From combat to consulting
Milford native uses lessons learned in battle to open his own business
It is often true that the best business deals begin with a handshake.
Blanchard, 25, returned to his home in Milford on April 1 after a yearlong tour of duty in Iraq with the 305th Psychological Operations Company. In June, he and his two partners opened MSB Consulting in Worcester, a full-service IT consulting firm tailored for small and medium businesses.
So far, Blanchard said, business is good. MSB has already built a small client base through family connections and word-of-mouth, and is looking to open a new office in Westborough in six to 12 months.
Sharp end of the stick
As a sergeant in the Army's PsyOp unit, Blanchard was one of only 2,000 such soldiers in the entire army. He said the three-man team he commanded was responsible for most of Baghdad west of the Tigris River, an area populated by more than one million Iraqis.
Blanchard's job, he said, was to be the marketing arm for the Army, convincing citizens, Imams, and business owners that U.S. Army programs were good for them, that cooperation was not a sign of weakness and that the real enemy were the insurgents.
This was in between trying to broker surrender agreements and negotiate truces during combat operations, of course.
The transition from being at the sharp end of the stick, so to speak, of the Army's "hearts and minds" campaign in Iraq to small business consulting stateside was not as much of a stretch as one might think, Blanchard said.
Battle-tested
Blanchard's experiences in Iraq prepared him well for the difficult task of starting a business from scratch.
Because he was an enlisted soldier, and not an officer, Blanchard said he had to work hard to earn the respect and trust of his superiors, much like he works at earning that same trust from his clients.
"Ninety-nine percent of the time, I was the lowest-ranking guy in the room," he said. "That's a challenge more than a hindrance. You have to earn respect on a peer level, not just an officer/non-commissioned officer level. It's the same as a client/consultant relationship."
Blanchard said he also learned how to work in an environment with very little room for failure or error.
"As it relates to my business, I learned how to work without a net, definitely," said Blanchard.
He said he sometimes has to resist the urge to be the sergeant that he is and take command of the business away from his two partners, with whom he's been friends for years. Instead, each of them has clearly designated roles and tasks, using the strengths of each to make the business stronger. Rather like the army, in fact.
Because of his pre-war experiences working in the IT department of a large corporation in Washington, D.C., while a student at American University, Blanchard said he is the de facto COO of MSB Consulting, making sure business operations are smooth and uninterrupted.
His experiences in D.C. as a student during 9/11 and immediately afterward also helped him in his current role as the company's resident disaster recovery, data backup and monitoring specialist. He said the company he worked for at the time enlisted his help heavily in feverishly trying to protect themselves in the aftermath of Sept. 11.
For his own part, Blanchard said he walked into a local Army Reserve recruiter's office on Sept. 12, and never looked back
"War is hell," he said. "But I don't regret it for a minute."
WBJ Web Partners
Most Recent
Most Recent
0 Comments