SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Tech for Troops, digital lifeline, veteran suicide prevention, workforce development, data destruction, e-waste recycling, online training, gaming community, mental health support, nonprofit operations, corporate donations, veteran transition, peer-to-peer network, crisis intervention, community outreach.
SPEAKERS
Mark Casper, Jason Parker, Damon Pistulka
Damon Pistulka 00:07
All right, everyone, welcome once again, the faces of business. I am your host, Damon Pistulka and I am so excited for our guests today, because we have none other than Mark Casper and Jason Parker from Tech for troops. We’ll be talking about that, but we’re going to be talking today and about providing a digital lifeline for veterans and what these guys are doing with text for troops. Thanks for being here today, guys.
Mark Casper 00:37
I love being here. Damon, thank you. Thank you for having us.
Jason Parker 00:41
It’s, it’s a privilege.
Damon Pistulka 00:43
Yeah, it’s going to be fun, guys, because, you know, let’s, it’s just, I love being able to to highlight people that are helped from veterans transition, help veterans upscale, you know, just get adjusted to the private sector. So Mark, if we could, let’s go back a little bit and talk about the origin story of tech for troops.
Mark Casper 01:07
Oh, easy question there. Thank you, Damon, and hey everybody out there in never, never land. Tinker Bell, be coming around here in a bit. Right? So tech for troops started by a mother and her son, and literally, a marine came back from Afghanistan, couldn’t find a job, sleeping on their couch, didn’t have a computer, and he was borrowing the son’s computer all the time, which is, you know, probably well, he was doing more than borrowing, since he’s a marine and got a job. But that was literally the genesis of tech for troops as the mom and the son like, hey, why don’t we do something like this for transitioning active duty out? And they started out, of course, at the kitchen table, went to their garage, went to a storage unit, and then they went to the place where we are at this time.
Damon Pistulka 01:55
Yeah. So tell us about what you guys are doing. I mean, you got a couple parts of your your your business. You guys are a nonprofit. You are helping the veterans, but just tell us a bit about your operations, you bet. So
Mark Casper 02:06
we have, we have four programs. The really, the floor of the program is what I call it, is guaranteed data destruction. So we have a hard drive shredder. We’re hip and NIST or DOD certified for our wiping. If it fails the wiping, we shred it. We do reel to reels. We actually get a lot of tapes in. We get in thumb drives. And people want us to destroy that kind of stuff. So we do. And then we start out with what Jason does, and he’ll be talking about this in a second. So I won’t give it all away. Is our game core, which you see the little logo next to him, to his left, which looks like a There you go. Game core, aiming for zero veteran suicide prevention. And it’s not just veterans. It’s everybody, right? Because it suicide doesn’t just affect the person who does it. It’s it’s that ripple effect out for everybody. The next thing that we do is workforce development. At this moment, we have online training for veterans, up to 5000 free classes. So if they went to our t for t education.org that’s T 4t education.org, they would go to our web page. They could register and then take everything from Microsoft Office, I’m down, to leadership, all sorts of stuff, OSHA training, and then we do in person training with computers. And then veterans actually get computers from us as well. Throughout the United States, around the world, we’ve been shipped to Guam, Puerto Rico and some place in the Middle East, I’m going to say Abu Dhabi, but I’m not real sure. So we do do some international stuff. And then the last thing that we do is our recycling program, which is for the last 10 years, I’ve been working it for nine years. The last 10 years, the temperature has been open. We have responsibly reused or recycled 1.5 million tons of E waste, keeping out of landfill, using it for the veterans, whether we’re going to sell it because we get in stuff that people don’t want. And my oldest piece of equipment is a 1926 dictaphone. We have TTY machines, and so we don’t want that to go in the landfill. We actually keep a lot of that from my museum and stuff. So those are the four things that we do, and I’ll leave it back to you.
Damon Pistulka 04:17
So I’ve got to ask you’ve got a museum. I mean, you’re bringing up a museum here, yeah, what’s your museum having it?
Mark Casper 04:25
Jason knows more about it than I do in terms of stuff. I know we have, like, real to real. We have a rotary phone, we have two TTY machines. We have an eight track player. We have a Mac egg, so the old colored ones from the 90s. We have old hard drives from the mid 80s that are, like kilobytes, and they’re, they’re actually, they’re incredibly gorgeous, because the engineering that went into the boards are just beautiful. Jason, what else you know? Some of the other things that we there’s
Jason Parker 04:54
classic Walkman, of course, which to me, I’m not, I’m not. Totally convinced that it isn’t my Walkman. I just haven’t seen it around for a while, but I guess it does kind of belong in the pile. There’s oscilloscope straight off of a Navy ship. Oh, wow, forgot about that we were donated that. I don’t want suppo to come looking to too close, as I’m sure some we Mark was saying that we do have the wax reel dictaphone. That’s that’s really cool to see every iteration of when Steve Jobs got his hands back on Apple. And so the the colored clam shells, then yeah, the two meld those yeah colors. And then we go so far as the one of my personal favorites, the half the half basketball with the rotating screen around. Those are a lot of fun. And I mean, they just lead to more projects that we can do. We’ve had a number of different things. We’ve remade one of the iMacs with the floating display screen into a photo frame. We can we can tweak them out, or if we find others. In that vein, there’s some neat projects to turn one of the old Apple UGS into a fish tank. So as soon as we have one more, I don’t want to take the museum piece, but I’d love to do some experimentation with one of our with one of our vet suits.
Mark Casper 06:21
So one of the things Damon I want to do is get a young intern in, whether it’s college or high school inventory, everything you know, what is it? What speed is it? Does it turn on all that kind of stuff, and then go to the local what would be the state level? Movie, movie guys, right ones, when somebody like Tom Cruise wants to come and do a movie, they need a 1926 dictaphone. Well, we have one, yeah, yeah, right. And then I would want to give me a million dollars a day. I’m an entrepreneur, right, right? But at the very end of that movie, whatever it is, will be a tech for troops, no, you know, and we’ll be forever, ever, ever, like a seed that way.
Damon Pistulka 06:57
Yeah, that’d be cool. That’d be cool. Well, Dave, Dave Rosenberg commented here, and he goes, Do you have any sound powered phones? I think we do.
Jason Parker 07:08
I can’t swear to it. I do have multiple head injuries, but I’m pretty sure I, I’m, I’m, I bet, I bet not my whole next paycheck, but part of it, yeah, I think we do. I’ve never
Mark Casper 07:23
even heard of that. I know we have, like, old Morse code walkie talkies, regular walkie talkies.
Jason Parker 07:30
We have the sound powered phones are still used on board the ship. That’s they’re exactly that. They are sound powered so you never really run out of the batteries on them. I remember one of the hazing tasks was to go find batteries for the sound powered phones.
Damon Pistulka 07:49
Oh, my, I knew
Jason Parker 07:50
I was being hazed, but what are you gonna do? I just kind of went with it. Yeah, I’ll go look for 20 yards of flight line. I’ll see you.
Damon Pistulka 07:57
Yeah, yeah, good stuff. Well, that’s, that’s cool that you guys are seeing this and actually getting to recycle some of history right there, and to see it and protect some of that. So as you’re, as you’re doing this, I mean, this is a, this is a cool model that you guys have, because the recycling and the the donations of the the tech stuff helps you to fund part of your programs and and those kind of things to help with that. That’s that’s really cool, because it’s a big deal with a with a nonprofit. So in when you guys are from on an annual basis, do you get most of your donations from large donors, large corporations that are trying you know that they’ve got old assets that they get rid of in Big Lots, or is it people here and there sending them? Or what’s the what’s the way that you usually do it?
Mark Casper 08:47
So in terms of the numbers, it comes from individuals. Okay, we have a drop off door. People come in. They ring the doorbell. We help them get everything out of their cars. But then we also have large corporate donors who say, Come pick up. So it goes both ways. We get banks and doctors and lawyers and nice some larger fortune 20 companies. Yeah, I’ve been very good to us as well, and it’s just one of those things where I am always shocked, pleased and humbled that somebody looks at us and says, We trust you. We know you’re going to do the right thing because of our data destruction processes, policies and that they do bring us their stuff. And if they’re, if there ever is a question, we have the documentation to back it up all the way down to the serial number for the hard drives, all right, and we have videos of the serial numbers being shredded. So, I mean, there’s, there’s a lot there that people trust us with.
Jason Parker 09:43
I’d like to, I’d like to bring up and mention as far as game core goes, as far as our veteran suicide, we work pretty closely with two massive powerhouses, as far as our donors that make a lot of this possible predator. Gaming is the is one of the premiere they’re out there. They’re among Alienware, some of the others there, and they’re kind of the niche gaming company out of Acer. And we have a very close relationship with them. They’re unbelievable to work with, and have some of the coolest toys I’ve had the privilege of of using and then, of course, AMD, when we were first starting out, they have a military salute program. So they were just kind of sourcing different nonprofits and stumbled upon us, and they were really there for the genesis of of what we’re doing. And so our a lot of our donations, we do have some individual people, it’s incredibly generous, and we’ll always take those, of course, because there are uses for them. But we’ve had predator gaming step up in such a way that once we’ve cleared the space and the necessary things are in play, those the cost to do that doesn’t come directly out of the veterans, right? And that’s huge. That’s awesome. Yeah. So, and then we have AMD backing us up. We have two rigs right now with model numbers. I can’t find them because they’re too advanced for what they are. So we’ve got a lot of, a lot of horsepower driving, driving, what we’re doing, and I just feel a lot of support from AMD and Acer, as far as it goes with the gaming side. Yeah, I was,
Mark Casper 11:34
I was talking with the some of the rigs that we got in from Andy. We got two of them, and I didn’t know it. I mean, I’m not as techy as Jason is. He’s much more, way above I where I am at, but we have six RAM, yeah, and I’m sure it’s very cutting edge, because all my folks were like, oh my sir, what six? Yeah. So I’m sure it’s pretty that’s, I don’t know, it’s got flashy lights in it. So I just go, Oh, that’s cool. It really does.
Damon Pistulka 12:06
That’s awesome. So as as you guys are, you know, we’re, we’re talking today about providing the digital lifeline for veterans. I mean, we can’t talk about veterans without acknowledging the fact, and you’ve got it. You know, you talk about a lot Jason, and what you help with, with tech for two, which is veteran suicide, and that’s something that I know. That’s not what you guys do directly, but you do indirectly. So what are, what are some of the things that that you see as people get involved with you, that helps them, brings them, I don’t know, closer to away from that. I don’t know. It’s sure. It’s sure I
Jason Parker 12:47
you have, it’s a very astute observation. And right now, we’re kind of in the worst of it, from the end of the holidays, which are always incredibly stressful, through to when it starts getting actual light again, and the nights don’t last as long. These are really the dark days. There are a lot of the guys, and it doesn’t have to be something that you grew up with, but seasonal affective disorder can develop over time. I’ve I’ve found that since I’ve transitioned, I was a medic in the Army, so I spent a lot of time outside. But as my life progressed and it was more inside and inside, I felt myself much more affected by seasonal affective disorder, and it was only through therapy, which I’ll always be the biggest proponent of that it’s it’s not a fault of mine. It’s not anything I did wrong, but this is something that you fix it and you drive on. And so one of the things that our biggest strength, as far as game core, goes, as far as pulling veterans kind of out of that darkness, is just a peer to peer network that gets where you’re coming from. Being a medic, like I said, the most important item you have in in your entire kit is is triage, because you’re going to treat what needs to be treated. And everybody in the service goes through a basic amount of first aid, but it’s through our experiences that we learn for a kind of mental first aid. And it’s it’s fantastic that we have as many guys as we have that have volunteered and stepped up. We have a twitch platform where we are an affiliated supporter, and it’s, it’s one of those opportunities for some of these veterans that are feeling inconsequential, feeling isolated, to step out and, oh, they’re on a platform now where a couple 100 people are watching or, you know, something they’re saying matters so. Something that they’re doing is affecting other people, and if it’s if it’s the dopamine rush from playing World of Warships like we do, then fantastic. That’s going to get you through to the next day to seek that help. But it’s that initial connection that that we’re there for, and it’s the time after, because when you’re stuck in treatment, when you’re going through rehab, when you’re in a dark place, and it’s your apartment wall to wall, and it’s the middle of January, you need to step outside, at least in your mind a little bit. And we’re all there. We are there in those in those later hours after visiting has ended on the wards. I’ve been there. It’s a lonely place, but we’re we’re there, just kind of hanging out. We’re always playing some type of ridiculous video game, whether it’s from actual as close to NASCAR as you can get. With the IWM broadcast network. We air that on YouTube every Wednesday night. But we also play a game called placid plastic duck simulator, where every two minutes, a new duck dressed as a different thing drops down. And we’re not there. Well, some of us are there for the ducks, but what I’m saying is, is this is more just it’s an open conversation. Yeah, and if you’re having those problems, if you’re going through that stuff, what are the strengths that that we’ve set up with game core at Mark and tech for troops have allowed us the freedom to do that is any of our moderators on our Discord or our streamers on our platform have gone through the very basic of crisis intervention. So if something comes down to play these folks, they’re all if they are not a veteran and have been vetted through and through and given the okay, then they are a family member or a civilian that has some connection to the military that we vetted again, so they’re to be trusted, and not only that, but they’ve gone through a three hour in person or online. It was their choice VA saves class, which really addresses what you need to do and what we’re there. We’re there as that link to 988 option one, if you are a veteran, if you are a family member of a veteran, if you’re in crisis, 988 option one, bar none. But if you don’t know you’re in crisis, if you’re Do you just think the day dredges one after another, nothing changes, and you’re just supposed to feel this way because of what happened to you during the military, what happened around you during the military. That’s not That’s not the way it should be. And I’m there to say that I was one of those guys, and now a lot of My strength comes from the ability to reach back out and say, even if you’re not bleeding in a gutter, I get that. You can be at the lowest point of your life, and there are still people that get that, yeah.
Mark Casper 18:27
And there’s people that care, yeah, yeah, that’s awesome. But that, yeah, that’s, that’s what Jason brings to the table through gamecore, aiming for zero, uh, Jason, I don’t know the number, but if you would enlighten the audience,
Jason Parker 18:42
15 lives that we’ve saved over the past, that’s 17 months now. So yeah, that’s significant, and that stretches across the United States. At this point, a couple of our the guys that have joined our cause went through some dark times right up near your area. So we have, we have a reach that is, it’s, it’s becoming impressive. I like to think, yeah,
Damon Pistulka 19:13
and veterans that are in this situation are everywhere, because what’s, what’s the current statistic now on suicides daily for veterans,
Jason Parker 19:23
it’s between it’s 15.6 which I never understand how they come up with decimal points for this. Yeah, it’s between that and 19 or so. Yeah, and I mean aiming for zero is our line, because any number other than zero is unacceptable, yeah,
Mark Casper 19:43
yeah. And with it being the holidays, it’ll go up above 19. Oh, yeah, yeah, it might get up to 2527 and the one thing that we are pushing towards and want to do, and have working are working towards, is the online on base. Uh, training accidents that happen, that are not training accidents, but are actually somebody doing the unthinkable in their room. And we’re trying to get on bases to have a face to face with the men and women who self isolate. So that is part of one of our goal. Well, I should say it’s one of our goals through aiming for zero is to help the active duty as well with this. That’s great. That’s a hard enough to crack, because they don’t want to admit, yeah, yeah, you said hell.
Jason Parker 20:34
And this is, as Mark was saying, it’s incredibly difficult for all sides on this, when it comes to the when it comes to the pen and paper of it all, we are army property, and you tried to destroy army property. But on the other hand, this isn’t somebody that’s going to be fixed by putting them in a dark room and telling them to feel better or else, and then that a lot of things need new categorization, and it’s not a matter of trying to fix them in the system that they’re in, but it’s just as we’re as we’re finding out. It’s when it comes to mental health it’s a system unto itself. And it’s not that the old one needs to be fixed, it’s that a new one needs to be created. And so we’re we’re trying real hard, but it’s not I want to fault the military industrial complex, but as as a reasonable person, I I can’t fault them too much. This is something that we never really considered dealing with. Yeah, yeah. I know it’s always happened and it’s become more prevalent lately, but I don’t think it’s something that we we, we paid enough active thought too, yeah, yeah, agreed,
Damon Pistulka 22:02
yeah. And I don’t want to get too far off topic here, but you know, I when you look back through history and you think World War One, World War Two, Korea, Vietnam and we had World War and two, especially, hundreds of 1000s of people come back from military service. I can’t see why we weren’t overrun by this in those days, and I don’t know why. And that’s one of the things that I constantly, you know, in my mind, question myself. I said, What are we missing? Because was it happening? We didn’t under we didn’t just didn’t pay attention. Or I don’t know. I
Jason Parker 22:41
think the pure and simple to that is just now we have more knowledge than we’ve ever had available, and we can see what’s happening around us way more easily than we could have.
Mark Casper 22:52
And I’d add in that’s just just quite honestly, if you think back in time, the men and women back then and be prior to were much tougher than we are today, right? I mean, you look at a world war one vet and you just, how did you get through that? And you came back and became a successful not everybody did, but you became successful. And it wasn’t because they were namby pambied And, you know, went to the hospital every other day, or whatever it was, it was because they were just, they wore wool suits in the summertime.
Damon Pistulka 23:28
Yeah, I don’t know they were tough. Yeah, it’s something to think about, though. I mean, for me, and I love, I loved hearing what you guys are doing. I mean, your your game core is, I think it’s brilliant, because what’s easier for someone to do than game? I mean, it’s easy to do. It’s easy to get on Twitch and watch other gamers, to comment, to talk and being it’s not like, I mean, I’m in a room with a bunch of a bunch of people that are talking about their problems. We’re just watching the game. We’re having some fun, and I can, I can get a little bit of a break from my life, my situation, for a moment, and and then, you know, your, your people that are trained can be, you know, helping them, if, if they see the signs or the things that they need to over time and really help them. That’s, that’s cool as heck.
Jason Parker 24:18
Yeah, it’s, it’s, you were going to be there doing that anyway. Yeah, why not do it? And I mean, the Genesis exactly like you said, if you have them, they’re captured, and they’re gonna hang out just like they’re watching a sports game. This all came from my son moved away to Twin Falls, Idaho, when he was about five years old, and no five year old wants to talk to you on the phone, but I got him a Nintendo Wii, and I figured out that if I played him in Mario Kart, I could keep him on the phone for five hours, and eventually he was going to talk to me about his day. Yeah. And so I went back and I looked at that, and I was like, most of the. I’ve worked with are about the same maturity level as a male five year old. I bet this will work for them too, and I don’t want to brag, but here we are.
Damon Pistulka 25:09
Yeah. Well, how many people do you have participating in a daily, weekly basis on the on game core?
Jason Parker 25:16
So one of our Q or one of our strongest numbers that I like to tout is that we have about 57 people that are active at any given moment on the discord as 57 people either watching the same game being played, talking about something in a chat room. As far as our total discord numbers, I would love it if they were higher. They go through ebbs and flows. Right now we’re at about 450 or so. The goal is to be over 1000 if we can get over 1000 then you become publicly searchable on the internet. And one of the biggest phenomenons that’s begun to occur when it comes to self inflicted, excuse me, suicide is that they’ll typically search for the effects, the pain level, ways to commit it. And my hope is that by making our our group publicly searchable, when you’re then searching, what’s the best way for me to do the worst thing instead of a result for that that we would come up? Yeah, I’d say, let’s not think about that right now. Let’s think a little bit more along the terms of what are other options you might have got to funnel them onto us. So that’s been my driving, excuse me, my driving goal is to get our Discord above 1000 our Twitch has 578 subscribers, so we’re doing very well. Our Twitch events are well attended. We’re very proud of them. And as the program grows, you can tell that our technical proficiency is getting it’s growing as well. We we started, we started at the bottom, but we’re, we’re earning our way up there.
Damon Pistulka 27:14
That’s nice. That’s nice. So Mark, you’re, you’re leading the charge here. What, what makes you excited about what, what Jason and they’re doing with the game core. So,
Mark Casper 27:28
you know, what makes me excited is, you know, I got out, I got out of the Marine Corps in 87 a bunch of my buddies around that same time, right? We all went in a different time that came out. But suicide affects you when you hear of a friend doing it. And about three years ago, actually, it was 2022, so two years ago, a buddy of mine, he, he was good man. He decided to lay against a tree and took his head off. Yeah, and I at that moment, you know, Jason was, I don’t think you were with us yet.
Jason Parker 28:04
I don’t, I don’t remember a few. I feel like I would remember it. So probably not, and
Mark Casper 28:09
it really affected me. So when we were literally in a staff meeting, and Jason just hired, probably there for, what, a month and a half, two months, maybe, and I don’t game. I this thing with your hands. I can’t do I stand up and put quarters in machines and do this. I’m really good at that. But I was like, Hey, everybody, I want to have a gaming tournament. How do we do that? Jason, like me, like a little kid popped up, like, like a like a gopher jumped out of a hole. And I’m like, okay, that’s up to you to figure it out. And this is where he took it. We wouldn’t do a gaming tournament. He actually took it to this next level, probably about 12 levels up, to turn it into aiming for Zero Suicide Prevention. And I always go back and I think about my buddy, my Marine Corps buddy, Mike, who is no longer with us, yeah. And there’s many ways to commit suicide, of course, right? Drinking yourself to dust, you know, putting a car into a tree, etc, etc. And I know there’s others, but that’s the one you can look at and go, yep. The cops can say this is what happened. So it that it makes my heart glad. It’s soul satisfying. No one when he comes in, usually on a Monday, maybe on a Tuesday, like, hey, we just had another interaction last night. And here we go, we’re at this or I’m talking to somebody and like Jason, we’re at 12, right? And he’s like, no, no, we’re at 14 now. And I’m like, Yeah, holy crap. What happened? How do we do that? And it it, my goal for him is to make this an in national it already is national, but, I mean, like a nationally known program, so when the VA has an issue, he’s the expert. When private institution mental health issues have an issue, he’s the expert to say, what did you do and how did you do it? Let’s hire you and to make this happen in DITA, all that kind of stuff. So we’re moving in that direction. It’s a slow move, because there’s a lot going. Non besides game core, right? Tech for troops is at a place now where we have to buy a building, or at least a new building, but long term, at least, like 20 to 30 years type of thing. Yeah, need triple the space. I have about 8000 now. I need at least 20 to 24,000 square feet. And our box truck was just wrapped. We want to expand into multiple localities across the country. So, I mean, there’s, there’s so much going on that I can’t need to put more time, effort, energy, into working with Jason to make this happen. And it might happen this year, but we’re going to, we’re going to get to a place where folks are going to go what we’re already doing the what? But it’s going to be like, how did you do that? Yeah, because we, he comes in and said, What about this? I’m like, make it happen. Very cool. It’s just things like, we bought it. We bought a driving rig for the NASCAR. And I’m like, why are we going to use this? Well, here’s what we can do, a little bit of blood. I’m like, make it happen, right? And we spend the money to do it because it makes sense. It’s common sense in my book that now, yes, that is a hard thing to do budget wise, but at the same time, if it makes sense, and eventually we can recapture those funds, we’re going to do it.
Damon Pistulka 31:14
Very cool. So if, if we’re sitting here talking today about tech for troops and and the game core that you guys are doing that to help veterans and your you know all your different things, your data destruction, your E recycling of tech products, and then your training, workforce development for veterans. What are some of the things that someone’s listening today that could really help you? The corporate executive that might have access to things, the individual What are? Just tell us what you guys need, because let’s see if we can’t get some of it coming your way. You
Mark Casper 31:56
bet. So we can always use computer equipment stuff, right? And it doesn’t have to be a laptops or desktops. We take servers, routers, switches. We don’t like printers. Printers are considered e waste. I mean, like they’re toxic because of the inks and the toners and stuff. We’ll take those for a fee, flat screen TVs for a fee, because they’re so cheap today you can’t really fix them anymore. But what we need is access to CIOs, CTOs foundations that are willing to support the veteran community and to be able to sponsor us, to supply us with the funds to expand. So we want to be able to have Jason expand and do events all over the country. Have have multiple driving rigs at NASCAR in Dallas, right? Boom, they’re driving. And he’s got four rigs going. And the reason why we’re there is because of that, but we’re also talked about because of the same thing that we’re doing in the suicide prevention it’s not just doing events and, you know, oh, let’s have some fun. It’s no, here’s what we’re doing and here’s why. So we do that. We want to have locations in Tampa, Dallas, San Antonio, Seattle, would be a great place, all over Las Vegas, just all over so we can do what we do in person, and that way the vets aren’t like, well, that doesn’t apply to me. I can’t get there. Yeah, you can. We’re within, you know, walking distance of wherever you live now, because that’s really where we need to be as tech for troops, where you’re at because we need to be there for you. And that’s really our goal,
Jason Parker 33:32
the digital version of the USO, if you will.
Damon Pistulka 33:35
Yeah, the digital version of the USO. I love that. Yep.
Mark Casper 33:41
And I can’t answer for Jason. What that answer is, maybe Jason, what do you? What do you need? What do you? What are you looking for? So
Jason Parker 33:48
when it comes to it, we have just massive amounts of enthusiasm, but we would be looking for any type of endowment or grant that we are eligible for, as far as the mental health applications for it, when it comes down to it, cash donations are best. We are incredibly lucky that we have a lot of the gear to work with. But it just comes down to the ability to mobilize us and get enough people bring some of those veterans into paid positions where they’re not only they’re not only making this content, but we’re actually putting them on to better, higher positions within the same thing. So yeah, those funds are essential. I don’t
Mark Casper 34:43
know the gentleman’s name, but up in your area, Damon, we have a gentleman who is twice now we’ve had to Jason did right help him out, and he went in to see a therapist. And therapy is like, I need to put you away. You type of thing, and didn’t happen, right? The guy got out, walked out, whatever it was. But my goal, after hearing that from Jason, is to find a way to get him to a treatment center that’s not going to treat him like a number, not going to treat him like a cash cow, but going to try and help him out. And it’s going to take my guest, Jason, and you tell me, if I’m wrong, it’s going to take four to six months for this guy. It’s not going to be in out, and I want to somehow, and it’s not going to be part of our mission. It never will, because that’s not who we are. But I need to have somebody who’s within the sound of my voice saying, you know, where’s he at? Where do you want to send them? And there’s a tree. Center in Texas that I know of, and a treatment center in Virginia that I know of that has a very high success rate, and get him either to Texas or Virginia, pay for his stay, and then get him back where he should be, because we owe it to him, Yes, and that’s what my ask would be, is, how do we it’s not going to be our mission. How do we, though, get in with those folks who have the same passion and the same knowledge and the same opportunities to support our vets, who are in crisis, who need our help but don’t have the funds to be able to say, All right, I’ll put 30 grand out. Let me. Let me. I have no idea what the amount is. I’ll put 30 grand out to make this happen, because I need to be better, and I want to be there for my wife and my children. I don’t want to be the deadbeat dad or the guy who comes home and he drinks himself to sleep every night, because that’s not who I am. But I don’t know what else to do. How do we change this? We can do that we can, if the country gets behind us that there are well pocketed men and women who have a family member, or even themselves, who went through it, they’re willing to step up and say, let’s talk, and here’s how we’re going to do it. And if we could get somebody like that, I would Jason will be over the moon, and we’ll be, we’ll be serving a lot, a lot.
Jason Parker 37:07
Yeah, I think I would love to be able to expand our reach, to be able to have face to face contact, and all the places where it’s necessary,
37:16
yeah, yeah.
Damon Pistulka 37:18
Because it’s not just in the the city centers. It’s, it’s all over that these people are living and it’s, I mean, it’s great. I gotta say, you know, the first step with you guys being the discord, the Twitch, the game or game core, that’s a big step, because I can be wherever, basically, and get on that’s a huge thing, because a lot of these people are sitting. It could be down the street from me right now, down the street from you, or out in the middle of, you know, remote area, and they can get on and be there. That’s that’s one of the things that I think is very cool about this. But, yeah, finding the right people. So someone’s listening out there, I want to make sure that you get on the tech for troops site and tech for troops, T, E, C, H, F, R, troops.org, right? Got it. They wanted to make sure I had it right. I wrote it down, but it was on another page here. So well, let’s, let’s talk a bit more about your workforce development, because I think this is cool. You guys are doing this? You’re you’re helping the veterans get their skills refined so that they can go out and find employment and do other things with their lives. Let’s talk about that a little bit part of what you guys are doing. Oh, you’re on mute.
Mark Casper 38:38
Sorry, I hit there. Yeah. I We have the one facility in Richmond, but we actually travel. I’ve been to Texas and Wisconsin and other places training vets on how to use a computer. That’s that basic computer literacy that we do. It’s, yes, it’s workforce development, because if you don’t know how to turn a computer on, you’re not getting a job. Yeah, I get that piece. But we also added in the 5000 free classes. So as Jason has said, or he’s not yet, not not night, but he has said in the past, in other places that he’s taken, like the OSHA training, yeah, I mean that just put that on your resume. You can make that and it’s free you get certified in OSHA, and then it’s free that it goes on your resume. So it’s things like that that we’re trying to do, to take the vet and active duty transitioning out to that next level. We don’t create resumes. We don’t write resumes for you. That is somebody else’s job, but we know a lot of people, and a lot of people want to hire vets. And I’m always telling the classes as they come in, let me know if you’re looking for a job. What do you want to do? A new bus driver? Guess what? I know the people that ride the butt the make the busses go around Richmond, send me your resume, and we’ll do that. And we actually have a guy who used to work for me. He’s now at the Pentagon. He’s a GS 13, I believe it is doing really, really well. Another one who was homeless, living in his car when I hired him. He now is at the knock in the. Network Operations Center at Fort. Greg Adams doing really, really well. And another, I call him a kid. He’s He’s my son, because he calls me papa. He drove up in an Audi, this was last year, and I’m like, Dude, you went from literally homelessness to being successful in an Audi. And so, yeah, the workforce development is real, and we have success stories out there for it. And it’s fun because Chris comes up and calls me papa, right? It’s fun, but at the same time, I’m proud as a peach, right? Because he took himself from a place where he because I kick him literally, kick him in the butt a couple of times, physically. Now, of course, nobody can prove that, so he can’t sue me, but I did, because I’m like, What are you doing? Man, why are you doing that when you should be studying? I know Papa. I know. I know. So, you know, tug him by the ear, kick him in the butt, make him do the right thing. And he got his certs, and now he’s successful, yeah? Sometimes that’s all it takes, is somebody to care, yeah,
Damon Pistulka 41:06
in the right environment too. I mean, you guys, you know, being there, understanding where they’re coming from, and I’m sure the people that are doing the classes too. And in the game, the game core, it really helps reinforce things a lot, too. It
Mark Casper 41:22
does. And Jason, tell them, You’re the educator as well. We run, we run a small ship. Yeah, we are,
Jason Parker 41:29
we are powerful. Yeah, there’s a lot of people. I mean, you can teach anyone anything, if they care about the material and a lot of games. Now a lot of our technology is more integrated, so you don’t necessarily need a $400 console or a $5,000 gaming computer. They do now what’s called game streaming. So an Xbox controller knows what a computer is if you plug one of those in. So I’ll tell the guys while they’re getting their computers, look if you pay attention to this stuff and you sign up for this Microsoft account, then you can actually log into Xbox and be playing Madden later today. And all of a sudden, everything I say matters, and there’s two rows of people hanging wrapped on my every word, just I mean, they didn’t know that was a possibility. So one of my specialties is finding how a lot of the different technologies work together, how you can use one tech to teach another.
Damon Pistulka 42:40
Yeah, that’s awesome.
Mark Casper 42:41
That’s awesome. He’s good at it too. So
Damon Pistulka 42:45
as you guys, I mean, we’re here at the beginning of 2025, what are you guys excited for this year?
Mark Casper 42:53
Oh, golly. Do you really want me to go there? Oh, all right. Well, I firmly believe that we are going to either have a contract in place to move, or we’re going to be towards the end of the year, because it takes time to move from building be moving into a place. That’s the first thing, right? So we’re at 8000 we need 25,000 The second thing is that we will have a location on a local military base soon, and just waiting on the building maintenance folks, or whatever their title is, to find the building for us. And I’m like, Look, you don’t get to pick my building. I want to have say in that building, because I need to make sure there’s certain things I don’t want to go into a multi damp, nasty place and then clean it up for you, so that those conversations are going on. But that’s going to happen soon, and we’ll be able to announce to the world that we’re on a military base, right? We have two locations. Jason and I started a training facility up at Catholic University with the Veterans Upward Bound program, and they want us to continue classes up there. We also have a location now coming at the Beach, Virginia Beach area, I should say, Newport News, where we have a location where classes can be held there. So, I mean, we’re expanding. And then the other part of that is that I firmly, firmly, firmly believe we’ll be looking at expansion to other locations. It’ll be towards the end of the year, but it’s going to happen. And then there’s one other thing that I posted on LinkedIn, like, we have a big banner thing that, you know, and I can’t say anything yet, because I want to be, I’m going to be streaming when we show this, and where it’s going to be at, but it’s going to be, folks gonna be like, what did you think of and it’s going to that’s, it’s going to be fun. It’s going to be fun. I’m so looking forward to that. Jason, how about you? Where are you going to be at here from January 15?
Jason Parker 44:46
I’m, I’m really, I am dedicated to and very much hoping that game core is going to grow its digital platform, its digital domain. We’ve been. Missing a a well, a well functioning website for some time now. So we’re taking some time and dedicating that, building that up, and building game core into more of a just kind of a bigger as far as what, what apps that we’re available in and different avenues to reach the people that may need to hear what we’re saying, looking at a podcast and other things. And then, just on a personal note, my son’s graduating high school, and it’s going to be joining the Navy, so I’m getting excited to drive to drive to Idaho and see that happen. So I hope it’s a good year. I have high hopes. And
Mark Casper 45:49
one more thing, Damon, I mean, we are I don’t have, I do have my number for last year, 2023 well, back up, 2024 just left. We haven’t done our taxes yet, but for 2023 our overhead was at 14% Oh, wow, we’re incredibly, very low, right, for what we do and how big we are and what, how much we do, yeah, and it’s crazy, but my hope is that folks can start seeing that how tech for troops works, what we do, how we do it, is worthy of being supported, because there’s a lot of folks out there who don’t understand what the digital divide is, what a computer means in a family’s life, whether it’s the husband, the wife or the children, it doesn’t if the kid can’t do the school work, then they’re not going to be successful in life. And if the dad can’t get online, or the mom can’t get online and do homework for their college or whatever they’re doing, they’re not going to be successful in life. You know, I was went to school in the days when you went to the computer library, the computer at the library to get your work done, and that sucked, because I was away from home hours upon hours doing my schoolwork. You don’t have to do that anymore. You can do it straight from your home with tech for troops, laptops or desktops, and make it happen.
Damon Pistulka 47:09
Nice, nice. Well, I just want to thank you guys for being here today again. We’re talking with Mark Casper and Jason Parker from Tech for troops. It again. Tech, T, E, C, H, F, O, R, T, R, o, o, p, s.org, I want you to get out there, support them. If you can reach out to them, figure out if there are ways that you can work together, and if you’re another group that’s helping veterans, because I have some people listen to that once in a while. Hey, reach out, because they’re just you might be able to collaborate and do some good stuff together. I just want to thank you guys for everything that you’re doing to help the veterans. And I just wish you all the best. And if we can help in any way, let us know. Guys,
Mark Casper 47:59
you got it. Damon, thank you so much. Alright, excellent. Thank everyone
Damon Pistulka 48:03
for listening today, Dave for stopping by dropping a comment in there right away, and John comment here, just at the end, you know, thanks so much. And we are going to be back again next week. Guys, hang out with me. Shortly, offline. We’ll wrap up. You got it? Thanks, everyone. All right?