Veterans in Columbus: Many Serve Here, and Choose to Stay
Transitioning service members at Fort Moore have plenty of great reasons to stay and launch businesses.
The life of a soldier might not seem like it offers direct correlations to entrepreneurship, unless you notice the details.
Cesar Bautista, who co-owns Bodega 1205 with his wife, can spot an armed forces service member with a few recognizable characteristics. Fortunately, they’re the same traits that push Bautista to excellence running his own business.
“We work well on teams. We find our own resources. The discipline and commitment involved with reaching our goals – that’s a huge part of how we do business,” Bautista says of his fellow veteran entrepreneurs. “We base our business operations on loyalty, respect, transparency and gratitude.”
As the sixth-largest military installation in the country, Fort Moore (formerly known as Fort Benning) does not compare to any other industry in the region. Not only is the installation the largest employer in the region, but veterans who retire from service there often stick around to launch their own enterprises, creating more jobs in the community.
Bautista was still on active duty when he opened Bodega in 2019. Now retired, Bautista recently opened a second location in downtown Columbus. He says a third location is in the works for Auburn.
Did You Know?
The Department of Defense (DoD) recognizes that the skills soldiers hone on the battlefield are highly transferable to self-employment. Veterans are 45% more likely to be self-employed than non-veterans, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Veterans in Columbus: At Your Service
The skills veterans developed in the military – discipline, tenacity and adaptability – make them ideally suited to become entrepreneurs.
Support programs include several offerings from the Small Business Administration’s Office of Veterans Business Development. This office provides veterans, service members, National Guard and Reserve members, military spouses and family members with programs and services to start, grow and expand their small business. They assist aspiring and existing entrepreneurs through training, counseling and education, access to capital, contracting opportunities and disaster assistance.
One such example is Boots to Business, a program in which the SBA provides entrepreneurial training within DoD’s Transition Assistance Program. The program has trained more than 50,000 service members and military spouses since its 2013 launch. Similarly, the SBA’s Boots to Business Reboot program expanded entrepreneurship training to veterans who have already transitioned out of the military, as well as members of the National Guard and Reserve.
The program includes an eight-week, online Foundations of Entrepreneurship course, instructed by a consortium of professors and practitioners led by the Institute for Veterans and Military Families at Syracuse University.
For more details about Boots for Business, along with information about vital programs for women entrepreneurs, service-disabled veterans, and family resources, visit sba.gov/vets.
Hands-On Training
Bautista runs an internship program for enlisted soldiers aspiring to be entrepreneurs.
“We have the guys do an internship here so they can choose the next step in their lives,” he says. “If they want to go into business for themselves, they get hands-on training here to learn everything that’s related to owning and running a business.”
He says his screening process involves ensuring the family is 100% behind the business venture. He compares the commitment made to a small business to active-duty deployment.
“If I was deployed, I was affecting only my family, but here, we have 18 staff members, so everything I do and my wife does affects them and their families, too,” Bautista says.
Education, Careers & Opportunity
Why Do Business in Columbus?
Chamber CEO breaks down the reasons why this West Georgia city is the ideal place for business.
“We are responsible for helping put food on (our employees’) tables, and you have to be mindful of that. … If I don’t see a real interest in the whole family to support a small business, I won’t tell them to invest. We’re passionate about what we do, but family is still the most important.”
There’s a healthy appetite for supporting veteran-owned small businesses in Columbus and West Georgia (and not just ones that serve delicious Latin American and Cuban fare). Bautista says the community embraced Bodega, and that validated his effort to expand around the region.
“You have the feel of a small town, and other business owners are supportive of what we’re doing. We’ve just felt welcome since day one,” he says.
“That’s my experience here. Nothing but respect from other business owners. That makes me feel like it’s a nice place to do business.”
New Name: Fort Moore
Fort Benning is now officially Fort Moore, the only U.S. military installation in the world named for a married couple. The installation was renamed in 2023 to honor the late Lt. Gen. Harold “Hal” Moore and his late wife, Julia.
Hal Moore served in the Army from 1945 to 1977 and was a top commander in the Vietnam War. Julia Moore is credited with revolutionizing how the U.S. military cares for the widows of fallen soldiers.
Fort Moore today remains a large U.S. Army training installation, covering about 182,000 acres. It is located southwest of Columbus and it supports more than 120,000 active-duty military, family members, reserve component soldiers, retirees and civilian employees on a daily basis.
Fort Moore is one of nine Army installations that were recently renamed following a U.S. congressional commission ruling to remove Confederate names from military installations.
Fort Benning was established in 1918 and originally named for Brig. Gen. Henry Benning, a Confederate general who defended slavery and was a key leader in the South’s movement to secede from the United States.
Get to Know Columbus
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