Ep. 5 - Panhandle Warrior Partnership Doing Great Work For Veterans. Dan Hendrickson, Program Lead, Located In Ft. Walton Beach Florida.

Embarking on a journey laced with bravery and resilience, we sit down with Dan Hendrickson from the Panhandle Warrior Partnership, whose life narrative binds the legacy of a Marine father with his own valorous chapters in the Marine Corps. Dan unveils the tapestry of his experiences, stretching from the technical intricacies of his role as a Communications Maintenance Field Systems Technician to the profound personal trials faced during his wife's cancer battle and his own challenges in transitioning to an officer role. The heartfelt recounting not only honors the silent battles of military families but also spotlights the power of community in steering veterans through life's tumultuous seas.

This episode traverses the transformative landscape of veteran support, beginning with the birth of the US SOCOM Care Coalition under the watchful eyes of Jim Lorraine, and its metamorphosis into an empathetic force within the Special Operations Forces community. As we navigate the chapters of veteran advocacy, we illuminate the four-step strategy that America's Warrior Partnership in Augusta, Georgia, employs to connect, educate, advocate, and collaborate with veterans, hence weaving a safety net of local community support. When the conversation shifts to the Panhandle Warrior Partnership's outreach, it reveals the intricate web of assistance provided to veterans in secluded locales, highlighting the organization's unwavering commitment to honor and aid those who have dutifully served our nation.
www.panhandlewarriorpartnership.org

Transcript

Scott McLean: 0:22

Welcome to the podcast. I'm Scott McClain. My guest this week is Dan Hendrickson, program lead for Panhandle Warrior Partnership. Panhandle Warrior Partnership covers the Northwest region of Florida, a region where there was an estimated 100,000 veterans. So let's jump right into it, Dan. How are you today?

Dan Hendrickson: 0:44

I'm doing better than I deserve. Scott, how are?

Scott McLean: 0:46

you. That's a good answer. But you know what man, what you guys do, you deserve the best, because I did a little research on you guys. You guys do big things, but before we get into all that, why don't you tell us a little about yourself and how you got into this?

Dan Hendrickson: 1:03

Yeah, absolutely so. Just a Michigan boy born in the suburbs of the, I'd say, the greater Detroit area, a little town called Port Huron, about 45 minutes north of there. Youngest of three boys, my dad was a Marine, so from time to time we would, we would hear some of those stories that he would share from his experiences and you know, they seemed, seemed pretty fun. Of course, he probably only told us the good times, but you know, that's just how, you know, some war stories go. So he got us involved with the Young Marine Program supported by the Marine Corps League, and after that I knew that the Marine Corps was definitely an option. My brothers went to college, so I kind of followed suit and went there with them. Let me tell you right now I loved the social aspect of college. I mean absolutely loved it. But the world of academia was definitely not for me at that time. So plan B let's go ahead and let's talk with a recruiter and Gunnery Sergeant Sims. Man. He had a conversation with me about all the different options that were available for me. So I mean I was like, all right, this is where I should be Signed up, and three months later, man, I'm off to boot camp For me started off with the Military Occupational Specialty of Communication Maintenance Field Systems Technician.

Dan Hendrickson: 2:11

That's a big, long title but all that means is I fix radios, telephones, switchboards. So I started off with Delta Company 3rd Amphibious Assault Battalion right out in the desert. Not sure why we have amphibious vehicles in the desert, but we got to play some combat taxi. But 29 Palms man, it's a great place. If you haven't had an opportunity to go visit it, definitely get out there and mark that off your bucket list. During that assignment I did what most Lance Corporals out in the desert do. I found a girl, professed my undying love for her and then ran off to Vegas and married her after knowing her for about two weeks. Then, on a Lance Corporal budget, we had two kids under two and man, we just started living the dream.

Dan Hendrickson: 2:48

So family career, deployments to Iraq, a workup to Afghanistan Nothing seemed like it was going to get in my way until my wife was diagnosed with cancer. Command was gracious enough to allow me to stay home as we progressed through the treatments. Several months later she was declared cancer-free and in remission, and that was through the support of not only the medical staff that she was going through. But we got a lot of support from the community that we had around us to be able to allow us that opportunity to heal. So my name popped up on a special duty assignment screening list and so I put in my application, got glowing recommendations from my chain of command through the battalion level to go be a drill instructor back on the recruit depot in San Diego. The results came out of the list and guess what man? I got San Diego, but it was for recruiter school. So here I go, getting ready to go on recruiting duty.

Dan Hendrickson: 3:39

So you know, going from being a drill instructor to a recruiter super bummed out about that. However, you know the Lord's got the plans for me and I think he knew what he was doing then, but he sent me up to Buffalo, new York, to go on recruiting duty. So I guess as a Michigan boy you know, very similar to that weather. Yep, I just spent the last eight years in Southern California, so I was not looking forward to going and shoveling snow again. But a wife and kids, they, they loved it up there. It was their first time experiencing it. You know kids had never seen anything in California. It went to Big Bear once. It went sledding one time in eight years so they got to experience all the wonderful winter activities that Buffalo, new York has for them.

Dan Hendrickson: 4:16

But it gave me the opportunity to actually integrate and interact with civilian culture again. You know we live on base most of the time and as military members you're your own little community on that base. But being out there on recruiting duty I mean we were the only ones within 100 miles. So it really gave us that opportunity to really build those relationships and see exactly what the civilian population had out there. And you know they got the good opinions of the military and some civilians have bad opinions of the military. So it was really interesting that dynamic to kind of see what was going on there.

Dan Hendrickson: 4:50

Well, fast forward a few years completed my college degree successful tour on recruiting duty, I got selected to transition from enlisted to officer. So I went to officer candidate school and the basic school in Quantico, virginia, and that kind of allowed me that opportunity to kind of continue mentoring and helping military members, since I was that old guy coming in there with all the salt and the experience. As we went in Doing well there I snagged an air contract so I got the opportunity to come down to the panhandle of Florida to attend flight school here at Naval Air Station, pensacola. And so, again, being the old guy with the experience, just naturally, while I was waiting to pick up flight school, was able to kind of help mentor some of these brand new second lieutenants and kind of just continue that process of helping them out adjust to this new life within the realm of military service.

Dan Hendrickson: 5:33

Shortly after being selected to fly the V-22 Ospreys, I actually needed some surgery. Ultimately, that surgery ended my ability to fly due to some lingering effects, and then many months of rehab and waiver submissions. They ultimately made the decision that no longer able to deploy, which in the Marine Corps realm, means that, hey, my service was drawing to an end. So after 17 and a half years of military service, just started that process of saying what's next. Through that transition in the job searching came across Panhandle Warrior Partnership, did an interview and was offered the job. So now I live here in Gulf Breeze, florida, with my wife, ashley, and yes, she is the one that I only knew for two weeks before running off to Vegas. She's a Marine veteran herself. So I guess there's just a little bit of crazy on both ends there. And so then I got my two kids also, maddie and Dash. I got a junior and a sophomore in high school. So you know, things are crazy, things are busy right now, but, as always, we're loving life and we're living the dream.

Scott McLean: 6:28

What's the history of Panhandle Warrior Partnership? Where did they come from? How did they get started? To the best of your knowledge, I know some of these nonprofits have been around for a long time.

Dan Hendrickson: 6:50

Yeah, so Panhandle Warrior Partnership has been around this area here in the Panhandle of Florida for approximately eight years. There was a time when it focused on the homeless veteran population and then there's a time that it spent on accessing benefits and resources and the VA claims. But there was never really kind of a set understanding and really a clear path forward of where we were going. We got scooped up by America's Warrior Partnership and I think they looked at us because we were kind of around the same the name title there and so in order to kind of give an understanding of what Panhandle Warrior Partnership kind of does, if you don't mind if I can give kind of a background of America's Warrior Partnership, yeah, absolutely so.

Dan Hendrickson: 7:24

In 2005, the United States Special Operations Command, right US SOCOM, they kind of created a little coalition called the US SOCOM Care Coalition and through their initial findings as they started to care for the wounded, ill and injured service members of that community, they realized that a majority of those that were getting injured were from within the special operations community during that very initial stage in 2003, 2004, 2005. We realized shortly after that as more units started to deploy and as service members were getting injured, then it became the combat units, Then it became the support units right, and then that number kind of continued to grow for the injured as they came through, kind of continued to grow for the injured as they came through. But initially the injured from the special operations community was exceedingly more than the other communities from around there, and so there was a couple of things that they had learned from there that members of the US SOCOM felt like that the coalition was not keeping the promise to serve those that volunteered for those difficult jobs. They felt like that there was not a lot of commitment and they were losing confidence in the ability for that coalition to care for them and the families. And that the special operations forces were losing capable and willing fighters due to some administrative medical processes that were going on. So the CARE coalition was designed to connect the needs of those injured service members to the support that was available throughout the nation, and so the US SOCOM did not have the resources themselves. We had to find a way to kind of fill those gaps, and I say we as it like.

Dan Hendrickson: 8:54

I was part of this organization right, but so equipped with those tenets of connecting people and USOCOM's position, as the national leader, Jim Lorraine, who was the founder as part of that CARE coalition but eventually founded America's Warrior Partnership. As an Air Force veteran himself, he designed kind of these three objectives that would hopefully better serve the SOF community while he was part of that coalition. So number one he wanted to identify all SOF members who were wounded, ill or injured during military service after September 11, 2001, regardless of whether they were still serving, separated or retired, and wanted to develop a proactive relationship with each and every single one of them to determine what their current place in life was and what their future ambitions were were. The second was to build symbiotic relationships with government and non-government programs that would currently support the wounded, the ill, the injured, while also seeking out, maybe some new programs that could help enhance their quality of life. And then, number three, wanted to develop a process to track, manage and actually measure the impact of what the program was doing, so that way we could be good stewards of the dollars, we could be good stewards of the efforts. Right, we have volunteers. We don't want to just have them spin their wheels doing something that at the end of the day, maybe didn't really make a difference. So since 2005, the US SOCOM Care Coalition started building trusting relationships with thousands of SOF members, and he was able to lead the team that provided them with the hope that they always had an advocate on their side. So, in the end, through that proactive outreach and engagement, the CARE Coalition helped to restore the members' confidence within US SOCOM. So fast forward to 2011.

Dan Hendrickson: 10:34

After leaving his position as the director of the US SOCOM CARE Coalition, Jim Lorraine became the executive director of a community veteran nonprofit housed in Augusta, Georgia, and this group was to raise awareness about the need for and the ability of the community to help serve those active duty wounded, ill and injured, and then also the veterans within the communities that they serve. However, now being away from the big population of Special Operations Command, being away from the big population of Special Operations Command, didn't take them long to realize that there was a problem, that no one knew who the veterans were in the community. A lot of the providers and nonprofits that are currently in the area right, they focus the work on those that are seeking the services and a lot of them just have an intake where people will request the services and they will just continue to work with those individuals that are out there, but there was little effort to kind of coordinate the services between the nonprofits and the government agencies or to seek those veterans that may just be kind of hiding out there within the communities. So Jim believed that it was more effective for the community to first focus on that human aspect and then leverage the organizations after we've helped the veterans themselves. So in 2012, the organization's aims shifted from both active duty and veterans to just veterans alone, and instead of trying to bring the other organizations together, we wanted to develop a relationship with the veterans that were within the community and once we developed that relationship, we would then connect them to the local organizations to provide those desired services. So Jim created a four-step plan, and that four-step plan is what we call connect, educate, advocate and collaborate, and that was then developed to help guide the team's efforts and has been that way for 12 years now. So, number one we connect with the community groups who provide services and volunteer opportunities, while also connecting with the community veterans. We want to educate the community about the value of veterans and educate veterans about opportunities to improve their quality of life. We advocate for the community and we advocate for the veterans and their families to navigate around the obstacles and then we collaborate with everyone who brings the positive support to the community from there, so from Augusta, Georgia, being a, I guess, a local community branch there.

Dan Hendrickson: 12:46

We then established several different branches where we have now identified needs for large pockets and populations of veterans that don't have structured organizations where veterans can immediately go to for the needs. We have Alaska Warrior Partnership. It covers the entire state of Alaska. We have the Indy Warrior Partnership which covers the greater Indianapolis areas. We have Permian Warrior Partnership, so think West Texas, Southeast New Mexico area. And we also have the Dine Nazba Partnership that covers the entire Navajo Nation in the Four Corners region right Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado. And us here at Panhandle Warrior Partnership we cover all the western counties of the Panhandle that fall within the Central Time Zone. So if anyone falls out of that area, the small branch that started in Augusta, Georgia that Jim founded there is now what we call the network. So if you fall out of those catchment areas you can still call into the network and still receive the same level of care that you will in the local resource areas that we've provided now with these small branches. So connecting organizations across country is kind of where AWP right America's Warrior Partnership has kind of gone through the time and where most nonprofits are looking to grow their programs. In these resource-rich communities.

Dan Hendrickson: 13:59

Awp, through our branches specifically here at PWP, we focused on the dispersed and tribal communities where veteran support is lacking, Resources are sparse, transportation is difficult and communication isn't really cohesive. A lot of people think about Florida and we think that there's just cities everywhere, but especially up here in the Panhandle, you're either on the coastline where, yes, there is some packed populations, but you go 10 miles north of that and you've got a 60 mile stretch between this and the Alabama or Georgia border that has very farm communities, very rural communities that don't have a lot of resources that help them out. Up there, outreach sustained in engagement with the veterans. And for the past three years starting in 2021, is when AWP really pulled Panhandle Warrior Partnership into their community integration, their branch model that they've provided, and so for three years now we've been trying to rebuild our presence and really go with these strategic aims up here in the Panhandle.

Scott McLean: 15:01

I don't know where to begin, my friend, with these strategic aims up here in the panhandle. I don't know where to begin, my friend. That was a great breakdown. You touched on a couple things that I know. As you said, in Florida people think it's Orlando and Tampa and Miami and Fort Lauderdale. Well, I live in South Florida. There's areas in South Florida Belle Glades is one of them Very hard to get out to. It takes a while to get out to. The closest VA is, I think, almost three hours away, Wow, and then there's transportation. So there's problems getting to them and there's problems reaching out to them. So I know exactly what you're talking about there. I love what you guys are doing where you're setting up different locations Alaska, you know, on the reservations, those are hard to reach areas. So do you have anything in South Florida, or is the Panhandle right now the only thing you have in Florida?

Dan Hendrickson: 15:58

It is. Panhandle is the only area that covers Florida right now. So once you cross the river there and move from Central Time Zone to Eastern Time Zone, you will then fall into the network, that overarching branch of America's Warrior.

Scott McLean: 16:12

Partnership there you go.

Dan Hendrickson: 16:13

And get that.

Scott McLean: 16:15

That's what I was looking for. My next question would have been what do you offer the veterans, but that's a vast amount. What do you offer the veterans, but that, that's a vast amount. Like just in my research, you help with utilities, employment, family adversities, unhoused veterans, addiction. The list goes on. I recommend people go to your website. Give me that long website, dan.

Dan Hendrickson: 16:40

The long website is the wwwpanhandlewarriorpartnership. All one word, org, and that's our tagline for all of our email addresses too. So it's definitely pretty crazy sometimes.

Scott McLean: 16:53

That's a discussion Dan and I had before we went on. That's why I threw that at him. Do you guys have fundraisers? Do you have sponsors? Do you have a big fundraiser every year?

Dan Hendrickson: 17:05

Yeah, we try to do a few smaller ones every year up here in the panhandle of Florida. It's very small business driven. We do not have some of the big donors. For example, Permian Warrior Partnership they're located out in West Texas. Warrior Partnership they're located out in West Texas. So you think West Texas, you think big oil right, they have a strategic military partnership out there where they have partnered with Chevron. They have the Corporate Veteran Initiative that they really interact with a lot of the veterans within these big organizations, these big companies, and so a lot of their funds because they do these bigger events come from these bigger organizations and they help kind of drive some of that.

Dan Hendrickson: 17:47

We're out here in the panhandle. We have a lot of smaller businesses. So what we try to do is we link up with smaller companies. So if we want to do an outreach event, take the Pensacola Ice Flyers, one of the minor league hockey teams that we have here in Pensacola, minor league hockey teams that we have here in Pensacola. They do military appreciation nights about four times a year during the season.

Dan Hendrickson: 18:07

So for us we would look to partner with an organization to say we want to outreach veterans utilizing your help, so for $2,500, a veteran-owned business that we try to link up with may pony up the funds, I guess, for lack of a better term, but they'll provide the funding for this resource, which will then provide for the outreach for us to reach all of the veterans that are there at that military appreciation night. So partnering with businesses where we can get some of those funds is how we do that. So on a smaller basis, but we are looking at some ideas of like a large fundraiser and we have an event coming up in September that we're looking for to do as a big fundraising event.

Scott McLean: 18:45

And those are not easy to put together because they cost money to put together. So you need money to make money. In a sense, that's right. Get those people that donate. You know that, those big donors and there are nonprofits that are just small nonprofits. They don't have that outreach. And I start to see the dynamics of the different non-profits some have big money, some have just enough money and some need money. We all need money. I said this on the last episode. That's the unspoken thing about nonprofits no one ever wants to talk about. You know, we want your money. It's money. It takes money to run these nonprofits and we depend on your donations, sponsorships, and I know on your website that long website, panhandle Warrior Partnership there is a donate button. So if somebody is, they're in Florida and they're leaving, they can go to Panhandle Warrior Partnership and they can say, hey, I'm moving to. You said Alaska, that's under American Warrior Partnership.

Dan Hendrickson: 19:49

America's Warrior Partnership? Absolutely, and yep, you'll click on the community integration tab, it'll bring up all of the different branches that we have and you'll be able to link up through there. Yeah, we actually just had a veteran who was up with Alaska it's funny that you said Alaska but they were living up in Alaska and I guess they finally got tired of the cold up there so they were going to move down here to the Panama City Beach area. And so I actually got a call from Jesse Lakin he's the program lead up there in Alaska and he said, hey, I've got this veteran. They are going to be coming down in about four months. And so he sent me the information and connected us to before even coming down here, so that way we could just continue the level of care as we go through.

Scott McLean: 20:32

That's beautiful. That's what I want to see happen. That's one of the reasons I did this podcast. I'm doing this podcast. So this people, this is not going to be just a South Florida regional podcast. I already have people in different states and that's what I think we need. We need more communication through other nonprofits in different parts of the country, because we'll have somebody at Herd Foundation or somebody at the 22 project might be like hey, do you know somebody up in the panhandle? Well, we do. Now we do. You know what I mean. Now we do, and this is really what I want to accomplish.

Scott McLean: 21:08

I know there's a lot of nonprofits that have connections here, but it's, it would be great and it's it's a huge undertaking, but it takes everybody to want to do it. To just have a network, a bigger network. Just keep working the networks, keep connecting. As you said earlier, connection Connection's big Connection is a big deal. So, dan, you covered it all. Man, you made my job easy. But if you're not done, by all means, what else do you want to talk about, anything?

Dan Hendrickson: 21:41

areas. You know that man or woman standing on the corner with the cardboard sign that says vet in need right, and we feel that when veterans finally ask for help they're in this low, low spot. And there are some that do that and we definitely want to connect and help with some of the resources from there. But there are some individuals that have high needs with low to no means right. But we tend to forget the 80% of veterans who have a job, who have some sort of education, who are paying the bills maybe not well, but for the most part are they doing that. They've got families, they're struggling with past things, they've never got the help that they need. There's just all of these little things that continue to pile up and each one of those little stressors in life may not be a big deal, but when they start to combine then they pose a huge problem. So with us again, I'd love to take the credit for the phrase collaboration over competition. I would love to take credit for that, because it's everywhere now, but it's not. But that's what we live our lives by, because as a connection agency I guess you could say a connection organization we don't provide direct services because we don't do what 99% of the nonprofits out there do duplicating efforts. Like I said earlier, we want to be good stewards of the time and the money and the effort and the volunteers. So we're not going to duplicate efforts just to put a check in the box and feel good about ourselves.

Dan Hendrickson: 23:24

We want to make sure that we're actually making the impact as we go through and then eventually, as we start to provide a connection to a veteran, we don't just let them go with their lives. We say, hey, what's next? We lead them through these dream sessions where we say again, just like Jim saw when he wanted to go, he wanted to find out where their current state was, but he also wanted to find out what their future ambitions were. And so Melissa Rust, my case coordinator here with Panhandle Warrior Partnership, she has these dream sessions as she starts to relieve some of these stressors by connecting resources to these veterans and veterans to these resources. She will then say, ok, what's next? Ok, what's next, ok, what's next? Again, it's that, that proactive and sustained engagement that eventually will lead the veterans to start building that trust and confidence, start bringing more veterans into the community and eventually start pouring themselves back into the community. And it's just going to be a collaborative effort that will eventually make change throughout the future.

Scott McLean: 24:25

I love that. Collaboration over competition. I am 1000% behind that. That's one of my talking points is veterans should not be viewed as a revenue stream for a nonprofit. I'm not saying that that's the case anywhere, I'm just saying it should never even be a thought. And other nonprofits should not be in a competition with each other. It's not healthy for anybody involved. In the end bottom line, it's about the veteran. 100% In the end, bottom line, it's about the veteran.

Scott McLean: 25:02

And then once again, the website. Let me get it this time W W W. Panhandle warrior partnership. All one word, all one wordorgorg. Go to that website. I go see what they do. I was amazed.

Scott McLean: 25:16

It was, it seemed endless what they do with veterans and it's beautiful stuff and there's little stories attached to some of these things that they've done. You got some older veterans, some heat in the wintertime. It's those little things that matter and you guys do a lot of the little things and that matters to a veteran. So thank you guys for what you do. I, as a veteran, appreciate what you do from one veteran to another. So with that, Dan, I'm going to send you to the green room and I'm going to do my outro and hang on one second, I'll get back to you no-transcript. So with that I want to thank you for listening. I appreciate it. I appreciate your time.

Scott McLean: 26:27

If you like it, share it and if you're on Apple Podcasts, if you feel like giving me five stars, I'll take it. Leave a comment. If you want to get in touch with the podcast, you could reach me at vets connect podcast. All one word at gmailcom and I will definitely answer. If you, if you're a nonprofit that wants to be on the podcast, I'd be glad to have you on. If you're a veteran that's had a great experience with a nonprofit, or any experience with the nonprofit, I'll talk to you, Absolutely, Absolutely. But until then, I will see you guys. Well, you won't see me. I won't see you because this is a podcast. So you'll hear me next week.