The Tennessee Small Business Development Center in Knoxville, hosted at Pellissippi State Community College, has graduated its second-ever cohort in the Startup Training Resources to Inspire Veteran Entrepreneurship (STRIVE) program, designed to aid veterans and their families in successfully establishing and growing a business.
Pellissippi State is one of 10 higher-education institutions nationwide selected to participate in STRIVE, which is administered by Syracuse University’s D’Aniello Institute for Veterans and Military Families. The eight-week, no-cost program is meant to foster rural veteran entrepreneurship.
“When you look at entrepreneurship and small business, that’s the backbone of America’s economy – of Main Street America – and more people are employed in small businesses than in the big companies combined,” said Gregg Bostick, director of the Tennessee Small Business Development Center in Knoxville. “So, it’s very important that we foster that.”
The annual STRIVE program, sponsored in part by the National Association for Community College Entrepreneurship, culminates with a graduation ceremony at which participants discuss the direction they’ll take with their businesses. The ceremony for the fall 2025 cohort, held earlier this month, celebrated 15 graduates.
Harold Wilson, president of JFirst Properties and a program called REM (Remembering Everyone Matters), hopes to provide accessible housing connected to transit, training, and opportunity for veterans and formerly incarcerated individuals.
He turned to the STRIVE program to help him put together a business plan and execute it.
“It’s the best thing that ever happened to me,” he said.
Through presentations by panelists with expertise in a variety of topics and networking opportunities, STRIVE helped the graduates understand that “you don’t know what you don’t know,” Wilson said.
The fall 2025 graduating class also included Patty Weaver, vice president for External Affairs at Pellissippi, who participated in the program alongside her brother. Weaver’s father and her husband both served in the military.
“The panels, the folks that contribute their time to talk about financing and marketing, and AI and your business – it was just fantastic,” Weaver said. “If you’re a veteran out there, or a family member of a veteran, I highly recommend that you take this program.
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Pellissippi State Community College is a public community college based in Knox and Blount counties in Tennessee and operated by the Tennessee Board of Regents. The college operates four campuses: Hardin Valley, Blount County, Strawberry Plains, and Magnolia Avenue.
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