The Democratic front-runner for U.S. Senate, South Florida Congressman Patrick Murphy, stopped in Jacksonville Friday.
He met with a group of 10, including ex-service members who are starting businesses, people who assist veterans as well as Jacksonville City Councilman Tommy Hazouri at Downtown Jacksonville’s Bunker Lab, a nonprofit that helps vets become entrepreneurs.
Former Marine and business owner Joe Padlo said one thing he wants public officials to know is how difficult it is for veterans to come up with funding to start their own businesses.
“I don’t come from a wealthy family or have wealthy friends or know wealthy people,” he said. “I didn’t have the ability to come up with the funding on my own.”
Padlo’s company, U.S. Military Maintenance, employees combat veterans for commercial cleaning jobs. He started it a couple years ago with a credit card cash advance and a loan against the value of his home.
“(I) was basically left with, if my business fails, I fail personally,” he said.
That’s what he told Murphy Friday. The 33-year-old congressman in his second term said he recognizes not only veterans’ need for capital, but also mentorship.
“That there’s somebody there that’s done it before,” Murphy said. “That you’re not just giving x amount of money out, that you’re going to help them, that you’re going to guide them. You’re going to learn with them and make sure that they are learning from some previous mistakes that you might have made.”
John Fails, the executive director of Bunker Labs in Jacksonville, said the nonprofit doesn't have a political lean, they invite any public official who wants to learn about veteran entrepreneurship.
“The one thing that any civic leader brings to the table is connections,” Fails said. “And there’s one thing that veterans are constantly looking for, it’s someone to be connected to who’s going to side with them and back them up.
Murphy also expanded on other problems for the veteran community in Florida. He said a problem area is the lack of efficiency and slow pace of Veterans Affairs hospitals. He said no veteran should wait for medical care.
“I support a very strong VA. I think it’s critical that we have a strong VA system,” he said. “I do think that if you’re in a rural area, if there’s an extraordinarily long wait time in your area, that you should be allowed that access to go to the private sector.”
Murphy said a tremendous amount of funding goes to the VA medical facilities, yet they don’t always employ the best doctors or have the best equipment.
If elected, Murphy said he’d like to help them do a better job using technology and cut bureaucracy.
Lindsey Kilbride can be reached at lkilbride@wjct.org, 904-358-6359 or on Twitter at @lindskilbride
