Patrick Michael Flood

My path through the Army was not particularly linear. I began in the Army Reserve after earning my commission through ROTC, and ultimately spent 26 years in uniform, 22 of them in Special Operations as a Green Beret. I served in combat in Afghanistan, where I was wounded and later awarded the Purple Heart and Bronze Star Medal for Valor. Rehabilitation became another chapter of service. I worked my way back from my injuries because I wanted to remain on active duty and continue serving. Years later, I was given command of an Army recruiting battalion in Los Angeles. We inherited an organization ranked near the bottom of the Army’s recruiting battalions and ultimately became the number-one battalion in the nation, holding that position for 16 consecutive months. That experience reinforced something I had learned throughout Special Operations: with the right people, structure, and sense of purpose, organizations can change remarkably quickly.Eventually, though, I had to make the transition every service member faces. I went through The Honor Foundation, which helped me begin translating a lifetime of military service into a civilian future, and eventually joined Andersen. There I gained firsthand exposure to mergers and acquisitions, valuation, and the mechanics of how businesses create, preserve, and transfer value. That experience brought me back to something much more personal. My father had served his country and later became a small business owner. I watched him build a business through years of work and sacrifice, and I also watched him have a bad exit. What he built did not become the enduring legacy it could have been. As I learned more about M&A and business succession, I began to understand my father’s experience as part of a much larger American problem.That realization became the foundation for Owners In Honor®. America is losing nearly 50 veteran-owned businesses every day as an aging generation of veteran entrepreneurs retires, closes, or sells, often without another veteran prepared to take the reins. At the same time, thousands of veterans leave military service each year with leadership experience, discipline, judgment, and a desire to continue serving their communities. Owners In Honor® exists to bring those two transitions together. We prepare Veterans, Service Members, and Military Families to acquire, operate, grow, and eventually exit existing small businesses, while helping veteran owners achieve the succession and legacy they have earned. For me, the mission connects my father’s experience, my own transition, and what I learned over a lifetime of service: prepare the next person to take responsibility, give them the tools to succeed, and leave something worth carrying forward.