Jonathan Wei, the founder and director of The Telling Project, is a playwright, writer and producer. Jonathan’s dramatic work has been staged at the Guthrie Theater, Library of Congress, Maryland Center for the Performing Arts, Lisner Auditorium in Washington, DC and Portland Center Stage in Portland, OR among others. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in the Village Voice, Iowa Review, and the North American Review and Glimmer Train, and his work featured by the New York Times, Washington Post, Baltimore Sun, Inside Higher Ed, the Associated Press, and NPR. He has received support from the Bob Woodruff Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, the Smithsonian Institute, the Library of Congress, Metabolic Studios, Minnesota Humanities Center, Humanities Iowa, Oregon Humanities Center and others. Jonathan lives with his family in Austin, TX.
The Purpose
The Telling Project is a performing arts non-profit that employs theater to deepen our understanding of the military and veterans’ experience. Greater understanding fosters receptivity, easing veterans’ transitions back to civil society, and allowing communities to benefit from the skills and experience they bring with them. Through this understanding, a community deepens its connection to its veterans, itself, and its place in the nation and the world.
The Work
The most direct path to understanding veterans’ experience is person-to-person contact. With the dramatic decline in the numbers serving in the military – less than one percent of the population over the last eleven years of war – this contact will not happen through day-to-day life. It must be created and supported. Through performance, The Telling Project puts veterans and military family members in front of their communities to share their stories. We give veterans and military family members the opportunity to speak, and their communities the opportunity to listen.
Show Notes: http://VeteranPodcast.com/011
Blayne works closely with Team RWB’s board members, staff, and volunteer leaders
to develop and implement programs that serve veterans across the country. He
provides strategic and operational guidance to the organization while building and
managing key partnerships. Blayne is a West Point graduate and former Special
Forces officer with combat tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Upon leaving the
military, he worked at Quest Diagnostics while earning his MBA at the University of
Florida. Blayne currently resides in Tampa with his two boys and leads the Team
RWB Tampa chapter.
Mission:
Team RWB’s mission is to enrich the lives of America’s veterans by connecting them to their community through physical and social activity.
Show Notes:
http://veteranpodcast.com/010
Drew Cameron is a second-generation hand papermaker, trained forester and former Army soldier. He co-founded the Combat Paper Project and has been facilitating workshops with veterans and the community in which they transform military uniforms into handmade paper, prints, books and art since 2007. The portable workshop has reached thousands of people throughout the country in 29 states and more than 125 workshops. His work is represented in 33 public collections and has been shown numerous times including at the Corcoran Gallery, Courtauld Institute, Library of Congress, Museum of Contemporary Craft and Craft and Folk Art Museum among others. Combat Paper is now operating in four locations: New York, New Jersey, Nevada and California with open and ongoing programming. Drew is based in San Francisco at Shotwell Paper Mill and continues to practice papermaking, teach and encourage others to do the same.
About Combat Paper
Coming home from war is a difficult thing. There is often much to account for as a survivor. A new language must be developed in order to express the magnitude and variety of the collective effect. Hand papermaking is the language of Combat Paper. By working in communities directly affected by warfare and using the uniforms and artifacts from their experiences, a transformation occurs and our collective language is born.
Through papermaking workshops, veterans use their uniforms worn in service to create works of art. The uniforms are cut up, beaten into a pulp and formed into sheets of paper. Participants use the transformative process of papermaking to reclaim their uniforms as art and express their experiences with the military. The Combat Paper Project is based in San Francisco, CA with affiliate paper mills in New Jersey, New York and Nevada. The project has traveled to Canada, England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Kosovo providing workshops, exhibitions, performances and artists' talks. Combat Paper is made possible through the collaborative effort of artists, veterans, volunteers, colleges and universities, art collectors, cultural foundations, art spaces, military hospitals and installations. Through ongoing participation in the papermaking process, we are broadening the traditional narrative surrounding the military experience and warfare. The work also generates a much-needed conversation between veterans and civilians regarding our collective responsibilities and shared understanding in war.
http://veteranpodcast.com/009
Since joining the Mission Continues in 2012, Aaron has worked as the Director of Strategy and Research, heading program evaluation and internal consulting efforts, while helping lead the Service Platoons initiative. Aaron serves as the Northeast Executive Director.
Aaron was born and raised in Cherry Hill, New Jersey to a family of public servants; Aaron’s parents were both K-12 public educators and his brother Joshua was a nuclear missile combat officer in the Air Force. Aaron attended the United States Military Academy at West Point, graduating with a degree in Arabic and Systems Engineering while earning a commission as a United States Army Officer. During his military career, Aaron was an M1A2 SEP tank commander and platoon leader with the 4th Infantry Division, a Civil Affairs officer, and an Army Science and Technology Analyst at Ft. Monroe, Virginia. He deployed to the “Triangle of Death,” Iraq in 2005, leading infantry and tank platoons and earning the Bronze Star Medal during combat operations.
After his military service, Aaron completed a dual-degree graduate program at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and Columbia Business School, earning both an MPA in International Development and a MBA. During his time at the Kennedy School, Aaron led the Armed Forces Committee and the student government as president. Aaron continued his international development work through independent consulting projects in Nicaragua, Morocco, Tanzania and Qatar.
Aaron was selected as an Education Pioneer Fellow for New York City in 2011 and joined Wireless Generation, an innovative education technology company, helping to build public school districts’ data capacity through the development of a “Dashboard” software program in conjunction with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Before joining The Mission Continues, Aaron was a Senior Consultant for Deloitte Consulting LLP and built industry knowledge through projects with Fortune 500 companies in the aerospace and defense and retail sectors.
Aaron and his wife Natasha live in Harlem, New York City.
http://veteranpodcast.com/008
Vanessa Daley is the Project Manager of TAPS Youth Programs. She is the surviving daughter of SFC Dan H Gabrielson, an Army Reservist with more than 20 years of service, who was KIA 9 July 03 in Baqubah, Iraq. At the time, Vanessa was a student at the University of Wisconsin - Green Bay, studying Elementary Education with an emphasis on Early Childhood. In 2005, Vanessa volunteered as a mentor at the TAPS Good Grief Camp in Washington DC. It was during those 5 days that she fell in love with the mission of TAPS & realized just how much she missed that military connection. For the next three years, Vanessa would continue to volunteer, even after taking a 2nd grade teaching position - in the same town that her father worked in for 20 years. Vanessa joined TAPS full time in 2008, moving to Fort Hood to work more closely with military families. In 2009, Vanessa helped the Army to launch it's Survivor Outreach Services (SOS) program & set up the first Regional TAPS office on a military installation, which just happened to be across from the 4ID Memorial - a wall on which her father is memorialized. Vanessa moved to Fort Bliss in 2011 with her husband, David - a soldier whom she met at Fort Hood, & began providing support to survivors there, setting up another regional TAPS office and working closely with the Fort Bliss SOS. Originally from Northwestern Wisconsin, Vanessa and her husband just bought their first home Up North & plan to raise their girls close to family.
About TAPS
The Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS) offers compassionate care to all those grieving the death of a loved one serving in our Armed Forces. Since 1994, TAPS has provided comfort and hope 24 hours a day, seven days a week through a national peer support network and connection to grief resources, all at no cost to surviving families and loved ones.
http://VeteranPodcast.com/007
Captain Sean Gobin enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1994 as an Infantry Rifleman and received his commission upon graduating from the University of Mississippi in 2001. As an Armor Officer, Sean served as a platoon commander in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003 and again in 2005. In 2011, Sean trained the Afghan National Security Forces in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. Since separating from the Marine Corps and hiking the Appalachian Trail, Sean founded the Warrior Hike “Walk Off The War” Program and completed his master’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Virginia.
Rich Moore is a former Marine and is currently a Clinical Psychologist in the United States Army. Rich is also the Co-founder and Executive Board Co-Chairman of The 6th Branch. Rich received his Doctorate degree in Clinical Psychology from Loyola University in Maryland and is also a Tillman Military Scholar. Aside from The 6th Branch, Rich is also on the Board of Directors for the Veteran Artist Program.
The 6th Branch is a nonprofit organization utilizing the leadership and organizational skills of military veterans to execute aggressive community service initiatives at the local level.
We believe that the military skill set is ideal for the initiation and organization of community projects. Our organization aims to empower veterans by utilizing the characteristics typically strengthened through military service, such as a sense of mission, a dedication to duty, and a love of country. We build community by bringing together service-mined veterans and civilians to serve our community on the home front.
Beginning her time at Code of Support Foundation as an Americorps VISTA, Jamie is now the Director of Partnerships & Integration. She directs and coordinates Code Of Support Foundation’s Warrior, Veteran & Family Support Network (WVFSN) and partner collaboration. Prior to joining the team, Jamie held positions in program development and coordination, research, advancement, and administrative support with organizations such as Siena College Academic Community Engagement, the Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies, and Interfaith Partnership for the Homeless. She has experience working in community development and engagement at both the macro and grassroots levels. Jamie holds an interdisciplinary degree with concentrations in business, communication and Spanish from Roberts Wesleyan College in Rochester, NY, and is a native of Averill Park, NY. She is honored and passionate to invest in strategies which better support the military family community.
Show Notes at http://VeteranPodcast.com/004
Maureen Stewart is the MC, Host & Workstop Producer for the DC Shootoff Video Workshop. Maureen has over 13 years of experience as a videographer, and graphic designer. She joined the Air Force in 1999, and served for 10 years. While in the Air Force she served with the 1st Combat Camera Squadron as an Aerial Videographer, documenting contingency operations around the world. She also has more than 6 years of experience as an instructor and was certified in and taught 3 courses at the Defense Information School. While serving she earned her BFA in Digital Design.
Currently she is the Chief of Publishing and Design for AIRMAN magazine, the official magazine of the United States Air Force. She also runs her own freelance graphic design business, Design Stew, where she regularly volunteers her talents to non-profit agencies in need of design work.
BR McDonald is the Founder and President of the Veteran Artist Program (VAP) and has a vocal performance degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. When 9/11 happened, BR made one of the most crucial career decisions to do something bigger than himself and chose to enlist in the US Army. He served as an Arabic Linguist and Special Operator in the Joint Special Operations Command deploying seven times to Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq for some of the toughest assignments with the most elite units in the military. After leaving the military in 2009, BR founded VAP and has now given voice to over 1000 veteran artists in 5 years. BR received his Executive MBA from Loyola University Maryland in 2013 and currently lives in Brooklyn, NY where he runs VAP full time. BR’s work has been highlighted on CNN, Fox News, ABC, BBC, MSNBC and covered by NPR, Baltimore Sun, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Christian Science Monitor and The New York Times.
Veteran Resource Podcast was created to introduce veterans to Veteran Service Organizations. There are literally thousands of VSO’s out there, each with a different mission. The one thing that they have in common is that they want to help veterans in their own way. Some might help financially, some might help emotionally, some might help with homelessness, and others might help by providing the opportunity for veterans to serve their community and help others in need. Each week Jeremy will interview a different VSO to find out what their mission is, what projects they have going on, what challenges they face, and the type of veteran that is in their wheelhouse. With thousands of VSO’s there has to be something out there for every veteran.