Good Neighbor Podcast: North Shore
Bringing together local businesses and neighbors of North Shore
Good Neighbor Podcast: North Shore
EP # 68 - Beyond Thank You For Your Service: Rob Arndt's Mission with Buffer Springs is Eradicating Veteran Underemployment
Rob Arndt turned hardship into purpose, shaping a mission that empowers veterans beyond their military service. After 14 years in the Marine Corps, he recognized the widespread underemployment of veterans—61% stuck in roles that fail to harness their skills. As the founder and CEO of Buffer Springs, Rob addresses the disconnect between military experience and civilian careers, dispelling misconceptions about service members' expertise. He highlights that only a fraction serve in direct combat roles, while most gain valuable skills in logistics, technology, and human resources. His work not only supports veterans but also helps businesses tap into an untapped reservoir of exceptional talent.
Buffer Springs goes beyond standard veteran employment programs by embracing the Japanese concept of Ikigai, guiding veterans toward careers aligned with their passion, talent, and market demand. Instead of merely reworking military resumes, Rob’s team fosters self-discovery, leading veterans to meaningful roles in corporate leadership, entrepreneurship, and more. His candid approach challenges conventional narratives, urging companies to hire veterans for their potential rather than patriotism. With 97 service members successfully placed, Rob’s mission is clear—bridging the gap between veterans and the careers they deserve. Learn more at buffersprings.com.
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Yvonne Godfrey.
Speaker 2:Let's try to Welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast, where we shine a spotlight on local business throughout the North Shore community. Our mission is to connect these businesses with their target audience, whether individuals, homeowners, business or corporation. We want you to know about the incredible service and products available right in your neighborhood. So join us as we explore the stories behind these businesses, celebrate their success and discover how they contribute to our vibrant community. By supporting local enterprises, we foster economic growth and build stronger, more connected neighborhoods. Please tune in and be inspired by the remarkable business that make the North Shore a great place to live and work. Today, in our studio, I have the distinct pleasure of introducing your neighbor, Rob Arndt, owner of Buffer Springs. Rob, how are you today?
Speaker 3:I am doing fantastic. How about yourself?
Speaker 2:I am fantastic. Thank you for asking so, rob. Please tell our listeners about your business.
Speaker 3:So my name is Rob Arndt. I am the CEO and founder of Buffer Springs. We are a training and consulting firm that specializes in helping smart organizations build effective, scalable and sustainable military talent programs and happy to be on the program today.
Speaker 2:And we're happy to have you. Can you elaborate a little bit more about your service?
Speaker 3:Absolutely so. I grew up in a place called Erie, Pennsylvania, didn't have much opportunity, had a lot of challenges ahead of me and saw the military as a way to get out of that and to create a better future for myself. So I enlisted into the United States Marine Corps back in 2000. In that time frame I was in the initial invasion to Iraq. I spent 14 years on the Marine Corps side doing various different jobs before finding my calling in recruiting and retention.
Speaker 3:I spent about seven years doing Marine Corps recruiting and retention here in the greater Boston area before deciding to transition out to the civilian sector. And in that time frame I had a pretty turbulent transition myself, moving from the military into the civilian sector, and couldn't really find a good solution for that, for service members or for organizations to connect with military talent or to really understand and value us. And since I saw that void in the market, I created Buffer Springs. After spending about seven years working with what I now call competitors or other people that are in our space, About three years ago I decided to hang up our own shingle here and do things a little bit differently and help our veterans and their families, as well as corporate America really solve this problem and think of it objectively, instead of the way that we have been looking at it kind of blindly.
Speaker 2:I appreciate that, and so, because of the need that you saw, that's how you got into this business.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. There was a problem that needed to be solved out there and at first I thought that I was the problem. It was me tweaking my resume or trying to civilianize my military experience and trying to dwindle that down or water that down, whatever you want to call it and saw employers really waving flags and saying how friendly they were to the military community. But when I read deeper into their advertisements or the way that they perceived us, they really didn't understand us and I think that there's a huge gap there that's missing in helping our corporate organizations actually understand what the veterans bring to the table and not just patriotism or pity or the hero and victim concepts that you see out there. But our service members do amazing things on a daily basis and our military loses those great service members on a daily basis. They're coming out to corporate America and if we can think of this a little bit differently, we can make a lot of big changes for both sides of that coin.
Speaker 2:Can you give us an example of someone else that you have helped that you can use as an example?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. I mean we have countless examples. I've been doing this work. I mean myself, I've been doing this for over 20 years collectively in this space. So this is my life, this is my passion, this is what I care about, this is what I do on a daily basis.
Speaker 3:In that time frame that we've been working, even over the past three years, we have had 97 Skillbridge candidates go through our corridors here at Buffer Springs, meaning that we have taken 97 transitioning veterans and helped them become better, more efficient civilians, getting them into the career paths, business paths or where they want to be in life. So those 97 that have come through our channels alone, we've made that huge internal, immediate impact From that timeframe as well. We are the official veteran employment partner for all of PepsiCo, frito-lay, gatorade, quaker Oats and are really doing some really amazing transformative things with them to reshape what veterans do within the organization or rescale what people think about veterans and what we're capable of doing within corporate America. And we've had the luxury of being hand selective of the partners that we work with and have really had the opportunity to work with some really electric, smart companies to create some really impactful programs for our people, and it's been amazing work over the past three years and we're just getting started.
Speaker 2:And many of these veterans. Are they working corporate? Are they branching off to doing their own business? Are you helping them with that?
Speaker 3:Great question. So through our Skill Bridge program here, really what we want to do is get them back to figuring out what they want to be when they grow up again, whether they've been in the armed services for four years or 40 years. It's kind of getting back to having your own choose your own adventure book and figuring out how you want to scale your life and what you want that looking, what you want your life to look like around you. So our curriculum goes off of a ancient Japanese concept called Aikigai and that's really about centering yourself, finding your purpose and your passion and what you can be paid to do and what the world needs. And we help these military veterans figure out what, where they fit or where they can take those skill sets, experiences, or even, if they're retiring out of the military, what can they do next.
Speaker 3:My job in the Marine Corps was nuclear, biological, chemical warfare. It has absolutely nothing to do with what I'm doing now, but my passions took me in a different place and these veterans have that opportunity to do that with us. So we have had people go off to corporate America. We've had people start their own businesses. We've had people go off to blue collar roles, gray collar roles reinvent themselves, get back into school and learn something, or get back to a passion they had in their childhood they want to bring back because that was their happiest time. That's really what we're trying to figure out what veterans are capable of doing, and showing them that they're capable of anything as long as they put their mind to it and have the right conduits to make it happen.
Speaker 2:So it sounds like your service also helped them from start to finish.
Speaker 3:What our program is. It's not a temporary fix or that we spend three months or six months with these individuals. They become actual parts of Buffer Springs. Our goal is to get them as high up that mountaintop as we possibly can, and the only thing that we ask in return is that when we call in a couple of years and ask them to lift as they climb with somebody else who's behind them, that they answer that phone call. So with us, we are really trying to get veterans to a higher plateau altogether.
Speaker 3:Our mission overall is to eradicate and completely wipe out underemployment within the military connected community. Right now, 61% of veterans are underemployed, meaning that we're in a job that we have no business being in. That is awful for us as veterans, obviously, but it's also awful for corporate America, because you're not getting the best out of your best people. You don't have the right players in the right spots on the field to go out and win that Super Bowl or whatever you're trying to do. So that's what we're trying to change in this is not just wave a flag or do another patriotic duty, but really rescale the way that corporate America thinks of veterans and the fact that we have the strongest military on the planet because of our people. Those people get out every year. If you know what to do with the right ones, we can do some amazing things for you as well, and that's what we're trying to prove here.
Speaker 2:I appreciate all that you've shared with our listeners. The veteran community is near and dear to my heart, and so it's always wonderful to hear what companies are able to do, how they're able to give back to veterans. Thank you.
Speaker 3:Absolutely my pleasure and it's always great working with companies that get it, that don't want to wave a flag or call us heroes or victims because we don't identify as either. We want to do great work. We want to do it in a great place with great. You have that. We would love to talk with you at Buffer Springs.
Speaker 2:Thank you. So, rob, what are some myths or misconceptions in your industry, in your service?
Speaker 3:There are a lot of myths and misunderstandings around veterans and, I would say, more biased than almost any other underrepresented group that's out there because of what's out there in social media and in Hollywood. Everyone has different biases in military service and if you haven't served in the military, they're all wrong. And even if you've served in another branch, if you've been in the Air Force, you have no idea what it's like to be a Marine or to serve in a branch or to be in the Army. So there are a lot of biases around our people that we all blow stuff up and fight bad guys when it's simply not the truth.
Speaker 3:Only about 15% of the military is in a direct combat environment. The rest of us are in a support capacity. So we have HR people, it people anything that you can think of in corporate America guidance counselors, chaplains whatever you think of exists in the military. It may just be called something different. So that's one of the biggest biases that I see out. There is that all of us are just fighting wars and blowing stuff up when it's simply not the case. Another big bias that I see around my people is that all of us have PTSD. And if we do have PTSD, then it's going to have some sort of detriment into the workplace, when in reality PTSD is a human condition. It is not something that's just subject to military. You have friends, you have colleagues, co-workers, who have been bit by a dog in a car accident, had a traumatic childhood and have never worn a uniform.
Speaker 3:So there are a lot of bad connotations around my people, around PTSD and mental stigma that doesn't necessarily exist. So there are a lot of biases about veterans and I have done this work, like I said, for 20 plus years. I've served in the military since 2000 and served with the military until present day and will continue to do that, and I have never met the same veteran twice. I have never met the same person with the same story twice and I would highly recommend that people stop thinking of veterans or painting us with the same red, white and blue or camouflage brush, because we are all different individuals that bring different things to the table.
Speaker 2:What is your thought when you hear individuals say to you thank you for your service?
Speaker 3:You know, that's something that I've really questioned over the years. What I say to that, though, is my pleasure, because it was. I wasn't taken out of my bed in the middle of the night and thrown out to Vietnam or anything like that. I knew exactly what I was getting into. I saw my friends and other students going to college or going into the workforce, and the military seemed like a better path for me, so I chose that path.
Speaker 3:So, even though you know it's nice to get that, thank you for your service. It's my pleasure because I got what I wanted out of that service. I got out of Erie, pennsylvania. I learned leadership, I learned discipline, I learned how to be a better person, a better contributing member to society. So it's actually my pleasure, and I get to continue to serve with these amazing people that are brave enough to throw on that uniform, and unfortunately, only about 1% of our country serves right now. That's dangerous and disheartening that we don't see military service as this great pathway when in reality it is, and I've seen countless veterans with stories like mine from humble beginnings go off and create amazing things. So another bias about military is I think serving in the military is something that is underappreciated and undervalued and underdone in our nation appreciated and undervalued and underdone in our nation.
Speaker 3:So, rob, outside of work, what do you do for fun? Outside of work, I have a beautiful, big, wonderful family so I spend a lot of time with my wife, my three sons and our dog Nash. So we actually went out to upstate New York this past weekend, escaped, went to the middle of nowhere, went hiking, went kayaking, fishing and everything else. And we try to do that every now and then just to try to keep sanity in there and keep values in line. But I spend any of my off time just hanging out with my family and doing various things sports and very, very busy and always have a million things going on along with my business, so never a dull moment in life around here.
Speaker 2:And some of that sounds like making up for those times that you were separated from them while you were overseas.
Speaker 3:Well, one of the big things that was my deciding factor to get out of the military is that I was government property and I did deploy and go to places that I didn't want to go to, and that's fine. But it got to a certain point where I had to make the choice of either being gunny I was a gunnery sergeant in the Marine Corps, so they call it gunny for short so I had to make the call of either being Gunny or being Dad, and Dad won. I've never thought back of that, but I value my service. I still work with a lot of service members in my daily operation, which is wonderful, but it was just my time to go and everybody knows when it's their time. And that's the inevitable thing about the military is everybody that's in is getting out at some point, whether it's four years or 40 years. But everyone has to make that deciding point.
Speaker 3:And what are you doing with that? What are you doing with your plan after the fact? Because there is a lot of life after military service and a lot of us perpetuate or we think back of that's something that is our defining moment. Or I'm only a Marine, but that was 14 years of my life. I still have a lot of life ahead of me and that's only going to be a fraction of it when I look back. So hold on to that military service. Take your great experiences from that, but don't perpetuate it on it and don't make it define you. Use it as fuel to take you to where you need to go next.
Speaker 2:Sounds like good advice, and I like what you said earlier as well, that it has helped shape you to be a better person.
Speaker 3:It 100% has, and I've learned a lot. I learned from good leaders and good examples. I also learned from a lot of bad leaders and bad examples when I was in as well of how not to do things and you just kind of develop yourself and round yourself out as an individual as time goes on and just got to have your eyes open to those moments and take the good and the bad from them. Hopefully you take the right side of that.
Speaker 2:Well said, so let's change gears. Rob, Can you describe one hardship or one of life's challenge that you rose above and can now say because of it you're better and stronger what?
Speaker 3:comes to mind I mean my childhood. I grew up dirt poor and one of the poorest zip codes in the United States, and when I say I was dirt poor this wasn't like you know we like. I was literally dirt poor, eating out of trash cans and things like that, and had a pretty rough upbringing and I wouldn't change any of that for the life of me. When I tell some people my story that haven't grown up in those kinds of conditions, they look back at it as like shocking or appalling. But it helped to harden me, to shape me, to help me understand and read people for the good and the bad that they are and see the world for what it was.
Speaker 3:It also helped me create a viewpoint of a life that I did not want my family to have or see any bits of. So, as I said earlier, learning from the negatives more than the positives I think I've had a chance to do that more than the positive over life, and I've come from those kind of ashes, but I'm able to create a better future for others around me because of not wanting to have them exposed to that. So I would say that that's probably the culminating moment of my life is coming from nothing and turning it into more than I thought I was even going to be able to, and definitely more than everybody else said I was going to be able to. And that was the chip that got put on my shoulder. Is that everyone who doubted me or said that I wasn't going to be able to do that? You know, please keep doubting me and see what happens.
Speaker 2:More than a conqueror. I love the journey.
Speaker 3:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:So, Rob, please tell our listeners one thing they should remember about Buffer Springs.
Speaker 3:Buffer Springs is veterans. We take care of our own. We are a service disabled, veteran owned and operated business. We are here to empower companies and elevate our people. We're here to change stereo types that are out there, change the biases and get people firing on all cylinders again of realizing how talented and how experienced and how valuable military veterans and military spouses are. And if you do it the right way and you bring relevant members of our community into your workforce, we will do amazing things. For those of you who are veterans who are looking for a better path, our channels are open to you as well to veteran support organizations. If you are out here doing the daily work and carrying the pack and empowering our people, we want to work with you With military bases installations.
Speaker 3:It's about us marching as a community. And one thing that I admire about other underrepresented groups and it's a shame that bad things had, that horrible things had to happen because of this, but with Black Lives Matter movement and Stop Asian Hate, it was collective groups coming together and speaking with a unified voice, and I don't think the military community does that well, and that's what I will say to listeners on here is to activate, to march together to create a different narrative than what's out there. Stop letting the world tell everybody that we are heroes and we're victims. When we don't tell each other any of this, don't let them hire us for patriotism or pity. Have them hire us for progress. Start changing these narratives. Stop letting veterans of yesteryear or the donation you know nonprofits talking about how wounded and how broken we are. Stop letting them tell that message. Tell your own story and tell your own authentic truth of where you are, especially if you're a veteran in a position of power. Lift as you climb and tell your story. That's what I'll say as a sign off.
Speaker 2:Beautiful, well said, loved everything that you just said, every word of it.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 2:So, rob, how can our listeners learn more about Buffer Springs?
Speaker 3:We are available 24-7. If you go to bufferspringscom, our porch light is always on here. My email as well is just rob at bufferspringscom. I'm open to any veteran military spouse or company that's looking to hire from our community. Yeah, just bufferspringscom. You can also look me up on LinkedIn. That is Rob Arndt. Last name is spelled A-R-N-D-T, and we'd love to connect with anyone who is looking to march with our mission. Again, we're here to eradicate underemployment within the military connected community, but we can't do it alone. We need everyone marching with us and porch lights on here if you want to march with us.
Speaker 2:Well said, rob. I really appreciate you being on the show with us today, and we wish you and your business all the best moving forward you as well.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much for putting on the show and thank you so much to all of our neighbors out here in our local greater Boston community. Great to work with you all.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much, and thank you for saying that and for our listeners. If you would like to promote your business on the Good Neighbor podcast, please reach out to us. We specialize in business branding and proudly publish Swampskate Neighbors magazine, which reaches approximately 3,000 homes in the Swampskate, Massachusetts area on a monthly basis. Thank you for listening.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to GNPNorthshorecom. That's GNPNorthshorecom, or call 857-703-9406.