MILCOM Founders Podcast

Join host Rod Loges and guest Fidel GomezTorres as they explore how a Navy Seabee veteran turned his experience in logistics and community building into the foundation for the American Veteran Arts Collective (AVAC), a nonprofit creating workforce pathways for veterans and military-connected families into the creative economy. Fidel shares how he arrived in Washington, D.C. during a period of significant federal workforce disruption and recognized a gap between the 30,000 veterans living in the district and a $15 billion creative economy that rarely engaged military talent.

Join host Rod Loges and guest Greg Cullison as they trace a career path from the U.S. Foreign Service through Navy Reserve intelligence, a deployment to Iraq, and into the founding of QWERX, Inc., a cybersecurity software company that authenticates every device on a network every three seconds using one-time encryption keys derived from randomness in nature rather than mathematical algorithms.

Join host Rod Loges and guest Lindsey Chrismon as she traces a path from a childhood picnic at West Point to co-founding Oply, a venture-backed AI-powered home management platform built to give homeowners the kind of proactive guidance their cars already give them. Lindsey became the first and only woman in US Army history to fly the AH-6 Little Bird with the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, flew Apaches at Fort Bliss before that, and served as West Point’s fourth female First Captain. She and her husband Gabe launched Oply out of Harvard’s Innovation Lab after Gabe’s restoration company revealed how many catastrophic home losses could have been prevented with basic, timely information.

Join host Rod Loges and guest Guy Timberlake as he shares nearly four decades in federal contracting, how he and his wife built The American Small Business Coalition from a membership organization into an education and training ecosystem, and why he believes government contracting is a marketplace you bring your industry to, not an industry itself.

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.

Join host Rod Loges and guest Andy Yim as he shares his path from West Point graduate and Field Artillery Officer to founder and CEO of Lumora Animal Health, a company building AI-powered pet health records for owners, veterinarians, groomers, boarders, and shelters, all while completing his MBA at the Wharton School.

Join host Rod Loges and guest Scott Jensen as he shares his path from Naval Academy graduate and Marine Corps helicopter pilot to founder of Alpine Global Solutions and CEO of the National Veteran Small Business Coalition, where he grew the organization from $300,000 to over $4 million in six and a half years.

Join host Rod Loges and guest Robert E. Strong Jr., a former Air Force signals intelligence analyst, founder of Pretty Thai Specialty Sauces & Spices, and co-founder of Wingman Kitchens. Pretty Thai products are sold in 900+ retail locations across eight states. Robert also runs the Palmer Nicklaus Foundation in honor of his son Palmer.

Join host Rod Loges and guest Theresa Irving as she shares her path from Air Force chaplain assistant serving overseas in England and Japan to founding Epic Military Brands, a strategic consulting firm connecting veteran entrepreneurs with mission-aligned partners and high-impact nonprofits. Theresa’s story covers opening a restaurant during COVID, building Duneberry Farms around disc golf technology developed for defense applications, and the hard lessons about exit planning that shaped how she helps other veteran business owners today.

Join host Rod Loges and guest Hannah Scribner as they explore what it means to grow up in a military family with deep roots spanning generations, from the Revolutionary War to today. Hannah is a first-generation college student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln pursuing graphic design, and the 2026 Dick Loges Veteran Entrepreneur Scholarship recipient. Her father, a disabled Navy veteran, runs Scrib’s Moving & Heavy Hauling, a house-moving business that relocates buildings, trains, bridges, and other structures across the country. Hannah reflects on how her family’s military heritage shaped her work ethic, how she discovered her passion for graphic design, and what it means to be the child of a veteran business owner navigating PTSD and entrepreneurial challenges.