MilCom Founders Podcast, Episode 54: From Army Dive Officer to Defense Supply Chain Founder with Charles Masters Rodriguez
Join host Rod Loges and guest Charles Masters Rodriguez as they trace his path from a multigenerational military family in Puerto Rico to West Point, through one of the Army’s smallest and least-known specialties, and into two back-to-back ventures built around the same supply chain problem he first encountered in uniform.
In this episode:
- How Charles’s family military history stretching back to the Civil War, combined with a sixth-grade documentary on the military academies, set him on the path to West Point at age twelve
- Why Charles chose Army diving after spotting a lone recruiter with a KM37 dive helmet on a folding table during branch selection day, when every other option had left him unimpressed
- The “Buddy Effers” underwater endurance exercise at dive school, where Charles had to train himself to stay calm at depth by mentally singing a slow song and visualizing a sunflower meadow to keep CO2 accumulation from overwhelming him
- A gear malfunction at 190 feet that required him to stay composed under conditions he had not specifically trained for, and how that experience shaped how he handles business crises today
- Building and scaling MK3 Industries solo to seven figures, serving General Motors, Rivian, and Penske, and running into the same supply chain communication problems he had seen in the Army
- How Supply Veins evolved from an automotive marketplace concept to AI supply chain software, and then organically found its current market: pre-seed to Series A dual-use defense startups preparing for their first government contracts
- The moment Blake Hall ignored everything Charles was describing about his startup and asked only about his team, a question that redirected Charles’s thinking about what actually builds a company
Key takeaways:
- When someone tells you something is one of the hardest things you can do, pay attention to your reaction. For some people, that is the signal they needed.
- Staying calm under pressure is a trainable skill, not a personality trait. Charles had to build it deliberately, rep by rep, at the bottom of a pool.
- Bringing on customers before your product is ready to serve them well accelerates churn, not growth. Five raving users who log in every day are worth more than fifty indifferent ones.
- Founding a company requires knowing in advance what level of sacrifice you are willing to make, because the answer determines which kind of company you should be building.
- Putting the ego aside and treating your product hypothesis as a scientific experiment, not a conviction to defend, is what separates founders who find product-market fit from those who chase the wrong market for years.
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Guest: Charles Masters Rodriguez, Founder and CEO of Supply Veins, U.S. Army veteran, West Point graduate, and former Captain and Engineer Dive Officer
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlescmasters/
- Website: https://supplyveins.com
Charles Masters Rodriguez is a bilingual entrepreneur born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico, with a career spanning military service, wholesale distribution, and AI supply chain technology. He is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he earned a degree in Engineering Management, and later received his MBA from Florida International University (FIU). He has taken several executive education programs from the Tuck School of Business and the Stanford School of Business. Charles is also a CEO Circle, Founder Institute and Techstars alum.
Charles served five years in the U.S. Army as a Captain and Engineer Dive Officer, stationed at Joint Base Pearl Harbor–Hickam, Hawaii. During his service, he led complex underwater engineering, search, and recovery missions, including a joint operation with the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) that successfully recovered and repatriated the remains of a U.S. Navy pilot missing in action since the Vietnam War. These missions reinforced the life or death importance of reliable equipment and resilient supply chains.
After transitioning from military service, Charles bootstrapped MK3 Industries, a B2B wholesale distribution company for automotive and fleet maintenance parts and equipment, scaling the business to seven figures while serving enterprise customers such as General Motors, Penske, Rivian, and JB Hunt. Across both military operations and commercial distribution, he encountered the same systemic challenges: manual procurement workflows, fragmented buyer-supplier communication, and a lack of real-time visibility.
These experiences led him to found Supply Veins, a venture backed, AI-native operating system that converts procurement emails into structured data to improve supplier communication, automate follow-ups, and execute purchase orders in real time. The system delivers supply chain intelligence for defense and mobility teams to help build, manage, and scale resilient supply chains.
Charles has been recognized for his leadership and impact, including being named Young Entrepreneur of the Year by the FIU Florida Small Business Development Center and receiving the Capital Catalyst Award from the D’Aniello Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF) at Syracuse University. He is a committed veteran advocate, volunteering with military-affiliated nonprofits such as VetsinTech and the PenFed Foundation, mentoring veterans and military spouses transitioning into entrepreneurship and technology. He frequently travels between Puerto Rico, Miami, and Los Angeles, and outside of work is an avid reader, marathon runner, and lifelong student of quantum theory.
The MilCom Founders Podcast champions and celebrates military community business owners. Each episode brings practical insights and lessons learned from veteran entrepreneurs.
Sponsored by One Degree Financial www.onedegreefinancial.com
Want to support veteran entrepreneurs? Learn about the Dick Loges Veteran Entrepreneur Scholarship Fund at https://www.milcomfounders.com/