Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with kirol Messer on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: All Right, you are listening to Bloomberg Business Week. In
Speaker 1: honor of Veterans Day this week, we have a great
Speaker 1: guest to really wrap up our day, a thoughtful one.
Speaker 1: Jake wood is co founded CEO at Team Rubicon. It's
Speaker 1: a global nonprofit that he founded about a decade ago,
Speaker 1: and over that time, a hundred and twenty five thousand
Speaker 1: Team Rubicon volunteers have responded to disasters around the globe
Speaker 1: in over seven hundred communities. They've raised nearly a quarter
Speaker 1: of a billion dollars for the work that they're doing.
Speaker 1: He's also author of a book, It's Once a Warrior,
Speaker 1: How one veteran found a new mission closer to home.
Speaker 1: I already know who I want to give it to
Speaker 1: for the holidays. And Jake joins us on the phone
Speaker 1: in l A. Jake, so nice to have you here
Speaker 1: with us. Welcome to Bloomberg. Yeah, Hey, thanks girl for
Speaker 1: having me. Yeah, you bet. There's a lot I want
Speaker 1: to talk about. I want to talk about your book,
Speaker 1: but I want to talk about your experience. You were
Speaker 1: in the Marine Corps. Tell me a little bit about
Speaker 1: that and especially the experience when you came home. Sure,
Speaker 1: so I joined the Marine or after college. I ended
Speaker 1: up enlistening in two thousand five after league the University
Speaker 1: of Wisconsin, and I served in the Marine Corps from
Speaker 1: two thousand nine UH in an infantry unit. And my
Speaker 1: first tour was in Iraq in two thousand seven. A
Speaker 1: lot of people probably remember the surge that the US
Speaker 1: authorized there. So I was a part of the surge
Speaker 1: in an infantry battalion and later served in Afghanistan as
Speaker 1: a as a sniper and a small sniper team in
Speaker 1: in Helmont Valley. And you know, these were two challenging tours.
Speaker 1: They were the two bloodiest years of both wars, and
Speaker 1: so you know, I saw a lot of combat, and
Speaker 1: you know, really, just like many veterans, I came to
Speaker 1: that point in in my life where I had to
Speaker 1: make a decision of whether I was going to stay
Speaker 1: in and continue fighting or whether I was going to
Speaker 1: get out. And there was a tough choice, and it's
Speaker 1: you know, again, it's the choice that every vetter has
Speaker 1: to make at some point. And I ended up deciding
Speaker 1: to get out of the Marine Corps. I was really
Speaker 1: proud of everything I've done, but I just did not
Speaker 1: want war to find my life. And so I came home,
Speaker 1: and I think, like many veteran I didn't exactly know
Speaker 1: what was going to be next. I figured I might
Speaker 1: go back to school and give an m b A.
Speaker 1: I thought it maybe come to Wall Street and work there.
Speaker 1: But about two months after I got out, the Haiti
Speaker 1: earthquake cap and that was really the startup to movemon.
Speaker 1: What was interesting too, and just in the beginning of
Speaker 1: your book you talk about your specifically, we're talking about
Speaker 1: a friend of yours, um Charlie who who who died
Speaker 1: um over in the Middle East. You weren't there when
Speaker 1: he did, but it got you thinking and you realized
Speaker 1: too that when you came home to your family, you
Speaker 1: had a loving family, you had a loving girlfriend, and
Speaker 1: you know, the reality you right, was that those people
Speaker 1: who knew you better than anyone no longer understood you.
Speaker 1: That Iraq and Afghanistan had changed you. And I think
Speaker 1: that is so much you know better than anybody, that
Speaker 1: that's so much the case for veterans who go abroad,
Speaker 1: go elsewhere, and then come back home. Yeah, you're absolutely right. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I think for those who have seen combat.
Speaker 1: Their lives are forever marked by their life before war
Speaker 1: in their life after. And that doesn't have to be bad.
Speaker 1: You know. For some people they struggle with, you know,
Speaker 1: moving on from war. They struggle coming home. I think
Speaker 1: many people also find strength in their experiences and they
Speaker 1: come back. But certainly, you know, when Charlie died, it
Speaker 1: was a Marina I went through sniper school with. It
Speaker 1: was this realization for me that I, you know, I
Speaker 1: the people in my life couldn't possibly grasp that loss,
Speaker 1: and it was a it was a moment of clarity
Speaker 1: for me that again I would forever be transitioning back.
Speaker 1: It would never end, and it made you want to
Speaker 1: do what well, you know, it made me want to
Speaker 1: figure things out. And I guess that didn't really know
Speaker 1: what that was going to be in that in that moment.
Speaker 1: But when when Haiti happened, I just felt compelled to help.
Speaker 1: I felt like I had you know, after four years
Speaker 1: in the Marine Corps, I felt like I had developed
Speaker 1: some skills and had some experiences that could help in
Speaker 1: that situation. And so, you know, we organized the team.
Speaker 1: We went down to Haiti four days after the earthquake.
Speaker 1: We did some tremendous work while we were down there,
Speaker 1: and that's really when we discovered that there was this
Speaker 1: potential to build a new model and disaster response by
Speaker 1: really tapping into the skills and experiences of military veterans
Speaker 1: and and and it's interesting too, because I mean it's
Speaker 1: grown tremendously and you've had you guys have had quite
Speaker 1: an impact around the globe. Yeah, you know, I think
Speaker 1: we have built a model that is really compelling. I
Speaker 1: think when people hear about the work that we do,
Speaker 1: come answer I get is Wow, that seems to make
Speaker 1: so much sense. I can't believe they thought of that before.
Speaker 1: And that's always a good thing to hear when you're
Speaker 1: an entrepreneur. It's it's much better than somebody scratching their
Speaker 1: head and saying, gee, I makes no sense. But but
Speaker 1: but you're right. I mean, we've we've scaled to over
Speaker 1: a hundred thousand volunteers across the country with an affiliate
Speaker 1: in Canada. We've responded to over seven hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: disasters and crises around the world and here in the US.
Speaker 1: So I mean, this is this is a disaster really
Speaker 1: for a major scale. So Jake Um, I want to
Speaker 1: get into your book, But I also want to find
Speaker 1: out what you guys have been doing when it comes
Speaker 1: to COVID, because you have been actively involved. Yeah, we've
Speaker 1: been involved on all fronts. Really we were. We were
Speaker 1: tracking COVID early when it was making his way through Luhan.
Speaker 1: You're not caught left footed? Um? And are you surprised then? That? Can?
Speaker 1: I ask you? Are you surprised that the world kind
Speaker 1: of seems to have been caught flat footed, especially in
Speaker 1: such a global, globally connected world, that we weren't kind
Speaker 1: of more in tune to what was going on in China. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I think it was a reflection of, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, certain leadership styles. I think there was a
Speaker 1: tendency among some leaders to kind of stick our head
Speaker 1: in the sand and kind of rely on hope as
Speaker 1: a strategy versus really confronting the brutal facts of what
Speaker 1: was transpiring. I think, you know, certainly, I don't know
Speaker 1: that anybody anticipated that it would be this bad when
Speaker 1: this was making its early rounds through central China, But
Speaker 1: it became pretty evident, you know, at a certain point
Speaker 1: when it was racing through Beijing and other major cities
Speaker 1: that yes, this was coming UM, and I was a
Speaker 1: little surprised with just how flat footed many corporations and
Speaker 1: you know, levels of our government were. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: we reacted swiftly. We reorganized our entire company to to
Speaker 1: get into the fight, and we did. You know, we
Speaker 1: did everything from search about ten thou volunteers into food
Speaker 1: banks across the country to support partner organizations like feing
Speaker 1: America too. We deployed a hundred medics to Navajo Nation
Speaker 1: and treated a three thousand COVID patients there. We've been
Speaker 1: operating mobile test sites throughout the West, UM screening patients
Speaker 1: for COVID UM and just about everything in between. UM.
Speaker 1: So it's been a it's been a pretty challenging year
Speaker 1: for us. And along the way, we knew that Mother
Speaker 1: Nature wasn't going to care about COVID, and so we've
Speaker 1: been responding to hurricanes along the Gulf, tornadoes and floods
Speaker 1: throughout the Midwest, UM, all in the COVID environment, which
Speaker 1: of course has been a major complicating factor. Yeah, no doubt. UM.
Speaker 1: You know, the one thing I wanted to ask you, like,
Speaker 1: and let's get into your book a little bit, because
Speaker 1: I think what's interesting is there are organizations out there
Speaker 1: right that do similar things to what you guys are doing.
Speaker 1: But what's really novel and unique and kind of heartwarming
Speaker 1: is how you work with veterans who often come back
Speaker 1: and don't have a purpose. I've been involved with UM
Speaker 1: a group called the Veterans Yoga Project, and it's a
Speaker 1: very similar thing of just kind of teaching veterans how
Speaker 1: to kind of cope, but also then be part of
Speaker 1: this community to help others. And I feel like that's
Speaker 1: what you're doing. You're taking veterans who maybe come back
Speaker 1: and maybe are a little bit lost, UM and trying
Speaker 1: to figure out a way to kind of get them
Speaker 1: involved and give them a sense of purpose again and
Speaker 1: then also helping out the world. Yeah. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think we take the approach that, UM, we want to
Speaker 1: challenge veterans to be the best version of themselves, and
Speaker 1: we want to convince them that they are better skilled,
Speaker 1: more experienced, and more capable than anybody on the planet
Speaker 1: to help these these falling crisis And so we don't
Speaker 1: we don't treat veterans like the object of our charity.
Speaker 1: They are the agents of our mission. And you know,
Speaker 1: I think that that's a really powerful way to help
Speaker 1: somebody heal is to say, hey, listen, your country still
Speaker 1: needs you. Why don't you get back in the game,
Speaker 1: you know, deployed down to southwest Louisiana after a hurricane
Speaker 1: and help peace that community back together. And I think
Speaker 1: what happens is in these men and women, they rise
Speaker 1: to the occasion. They get it overseas, they we do
Speaker 1: it here at home, but we have to ask them
Speaker 1: to well. And I was gonna say, in doing this
Speaker 1: over the last decade and then putting it down on
Speaker 1: paper and writing your book, you know what kind of
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe what surprised you in this process
Speaker 1: as you grew, it grew, the organization got more people involved. Um,
Speaker 1: I don't know what surprised you. Oh, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: along the way, this has been an entrepreneurial journey, just
Speaker 1: like any other company. I mean, we're a nonprofit. We
Speaker 1: rely on philanthropy, but you know, at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, we're stilling a product, We're building teams, We're
Speaker 1: having to establish processes and run I t you know,
Speaker 1: capital projects and all of that stuff. So I think,
Speaker 1: you know, my answer to that would be any any
Speaker 1: challenge that any business leader you know, running a major,
Speaker 1: multimillion dollar enterprise runs into I've seen and I think
Speaker 1: maybe what's caught me most off guard though, is just
Speaker 1: the frequency that disasters are happening in this country and
Speaker 1: in the world. I mean, there are literally hundreds of
Speaker 1: disasters happening in the US annually. We don't hear about
Speaker 1: most of them. But don't tell that. Don't tell that
Speaker 1: person in a small town, in a rural community whose
Speaker 1: home just got knocked down by a small creek flood
Speaker 1: that her tragedy is any less serious than somebody who
Speaker 1: just got devastated by Hurricane Harvey. I mean, it's the same.
Speaker 1: And so you know that, you know, we we need
Speaker 1: to think outside the box for how we face this challenge.
Speaker 1: It's it's certainly exacerbated by climate change. We need to
Speaker 1: we need to, you know, shift our thinking and how
Speaker 1: we approach building more resilience. And that's why I think
Speaker 1: that the model we've built a team Rubicon has been
Speaker 1: so powerful. Well it's interesting that you say that too,
Speaker 1: because I feel like this year, this year where we've
Speaker 1: been dealing with COVID, still are dealing with the pandemic.
Speaker 1: UH And then you layer on top of that what
Speaker 1: happened to George Floyd in Minneapolis and other Black Americans.
Speaker 1: I mean, these are not um Certainly, the pandemic is
Speaker 1: a new problem, but the inequities, the injustices that have
Speaker 1: been um laid bare, are not new. They've been with
Speaker 1: us for years. And I do wonder it sounds like
Speaker 1: the work you guys are doing. I would you wonder
Speaker 1: if if somehow we get to a better side. And
Speaker 1: from what you are seeing as you guys work around
Speaker 1: the globe, do you feel like you know something is
Speaker 1: different this time around and we are moving towards creating
Speaker 1: a better society. Well, I I certainly hope so. I
Speaker 1: think you know, you talk about how we've been that
Speaker 1: that long arc of justice right to a more equitable society,
Speaker 1: and I think we're getting there, never at the speed
Speaker 1: that we want. One of the things that going back
Speaker 1: to what has surprised me, you mentioned racial justice. From
Speaker 1: the beginning I have seen the disaster justice is racial justice.
Speaker 1: I mean the inequities that have been driven by housing
Speaker 1: policies historically in this country are putting have put minority
Speaker 1: homeowners into highly vulnerable areas of land. They're susceptible to disasters,
Speaker 1: and so they are disproportionately impacted by by disasters, and
Speaker 1: they they're also often left behind in recovery efforts. You know,
Speaker 1: money flows disproportionately to two white neighborhoods from federal administration
Speaker 1: and block grants. I mean this is well well researched
Speaker 1: in evidence, and so you know, we need to create
Speaker 1: more equitable disaster response systems as well. It's a part
Speaker 1: of that solution. What do you hope someone who reads
Speaker 1: your book, what do you hope that they come away with?
Speaker 1: Because you really get into a lot of details about
Speaker 1: your experiences and and building team Rubicon. Yeah. I had
Speaker 1: two things really. I think the first is what a
Speaker 1: really raw and authentic experience for a young man who
Speaker 1: win over war and experienced combat is you know, how
Speaker 1: how that you know that young man or woman really
Speaker 1: internalized the conflict that they saw. I think the second
Speaker 1: one is listen, this is this is a hard time
Speaker 1: for America right now, um politically, economically, from a healthcare perspective,
Speaker 1: with COVID, I think Americans are a really lacking inspiration.
Speaker 1: I think many of them have lost hope that you know,
Speaker 1: America can come back together and every time I see
Speaker 1: these men and women from Team Rubican dropped everything to
Speaker 1: deploy to a community they've never been to, to help
Speaker 1: people they've never they've never met. I'm reinspired by what's possible,
Speaker 1: and I hope that people picked up this book and
Speaker 1: and find themselves reinspired and convinced that America's best days
Speaker 1: are still ahead of it if if we choose UM
Speaker 1: not optimistic. Note, I really appreciate that, and thank you
Speaker 1: so much. I hope you come back and talk to
Speaker 1: us a little bit more about the work you guys
Speaker 1: are doing. UM would love to check in with you again.
Speaker 1: Jake Would. He is co founder and CEO at Team Rubicon.
Speaker 1: It is a global nonprofit uh and you should check
Speaker 1: out his book Once a Warrior, How One Veteran found
Speaker 1: a new mission closer to home. Jake of course joining
Speaker 1: us on the phone from l A and really timely considering,
Speaker 1: you know, helping out certainly veterans and then really helping
Speaker 1: out so many of the disasters that we are seeing,
Speaker 1: helping out in those disasters and helping those people that
Speaker 1: are impacted