RANDOLPH SCORE COUNSELING TEAM
TURNS A VETERAN'S BUSINESS AROUND
SCORE Counselors from Chapter 24's Randolph Branch have assisted the VA's Homeless Vets make their 3 year old Golf Driving Range a profitable enterprise.

In late 2004, Bill Baldwin, a Vietnam Vet himself, submitted an application to become a volunteer at the VA Hospital in Lyons, NJ. VA. Volunteer Services interviewed him and asked for his resume, which included his affiliation with SCORE. John Kuhn, VA Director of Homeless Services noticed Bill's business skills and his SCORE affiliation, and called to see if he would be interested in helping Veteran's Industries become more profitable, so these businesses, run by recovering Homeless Veterans, could employ more veterans to help their recovery and be less dependent upon annual budgeting. Bill said "yes" without hesitation, as he know he could count on his fellow SCORE Counselors at the Randolph Branch, all of whom are Veterans, make this happen.

Randolph Branch counselors Joe Brockman, Bill Daly and Stan Strauss met with Bill and Kurt Hanscom, Work Restoration Coordinator for the VA, as well as Bob Valentino, Marketing Director and Pro for the Golf Driving Range in March 2005. Bob is a recovered Homeless Veteran, and explained he was overwhelmed with all the business details, maintenance issues, managing the staff and giving golf lessons. The SCORE team detected organizational and financial control problems, as well as no real accounting results. Kurt agreed to add a Business Manager to the Homeless Vet team. At our next meeting Rick Nagle, also a recovered homeless vet, joined in to see where there were control problems and worked out procedures to tighten money collections, and begin to build Excel spread sheets to account for revenue and expenses. The SCORE team suggested a need to increase top line revenue growth through marketing awareness programs, like flyers and roadside "A Frame" advertisements of this all grass driving range. They worked with the new Business Manager to tighten money collections and revenue accounting. They also noticed large expense items from Rick's spreadsheets, one of which was a water leak, which wasn't discovered until June, that drove up a $200 monthly expense item to $2,000.

Throughout the 2005 golf season the SCORE team met monthly with the Golf Veteran team at the VA in Lyons. Controls got tighter, revenue increased and larger expense items got better managed. By October the Golf Range was approaching breakeven. The SCORE Team suggested a set of 5 business objectives for 2006.

The SCORE Team has continued its mentoring counseling and in the 2006 golf season, it is clear the Golf Driving Range will be profitable for the first time in its 5 years of operation. The VA Team has managed to those 5 objectives and has been an excellent client, following through to implement the SCORE Counselor's suggestions. It has truly been a wonderful partnership. Profits from this business will allow more recovering veteran workers on the job and seed financial help to other Veteran Industry Businesses such as the Foxhole Café and Catering. The SCORE Counselors feel as if their time and efforts have made a real difference.