Noob School - Episode 87: Charlie Hall of Upstate Warrior Solution

Episode Date: November 6, 2023

On this episode of Noob School, we're joined by Charlie Hall of Upstate Warrior Solution, discussing Charlie's story: his time spent at West Point, how the military changed his life, and how Upstate Warrior Solution supports veterans across the upstate. Tune in for great stories and a look into an organization with a great cause. I'm going to be sharing my secrets on all my social channels, but if you want them all at your fingertips, start with my book, Sales for Noobs: https://amzn.to/3tiaxsL Subscribe to our newsletter today: https://bit.ly/3Ned5kL #noobschool #salestraining #sales #training #entrepreneur #salestips #salesadvice

New School. All right, welcome back to Noob School. Today I've got my friend Charlie Hall. Charlie started and runs upstate warrior solutions right here in Greenville, which is the largest veteran support group in the area. And I've known Charlie long enough to know that he's worked really hard to build it up into the organization it is today being the largest and very well, run operation to take care of our veterans. So Charlie, thank you for doing what you're doing

and welcome to the podcast. Yeah, thanks for having me on today, John. Yeah, man. Well, let's go back to the closer to the beginning and we can work our way up to where we are today. But I know you went to West Point. When was that about? Roughly. Even a year before that, I was, I enlisted in the South Carolina Army National Guard my junior year of high school. Okay. My, my soccer coach in high school was actually poaching kids for the National Guard. I don't know if it was legit. I actually was a member of the Guard. My senior high school is private hall. So it started even before that. Okay. So what interested you in doing that? It was funny. My brother was always the junior ROTC kind of guy. I was more of the jock and used to make fun of him for doing military

stuff in high school and I think it was a factor of a couple things one I didn't really realize at the time but I was um had an entrepreneurial spirit did not really want to be beholden to anybody especially my parents so as I got into my you know last couple years of high school I was like whatever it is I want to do it on my own I don't want to be you know on their dime or beholden to them uh and two one of my role models was my uncle David Hall, he's actually a civil engineer here in town. He was an Army Ranger, the classic, you know, late 70s Army Ranger that got out and did great things in life. And he was just always somebody I looked up to.

So again, this was pre-9-11. You know, we're still in Cold War time. So I said, well, what better way to kind of go out and do my own thing would be the military? So, yeah, that was what led me to the Guard. and then actually had the idea of applying to West Point. Pete Selleck, who's kind of a legend in these parts, he was with Michelin at the time, but his reserve job was helping kids get into West Point in particular. So a buddy of mine, we both got the postcards for West Point in the mail,

and it said, go to Furman University for the kind of in-brief, and we did, and he said, no way hell no and I said that's actually pretty cool so that was what kind of sparked my interest interesting okay so you had a role model and then you you got to talk to Pete Pete was very helpful and so then when you went there roughly when was that yeah so 97 to 01 so again just literally two months before 9-11 was when I graduated it was a struggle the South Carolina Public School System. God bless all you teachers out there,

but I was not well prepared for the rigors of academics. Engineering, right? Yeah, pretty much everybody at most of the academies is kind of in a baseline engineering curriculum. I was an environmental engineer for a semester, and after a D and a couple engineering classes, I switched over to science, so I was able to do something a little more,

general, but the academics were very, very challenging. I did fairly well on the physical and military side, but I literally almost failed out my sophomore year. Yeah, I've heard it's very tough. So you were up there, cold in the winter. Yeah, South Carolina kid who had never been in any you know, seven degree wind chill coming off the Hudson River. So that was a wake-up call. but you know it was it was a good experience I grew up a lot I think one of the benefits of the military but also the service academies is you're thrust in this environment that you can't control you can't control who you're you know bunkmates are so you know I met kids from all over the country that I'd never had any exposure to folks that were very different from me and helped me kind of learn how to be a better person and be more well-rounded. So thankfully, I graduated, branched a combat engineer in the Army. But for the last three years of the Academy, I was dating the Marine Colonel's daughter.

The Marine Colonel's daughter. So that was another thread of, so we got the Army. 9-11 just happened Marine Corps, that's kind of an interesting outfit so more to that story. Yeah, yeah. So where did you go? Yeah, so started out in the Army

immediately got married a couple weeks after graduation at the Federal Service Academies. You're not allowed to be married there, so about half the class gets married within a month. And went to Fort Riley, Kansas as a common engineer platoon leader. And sounds a bit young and flaky, but after about a year at Fort Riley, again, 9-11, it just happened.

So the Army's reeling from how are we going to now act in this new kind of desert special operations kind of insurgency fight as opposed to fighting the Soviet hordes. As an all-wise, like 24-year-old, I called my new father-in-law who was at the Pentagon. He's a Marine Colonel. And I said, you know, what are the chances of me switching over the Marine Corps? Because Fort Riley and the Army sucks. And again, he was in a position to influence it. And within about four months, I was doing an inter-service transfer. So this is late 2002, drove the seven-month pregnant wife from Fort Riley, Kansas, directly to Quantico, reported in Aquanico, and within about a couple days, I was like, this was a mistake,

because these Marines are, they're a different breed. But buckled up for the ride, ended up having a great experience in the basic school that the Marine Corps puts all their officers through. And the Marine Corps and all of its wisdom did not make me a combat engineer. They made me a supply officer, which at the time was, somewhat of a letdown. But, you know, in the end, it worked out really well. I was assigned to a reconnaissance battalion deployed to Iraq 0405 with second reconquem battalion,

and actually ended up doing pretty much everything but supply in Iraq at the time, was able to draw on some of my combat engineering skills in a combat environment in Fallujah. So, you know, it's funny how things come full circle and things work out for good. Yeah. I love that. I love the couple of times you mentioned that something was a letdown or disappointment or something that you just kind of buckle down and just kept moving forward. I think that's a good message for the noobs out there is, you know, you just got to,

you got to buckle down and keep going. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Yeah. I don't always talk about it. it but one of my biggest you know failures coming up through the military was in a in a school that was usually pretty simple to pass and the last day of the u.s. army a assault school um i left the helicopter

early without being uh without being told to leave the helicopter and was doing great all the way into the course last day, dropped for safety reasons, and it was crushing. I was a junior at West Point, and I've been, you know, able to, you know, tell younger folks about that to say, hey, it was something that in some ways that could have, for the next couple years, changed my trajectory just because I was so dejected about it. But my dad in particular was like, hey, listen, you know, things like that happened. He told me about an experience he had that was, you know, similar in the, you know, corporate world and said, you're going to screw up, dude. Like, you're going to fail. Yeah. So how are you going to not just pull yourself up afterwards, but how are you going to learn

from it? So, you know, I look back on that and I'm like, you know, I was crushed. The world is over. Yeah. But it wasn't that big of a deal, but it really influenced kind of the way I, I, I saw myself and how I, you know, the first time I had, you know, significant failure in my life. So how much longer were you in the service after that? Yes, I did a total of five years, active duty. So basically a year in the Army and four years in the Marine Corps. Got out in 06. I had done my time.

I had married my wife who was a, you know, career Marines daughter. so she'd been pretty beat up by the military. And really at that time, 0-4-5-6, either her dad, her brother, or myself, were deployed at one point. So we made a mutual decision to get out. And I didn't know what I wanted to do when I grew up and applied for construction project manager jobs in the Carolina.

So I was pretty insistent that, Asheville would be the place for us, and this is 06 right before the recession. And my wife said, you know, there's something about Greenville, South Carolina, that's like just really cool. It seems very family friendly. I had this image that we were going to be this outdoor family, like, you know, rock climbing and camping with kids in tow, which, you know, is never really realistic up in Asheville. So Doug Harper offered me a job at Harper Construction in 06. Actually, I told Doug that I wanted his job after 20 years, which was hilarious. Whenever I see Doug, I'm like, remember I told you I wanted your job?

He's like, yep, you worked. Yeah, yeah. So Doug is, I owe a lot to Doug in the Harper Corporation. They gave me a chance right out of the Marine Corps. I didn't know much about construction. And really Harper is one of the reasons why I live in Greenville today. really grateful to them for that opportunity. It's a great company.

And how long were you with them? So I was with them for three years. So, 06, 7, construction's rocking, 08, 9 hit. I was one of the, you know, young guys in the cubicle farm

that was, you know, really, construction was hit very hard during the recession. So I had stayed in the reserves to kind of have some control over my destiny and to fulfill my eight-year contract. So I was coming up on the end of my eight years. And I asked the Marine Corps if there was anything I could do on active duty to basically

give me a little bit of a reprieve from the business world. I was willing to go to Quantico for a year if need be. They said, well, we actually have this new program with our Wounded Warrior Regiment, and we need a case manager in Greenville, South Carolina. or a case manager that could cover the Carolinas in Georgia. And I said, hey, I'm your guy. Yeah. So it was a huge blessing for my family and I because with the economy and the shape it was in,

with my career path in construction, I was able to go to the team at Harper and say, hey, I'm going to take a year. I'll be out of your hair. And I was able to do something really fulfilling. So the Marine Corps basically made me a social thing. social worker overnight. I always say they gave me a couple black polo shirts, a blackberry, which was pretty cool at the time.

Use the thumbs. 09 got the blackberry and I think like 50 cents a mile to reimburse, be reimbursed by the government. It's pretty good. And a caseload of about 100 wounded Marines and Navy corpsmen that has served with Marines over a three-state area. So I was basically asked to be their big brother. So the Marine Corps said, we want you to get in these guys' houses.

We want you to see their living environment. We want you to meet their families. And we want you to help them with whatever they need. So I saw the whole spectrum of severely wounded wheelchairs, feeding tubes to the hidden wounds of post-traumatic stress and drug issues, alcohol issues, inability to work. or folks that said they couldn't, but they could. And I was in a position to say, hey, listen, I got it, but there's a whole other life out there for you. So let's work together to get that job, to go to school,

fix your marriage, develop a community around you. So that's really what got me to the work today was the 0-8-09 recession, the Marine Corps, giving me the opportunity to go back on active duty. So I did that for five years. Never went back to Harper. Love those guys. But it was an opportunity to do something that I was really good at.

Didn't know I had a social worker bone in my body. But because I'd been in the Army and the Marine Corps, I had the ability to talk to soldiers, sailors, Marines, being from South Carolina help because I was. in some little tiny towns around the state that you know you wouldn't normally go to. Yeah. And I had a kid living in a double-eyed trailer in Barnwell, South Carolina that had gone into the military to get away. And three years later, banged up, is now back saying, hey, I'm 25, I'm now back.

What's next? Like, how do I do this? Yeah. So I had a blast doing it, and it really got me into this full-time nonprofit work. That's great. And so after five years doing that, how did you transition from there to starting upstate warriors? Yeah. Tell us how that worked, how you made that happen, how you got the initial funding and all that.

Yeah, well, so a couple of things happened. One, I started meeting people in the community that were sending me soldiers, National Guard, Air Force. So I started to see all these other folks in need that weren't wounded, Iraq and Afghanistan Marines, because that was a pretty narrow focus. So folks were saying, hey, can you help my brother-in-law who's retiring as an Army Sergeant Major get a job? Also learned about just kind of some of the gaps in services with the VA. The federal VA does an awesome job with health care,

home loans, GI Bill, disability checks. But when it comes to supporting families, when it comes to the employment path, starting your business, et cetera, that's where there's some gaps. So myself and some other veterans here in the community, Kevin McBride was at Prisma Health. Paul Howell was at the time working with Congressman Bob English. he's now with Senator Graham's office. Those two guys in particular were folks that I met and was working with, and we said, what if we started something that was very boots on the ground,

very community-based? The Marine Colonel father-in-law was retiring from the Marine Corps in 2011. It picked up his second star. He was an infantry officer on the path to probably a third star, but got out and moved to Greenville because his parents were living up in Bervard. So these are my wife's grandparents. They were living up in Bervard and he really needed to take care of them in their last years of life. So the general got out, moved into Greenville and said, hey, Kevin, Paul, Charlie, like, I can provide some top cover.

I can help develop a board. You guys are the worker bees. If we find some money, like, let's do this. let's hire some staff. So in 2012, we incorporated it, and really for our first two years, 12 and 13, we were all volunteered just trying this thing out home for size. And then in 2014, the Wounded Warrior Project

was actually developing community models around the country. So they selected five sites, Greenville being one. We were just, we arrived at the scene at the right time where they were selecting some sites and it wasn't large metro areas. Charleston was one, Pensacola, Florida, Buffalo, New York. So we had the ability to get some seed money from the Wounded Warrior Project through a group called America's Warrior Partnership down in Augusta. And really, they helped us for our first four years with grant money.

There were strings attached. We had to raise a balance of, so we basically had a set budget. So we had to bring a increasing amount of money to the table every year. And basically, as they were tapering us off from the Wounded Warrior project money, we were building up that local community support. So over about a five-year period, we became about a million-dollar nonprofit, had a staff of about 10. And here we are today, 10 years later. Yeah, and you've just moved into a beautiful building. How did you make that happen?

Yeah, so 2014, we got this grant from the Wounded Warrior Project. We hired four staff and we said, let's do a bricks and mortar. And it wouldn't have worked. We didn't have brand recognition. People didn't understand how we were different from specifically VA Wounded Warrior Project, much less some of the other nonprofits in town. So it really took about 10 years of just getting brand recognition, awareness of veterans issues. So 2019 pre-COVID, we started just looking around town for some bricks and mortar.

The key was the VA really wanted to be co-located with us. They said, hey, when you find space, let us know because we want to lease space. because the VA is starting to see the value of this kind of public-private approach. They realize they can't do it all on their own, and they realize that it really takes the village and really upstate Warriors solution is representative of that collection of village support folks. So we found 770 Pelham Road, which seemed a little big for us, 40,000 square feet. And really with some of our communities, community partners and a few of my board members, they said, hey, we think we could fill this up.

So we kicked off a capital campaign in 2021. The Hughes and Dow family kicked off the campaign with a large gift to name the building after Rupert Hughes. So that was really the catalyst for the fundraising. So we raised about $5 million over an 18-month period. And we're in the building now. So 40,000 square feet. And he called it the Rupert.

Yep. So Rupert was a telecom exec in New York City. And he really made his money flipping brownstones in Greenwich Village. And his daughter, Dorothy Dow on City Council, has lots of stories about working for her dad on the weekends, cleaning out rental properties. But in the end, it made him enough money and allowed his family. upon his passing to be very generous to his college swim team and also local veterans efforts. So he just happened to end up in Greenville because that's where they live.

His daughter and son-in-law, so they made a large gift to us. So they called him Rup, so we call the building the Rube. I think that's great. The Rube is awesome. I got the tour, I don't know, maybe a month ago. I mean, I was there early on, I guess, when you were still working on it, but I got the official tour. And I couldn't believe how many partners you've got in there now. I mean, you're talking about a village.

Must be, what, 20? Yeah, we've got about 25 partners. And that ranges from 5,000 square foot, modern real estate that is run by an Army veteran and his team of brokers down to single offices and cubicles with kind of sole practitioners, veterans that are incubating their small business. So, yeah, it's been a lot of fun. We've got a lot of different folks in the building that are all trying to work together, you know, kind of for the common purpose of helping veterans and the families. Yeah, I think that's so cool.

So cool, you've got that many different groups and people in there all trying to help veterans. It's just, it's wonderful. So anyone around here who wants a tour or see it, I highly recommend you go check out the Roupe. Any sales advice or things you learned have learned since you got out of the military about like getting people to donate money to the capital campaign or decide to lease space from you? Yeah. Any kind of dues and don't you've learned? Yes.

I mean, a few that I've kind of referenced is obviously it takes it takes. it takes time. We thought we could kind of do this inflatable bricks and mortar on day one. We realized that nobody knew who we were. So nobody was going to give us any money until we had an established brand

until we had an established track record of helping. So that was a big lesson for us is we really needed to be able to have some time just to be known. Sometimes that's a luck We had the ability to operate without having a nice bricks and mortar like the roof But we would not have been able to raise that kind of money on day one Two, you know it's about who you know it's relationships that that's been something that

tied in with that time thing just having time and having relationships where folks can vouch for us the strength of our board has been something that I didn't see the value of until this capital campaign hit and folks were like, you've had folks like David Wilkins and Smythe McKissick and Billy Webster and Lilly and Brock Fleming on your board. I'm going to be much more willing to write a check because they're behind it. So those have been a couple of things that have been really important to me to see that play out and just, you know, taking the relationships piece a little further, just classic sales, it's just learning things about people, noting them,

remembering them when you see them next, you know, actually having a good CRM, we keep all these notes in a Salesforce platform. And there's just like the basics of sales of, Yeah. Hey, met this person remembering their name, remembering their kids' names, their birthdays, what branch of service they were in, what they do, and getting in front of them and just being able to listen to them, talk about why their hearts into the veterans effort. I think in some of our early sales call with fundraising, we jump too quickly into the ask,

hey, veterans, rah, rah, we need you to write a hundred thousand dollar check. Yeah. We didn't really ever give them an opportunity to say why they loved, why they loved veterans, why they felt, you know, called to do something like that. Right. You're projecting. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I remember something you did well with me anyway, you know, right when we first met, which was at least 10 years ago.

Yeah, 10 years. But, you know, I was getting involved in a veteran support group and helping a little bit. and you contacted me, introduce yourself and said you'd like to meet and talk about how we might help each other. And you said, I'll come to your office, like to bring my father-in-law with me, you know, who knows something about the military. And so just the fact, I mean, most people would make that an email or a quick call or something. Can we work together? Can I help you? Here's what we do. I'll send you a PowerPoint.

But you didn't. You took your time. You waited until I could do it. We met. and you brought, you know, this guy. When I shook your father-in-law's hand, I felt like I was shaking hands with a chainsaw. I mean, that guy had to scare you to death when you were dating his daughter.

The chainsaw hasn't lost much of its juice after 10 years either. Well, anyway, I think that's another part of selling that you do well is like being patient and showing up and listening. You know, it's just, if you're patient, you can build anything you want, just takes time. And there was a guy here in town who's passed away now named Tommy Weich. Did you know Tommy? You knew what he did? He was... I knew of him, but I especially know his son, Brad. Yeah. Well, there's a book on Tommy called Renaissance Man that you should read. But he had all these things he accomplished, and almost all of them took an average of 30 years.

It's just amazing. So when he was 50 and 60 and even 70, some of these things came to fruition. It's kind of crazy. Anyway, I think you do great at it, and I want to ask you a few more favorite questions. Sure. I know you're looking forward to this. Let's start with a favorite song. Yeah, so always kind of been a country boy at heart. So always loved old country, but there's, you know, I'd say I was actually listening to Merle Haggard in the gym today, stretching at the roof.

So that's always a go-to. But there's a great song called Cover Me Up that a lot of folks have covered. But my 45-year-old senior moment is like now forgetting the artist. Anybody going to help me, cover me up? Cover me up. I don't know. But I do like Merle Haggard. Yeah.

He's kind of some combination between a talk and a sing. Yeah, somewhere in the middle there. But I can really go anywhere with music. I listen to rap music cutting the grass. One of my favorite jazz artists, you know, John Sterling downtown. Now we're talking. Yes. Occasionally pop up a saxophone player downtown Greenville.

Well, thank you. Thank you. You get you a CD. What about a favorite book? So again, the country boy coming out, I loved reading Louis Lomor when I was a kid. And there's a one-off Louis Ler. Lamour book called Last of the Breed. Okay.

And it's not a Western, but it's an Air Force pilot that gets shot down in the former Soviet Union. And he basically escapes out of this military prison and this like Inuit tracker tracks him across Siberia. And I read that, I read that guy probably once every five years. And my wife was like, are you reading that book you liked in high school? But loved Louis Lamour growing up. Last of the Breed. It's worth checking out. That's good. How about a favorite movie? Oh, man.

I've been, I have three teenagers, so we've been watching a lot of the old, like, 80s and 90s. Kind of classics that every kid should watch. But loved basketball growing up. I know you're a basketball player. I was not necessarily gifted, but love the movie Hoosiers. Like my brother and I watched it probably probably once a month growing up and trying to get my kids to like it like me.

They say it's too slow, but love Hoosiers, Gene Hackman. So when they ran the old picket fence? Yep. They ran the picket fence and Jimmy gets to the top of the key and hits it every time. Yeah. I love a movie like that. Rudy's also.

Yep. Got a good ending, as I recall. What about favorite word? Yeah, so I think it's a legitimate word, but it's used a lot in the military, and I use it a lot in my day job, but it's de-conflict. Deconflict. And I know actually your son, Jack, who is a J-TAC, probably used it a lot, but it's really used for, like, deconflicting airspace in the military. Okay. And I've always been trying to, like, de-conflict things at work. And I think I was in a United Way meeting a few years ago and used to.

it and they said, what does deconflict mean? It's like, well, unconflict. Deconflict things. So I don't even know if it's actually a word, but folks in the military use it a lot. Yeah. I like the word. That's good. I like to make things simpler if possible.

Well, I know I'd love to hear you do your, if you want to promote the Roupe to say how people can get involved and be helpful to what you're doing. Yeah, so 770 Pelham Road near Patewood, Highwood. hospital. Rupert Hughes Veteran Center is 40,000 square feet. We've actually got an opportunity for folks to come in and have co-working membership. So we pretty much filled the building with the offices, but we've got lots of flex space in the building. So if you're interested, whether you're a veteran or whether you're a member of the community and not a veteran, but just love the military, we've got co-working memberships available. So $2.50 a month gets you basically printer paper, Wi-Fi, bottomless coffee, you can work out in the Roupe gym.

There's another great Sterling involved with the gym. That's right. That's right. John's son Taylor is our gym coach there. So we've got co-working opportunities and would love to have folks from the Greenville community, especially if you live on the east side. That's something where it's very convenient right beside Patewood Hospital. And then secondly, if you have veterans in your life,

Please tell them about upstate warrior solution. Please ask them to come by the roof. We take walk-ins. Whether folks need anything or not, we want to get to know them, and we want to see how we can serve them and their families. So, yeah, please stop by the roof. Well, outstanding and great job so far with what you're doing. We're proud of you and thankful that you're in Greenville doing it,

and we'll maybe have you back in a year and do an update on how the metrics are coming along. Yeah, absolutely. All right. Thanks for having me on. Awesome. Thank you. Yep.