Women Veterans Business Center creates paths to opportunity

HOUSTON - The Women Veterans Business Center educates and empowers women to start and grow their own businesses. 

The organization also has a new mission to help women transitioning from the military.

Founder Marylyn Harris took a tour of the Buffalo Soldier National Museum’s women’s exhibit Sunday.

She served in the Army for more than 10 years and deployed to the Gulf War, but says she came back home to Houston to face physical and mental challenges.

While trying to transition, she discovered there were no organizations to teach women veterans to build businesses.

That led Harris to enroll herself in an entrepreneurship program and use the knowledge she gained to start the country’s first Women Veterans Business Center.

“We’ve been traveling around the country educating women veterans and their families about business entrepreneurship and economic opportunities for the last 10 years,” says Harris.

“The question I get asked most is, ‘Where do I start? It is so much out there I don’t even know what resource to go to!” she says.

She says her organization has helped more than 25 thousand women answer that question through free training and workshops.

In 2013, she was awarded President Barack Obama's Champion of Change Award for her work.

Her organization has recently launched a new initiative that focuses on getting women into tech careers through boot camps and a partnership with Microsoft.

“Tech is global; women veterans are global-minded,” says Harris.

“We’re talking about companies that are providing free tech certifications that could lead to degrees that could lead to jobs. And so I say ‘ tech yeah’!”

Harris adds that veterans who attend workshops and training have gone on to establish successful businesses; one beneficiary was even featured on “Shark Tank.”

To find out more about the program visit here.