For most people, working behind the counter of a fast-casual restaurant is simply a means to an end. For Jenna Bazdaric, 32, a long day at Tropical Smoothie Cafe is an entrepreneurial dream come true.
The former Army operations officer and platoon leader, who served in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, opened an outpost of the health food franchise last month in Poughkeepsie, NY. Already, she says, the venture satisfies both her interest in nutrition and her “desire for business involvement.”
But when New Windsor, NY, resident left the service in 2004, the idea of launching her own business was the last thing on her mind. Bazdaric, who assisted with EPW (enemy prisoner of war) evacuations and escort missions over the Kuwait-Iraq border, had recently lost her first husband in the line of duty during the initial Iraq invasion. And she was suffering, as she still does, from migraines and post-traumatic stress disorder.
ON DUTY: Jenna Bazdaric and husband on her café’s opening day.
Living in the Washington DC area, near her husband’s burial site at Arlington National Cemetery, Bazdaric took a job at a major government contractor where “95 percent of the company was from the military.”
“My experience and my language translated very fluently from active duty right into government contracting,” says Bazdaric, a self-described “type-A personality.”
Yet after a few years, she found herself missing the teamwork, camaraderie and one-on-one relationships she had developed in the Army.
And she began to have a sneaking suspicion, she says, that she “wasn’t as happy in government services as I would be starting my own business.”
By 2010, she had moved from DC to New York state with her then-fiancé, also a veteran, and was working as a program manager at West Point. That’s when she landed on a potential opportunity to strike out on her own: The area had no healthy cafes or restaurants like the Tropical Smoothie Cafe, where she’d eaten lunch every day in DC.
“It was an idea that was always in the back of my head,” Bazdaric says of opening her own outpost of the franchise. “I was absolutely in love with the product.”
She also loved that working with a franchise would take some of the guesswork out of first-time business ownership.
“I had experience in business, management and human resources, but I just didn’t have any start-up experience,” she explains. “I knew the franchise would help.”
Bazdaric, who now has two stepchildren from her second marriage, also got a boost from Syracuse University’s Entrepreneur Bootcamp for Veterans. The program, which she completed in late 2010, introduced her to vet-friendly funding options such as the Patriot Express Loan.
After a long, “tedious” process of working with loan officers and several months of real-estate searching, Bazdaric finally secured a loan to cover the build-out of the cafe.
She then spent the next several months overseeing every aspect of the construction, inventory ordering and hiring — Bazdaric received 130 applications for 20 positions — in preparation for the grand opening in early March.
“The process to get here was much harder than I thought,” she says. “But I knew that once I got to the opening day, I would enjoy it so much that it was going to make it all worth it.”
Her intuition turned out to be right: Now working “17- or 18-hour days,” Bazdaric is relishing both the chance to provide nutritious fare to an underserved community and work one-on-one with her new hires in the process.
“When I got out of the Army, that was the part I missed the most: the individual contact, and the sense that you were helping an individual to grow,” she says.
Even though Bazdaric finds herself addressing a steady series of mini-crises — such as a broken register — as the kinks get worked out of her brand-new biz, she feels more than ready for any challenge that comes her way.
“The ability to manage more than just one function at a time is definitely something that came out of my military experience,” she says. “I’m able to be on that individual task level, but then pull back and lead in a way that will make it all work together.”
Some reinforcements
Wounded Warrior Project: Helps injured vets transition into civilian jobs, with services including training and job placement: woundedwarriorproject.org.
G.I. Jobs: Offers job-seeking tips for vets: gijobs.com.
Veteran Employment: A job site for both veterans and active duty military run in partnership with Monster.com: veteranemployment.com.
Employer Partnership of the Armed Forces: Connects job seekers to veteran-friendly employers: employerpartnership.org.
Feds Hire Vets: Helps vets find jobs within the federal government: fedshirevets.gov.
Veterans Across America: Offers mentorship and other services to job-seeking vets: veteransacross-america.org.
Helmets to Hardhats: Helps military vets build careers in construction: helmetstohardhats.org.
American Corporate Partners: Connects veterans with mentors from the corporate world: acp-usa.org.
Jenna Bazdaric, Tropical Smoothie Cafe, Tropical Smoothie Cafe, Arlington National Cemetery, Bazdaric, Operation Iraqi Freedom, Poughkeepsie, NY, Bazdaric
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