That's what they're looking for when they leave their passion and find a purpose, and so through entrepreneurship, it's twofold. Number one I believe that entrepreneurship is the only way that you can find true freedom, and as hard as I don't know what you're going to have to work like crazy to get your freedom through entrepreneurship. However, when you're working for yourself, but not by yourself, and you have a community of like-minded individuals around you, it makes life a little bit easier. It makes dealing with the things that you have to deal with a little bit easier, and so veterans sell stuff that they're passionate about and through that, when you purchase from them, it makes it bigger, different than you think.
Donnell Johns:I remember the first time we did our event. We did our first event at Drani Coffeehouse, which is an Army Veterans Coffeehouse in Manassas back in 2019. And we had 17 veteran and military spouse-owned businesses and I got to sit and have a bird's eye view of the first sale of all 17 of these individuals. You talking about the light went on saying that purchase said you believe in not only me, but my product and what it has to offer and you find value in that. And when I saw that, I was like Lord, have mercy. We're on to something.
Donnell Johns:Yeah, for sure we had over 900 people show up. I wish it was just for that event. There was a lot of stuff going on that day. It just so happened to be raining and snowing outside and a train station was right across the street from that and they were trying to get on the train and so they just so happened to go into the coffee shop at the same time. So it was a combination of things, but it was a blessing by God that opened up the door and allowed these people to showcase what they found valuable and built a community called Veterans Growing America, where those individuals went from the table to on the shelf at our storefronts in Maryland and Virginia, and through our storefronts we showcase veteran-owned businesses.
Larry Zilliox:Where exactly are they? So our listeners, if they're in the area, they can go to there. Where's the Virginia one? So the Virginia.
Donnell Johns:One is at the Stonebridge at Potomac Town Center.
Larry Zilliox:Okay.
Donnell Johns:And it's right across the street from Potomac.
Donnell Johns:Mills Okay, where the Wegmans is located, and then our Maryland location is located at the Clarksburg Premium Outlets Okay, and the cool part about that is we're in an old Gucci store. I love that because I'm like. That just lets me know the level that our organization is trying to reach is to be the Gucci of veteran entrepreneurships. So if you're in the area of you know Virginia or Maryland in one of those locations, please stop in and support, even if you don't want to shop. Just stop in, say hello and say hello and hear the stories of these individuals on why they started their product. And if you served they love the banter.
Donnell Johns:I always give Navy and Marine Corps and all the other branches that didn't qualify to join the Army a hard time. In our storefronts we showcase all types of veteran businesses, not just product. Yeah, we do education in our storefronts. In fact, we're about to do a mastermind excuse me, not a mastermind group, but a business boot camp. One of our entrepreneurs is a coach, a business coach, and he created a book called Business Boot Camp through one of the masterminds that Veterans Growing America did. We also do networking, where we connect our community with business, education and employment resources but, most importantly, each other.
Donnell Johns:It's a good time. We do that the third Thursday of every month. We also do line dancing. We have a veteran that line dancing is her business, so we provide a space, place and opportunity for people to come and line dance. It blows my mind, because that is our number one selling event. We have up to a hundred people in there line dancing. It blows my mind. We do comedy shows in there. We have a veteran entrepreneur, air Force veteran. He's a comedian and a chaplain, so it's no cussing. The cool part about it is veterans and not cussing. That's hilarious. That's hilarious. That's not something you see every day.
Donnell Johns:But everything that we do we try to make it family friendly and a good time and we try to make it a great environment for not only people that served in military, but it's open to the public. So if you've never served before, this is your opportunity to give back by walking in the store and you know seeing what we do. What's funny to me is people see my logo on the door and they say it looks like a recruiting office. It looks like a recruiting office. It is not a recruiting office, but you will be inspired to join after you find the camaraderie that you see when you walk in the door.
Larry Zilliox:Yeah, wow, well, listeners, once again, it's veteransgrowingamericacom. Check it out, donate. Please hit that donate button, give what you can. It's an amazing organization. It's really helping veteran entrepreneurs get their start.
Larry Zilliox:And that's the hardest part. Veterans have a lot of time. I know, when you're active duty, you're in the service, you got a lot of downtime Hurry up and wait, you're out on posts, you're in the middle of nowhere and you're constantly thinking about what am I going to do when I get out? You know, I think I want to do this, or I want to go open a surf shop in Hawaii, or whatever it is. You're always dreaming about what happens after your service. And and then you separate and it's hard. It's hard for a number of reasons. Everybody's a little bit different, but everybody's almost the same. And then you decide I don't want to work for a contractor, I don't want to work for a big contracting company. I want to do something on my own. I want to be my own boss. And then you find out how hard it is. It's so hard. And then you find out how hard it is, it's so hard.
Larry Zilliox:And then you find a group like Veterans Growing America that is going to give you the resources, is going to give you the support you need to launch your product, to get it out in front of buyers. I mean, it's just I hope that we sit down in a year or two and we're talking about 20 stores nationwide. There's no reason why there shouldn't be a store in every major city, in every state, just like this, that says hey, come buy products from veterans because you know that they work hard and they do what's right and they are providing a service or a product that's high quality and you will get your money's worth. And so, locally, if you're in the Maryland what's Clarksburg or near Potomac Mills, stop into the Veterans Growing America store and patronize all the veterans in there. I'm sure you can find Christmas presents. You can find even if you're buying stuff you don't need. Just you know, stop in and get some stuff and I think you're going to come away from that visit with more than just a product. You're going to come away with a sense and a feeling that this is an amazing organization because it's helping veterans get on the right path and when they get their business going and get their. Their life tends to fall in place as well, because one of the things that veterans have the hardest problem dealing with is stress. Veterans Growing America is really doing an amazing job of helping veterans start their businesses and just get their product out there. Again, it's veteransgrowingamericacom.
Larry Zilliox:Take a look at the webpage. You can contact Donnell through the webpage. There's a contact page in there, phone numbers on there. If you're looking for a particular business, there's a resource directory. You can find all sorts of businesses. I'm certain you'll find what you need in there. Give that business a call, tell them where you found them. Let them know that you found them on the veteransgrowingamericacom page. Please try to patronize as many of these businesses as you can. Donnell, I can't thank you enough for sitting down with us and letting our listeners know about Veterans Growing America. It's been an honor. Thank you so much. Well, listeners, you can find us on all the major podcast platforms. We're on YouTube and Wreaths Across America Radio. We'll have another episode next Monday morning at 0500. If you have any comments or suggestions, you can reach us at podcast at willingwarriorsorg. Until then, thanks for listening.
