By: Heatherlynn Akins

Mona Dexter believes passionately in helping military members, veterans, and military family members realize their career employment dreams. As a longtime military spouse herself, she’s experienced firsthand the challenges and struggles this segment of the workforce faces. Their skills and abilities don’t always translate easily to the civilian sector, but they are valuable assets for civilian employers. That’s why she joined the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation’s Hiring Our Heroes (HOH) program in January 2018 as a special projects manager with the military spouse team. Today, Dexter serves as HOH Chief of Staff and Vice President of Operations and Communications.

Dexter’s journey to HOH was roundabout, typical of many military spouses. Her initial career was in higher education student affairs administration, primarily in career services and adult learning and development, and with programs focused on underserved populations. As she moved around, however, she began to find her passion for assisting those in military life with finding their career fits. She transferred her attentions first to the Army Soldier for Life-Transition Assistance Program, a program designed to help those transitioning from active-duty service to life after the Army. As a result, Dexter found her perfect fit with HOH, where she can help the organization provide 360-degree career development training and education through internships and hiring events. HOH’s unique mission to “educate civilian employers on the value of military-connected talent in diversifying and thus strengthening their workforces” is critical to Dexter’s way of thinking. That’s the missing link she couldn’t find with her previous position. Having lived the military life but working in the civilian sector, Dexter is singularly qualified to be a part of the bridge that effects understanding between those in the military and civilian worlds.

HOH is also authorized to operate on military installations, allowing its programs and services to be brought directly to its targeted clientele. HOH’s holistic approach to establishing hiring events along with internship opportunities and digital communities designed for networking and support purposes has been effective and successful. In 2012, HOH identified a possibly more alarming statistic: the drastically high rate of military spouse unemployment. When Dexter started with HOH in 2018, the unemployment rate for military-connected personnel was down considerably and the focus on military spouses was well underway. (more…)

Bringing a Big-City Amenity to a Small Town

By: Heatherlynn Akins

When Tim and Courtney Madden met, they were young students at Penn State who dated but then went their separate ways. Little did they know their story was only just beginning and would, eventually, lead to Courtney starting her own business with Tim acting in many advisory and support roles for that business. In the eight years between Penn State and reconnecting in 1998, Tim joined the Navy and served as a diving officer on the USS Salvor in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii before starting an IT career first in Denver and then for Colorado Mountain College in the small, mountain town of Glenwood Springs. Courtney spent nine months in Madrid after graduation before returning to the States via Dallas, TX where she settled into a career as a fifth-grade bilingual teacher as well as a middle school Spanish teacher. When they married in 1999, the couple decided to make Glenwood Springs their home, where they could be near the world-class skiing resorts of Vail and Aspen. Four children later and the Maddens have become well-known fixtures in their community.

In early 2019, Courtney decided she was ready for a career change and started looking into various opportunities. A family friend, entrepreneur Johnathan Gorst, was looking to start a new restaurant delivery venture and the two began talking about the possibilities of teaming up. Before they could start operations, however, life happened, and Johnathan and his family moved to New York. Courtney was left with a concept and a desire to open KraveKar, a restaurant delivery company that contracts with locally owned restaurants to deliver meals to both hometown residents and the many tourists who flock to the town annually. It was a service not previously available to the town, but one many out-of-town visitors from the big cities expected and many residents longed for.

The idea is simple: A customer uses the KraveKar app or website to select a restaurant and places an order. Then Courtney and her team of dedicated drivers pick up the food and deliver it wherever the customer chooses, whether that’s home, a hotel, a park, or the world’s largest hot springs pool, which just so happens to be a major tourist attraction in town. While it works similarly to many of the national companies who offer this service, KraveKar comes with that small-business attention to detail. If part of your order is missing when it’s delivered, Courtney and her team will go back, pick up the missing items, and deliver them as part of their service. They’re also actively involved in the entire process, from cultivating relationships with local restaurants to driving the car that delivers your food. Courtney doesn’t believe in a hands-off leadership approach. (more…)