The Retired Military Officer’s Association (RMOA) led by MG (Ret) Roger Blunt, is a Northern Virginia based non-profit with a focus on supporting veteran owned and minority business enterprises. The RMOA mission statement, “proclaims that the RMOA’s primary mission is to contribute to the economic success of America through the enhancement of RMOA members personal and corporate economic powers, thus enabling the organization to chart a path for the economic growth of minorities in general, and RMOA members in particular.”
RMOA members represent the various branches of the military services and include civilians. Military members are from the enlisted ranks as well as officers. The members include a significant number of retired flag officers. It is appropriate that the military traits such as discipline, tenacity, motivation, and leadership translate into success in entrepreneurship.
The late Lieutenant Colonel (Retired) Theodore Adams, Jr., one of the founders of RMOA and founder of United Industries, Inc., attributed a lot of his business success to his service in the military. Military officers are trained in the principles of war: Objective, Offensive, Simplicity, Unity of Management, Mass, Economy of Force, Maneuver, Surprise, and Security. Lieutenant (Retired) Adams details in the book, by Shelton Rhodes and Peter Fretty, A Piece of the Pie, how he adopted the principles of war into the “The Adams Principles of Business.” Leadership is also a staple of military training. Colonel (Retired) James T. George, CEO & Founder, Management Support Technology, Inc (MSTO) attributes the prevalence of the Military Principles of leadership as a component of military education as the foundation of military success in business. Another military education staple is Sun Tzu’s book, On the Art of War. The strategies described by Sun Tzu have been adopted into many business school courses.
RMOA is working harder than ever to support the economic goals of its members in particular to support job creation in the current down economy. RMOA is having three events this year that are intended to raise the RMOA profile and provide a service to the business and veteran communities. The first event is a series of quarterly luncheons that will feature high level military and government speakers who will be of interest to both large and small business as well as veterans. These quarterly luncheons will present high level speakers from government and industry that are highly qualified to discuss topics of current interest to the business community, military and government retirees, and other veterans. Speakers are invited to speak in one or more of three primary topic areas:
- Current and future government programs and acquisition plans
- Military preparedness
- Veteran’s affairs (Wounded Warriors, Benefits and Veteran-owned Business)
The first speaker will be General William “Kip” Ward, the outgoing Commander of AFRICOM. He will speak on Wednesday, May 18, 2011 at the Hilton Alexandria Mark Center in Alexandria, Virginia.
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