See a full gallery of photos from UCLA Anderson's 2017 Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans
By Carly Milne
As a captain in the U.S. Air Force for nearly eight years, Kristina Iskander became acutely aware of two things: one, many baby boomers were retiring from the work force, which meant there was a need for highly skilled and well-trained military support personnel to take their place; and two, if non-active-duty military employees with families were allowed a more flexible schedule, they could fill those open positions — and excel in the workforce in a whole new way.
“Although the military is making great strides — the U.S. Air Force has the highest percentage of females — it’s still a male-dominated profession,” Iskander says. “I want to provide more support to the military, and to the women who want to enter and remain part of this important work. Many women feel they have to choose between having children and working, and even if they choose work after children, they feel pressured to be on maternity leave for the shortest amount of time possible. I want to change that.”
Iskander, who grew up in the South and now lives in California, did her ROTC training at Boston University. She spent her military career as an acquisitions officer, where she procured weapons systems for the Air Force, and was stationed in Alabama, Mississippi and California. Iskander separated from active duty nine years ago but stayed in the same organization as a support contractor doing a similar job. However, she couldn’t let go of the concept of creating a flexible military support workplace. After reading about job sharing and compressed work weeks, and knowing someone who had a flexible job schedule in the financial services industry, she knew she was on to something. So Iskander brought her idea to UCLA Anderson’s Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities (EBV).
The concept is still in the early startup phase. Iskander’s general idea surrounds flexible work schedules for non-active-duty military support professionals in technical consulting fields, where a five-day, eight-hour-a-day work week could allow for solutions like job sharing, allowing them time to take care of personal business along with professional obligations. “By supporting the women and men who want to stay home with family, they feelmore supported, and they’re less stressed because they have options,” Iskander says, adding that attending EBV was the next most important step to make her vision a reality. “I wanted to answer the question of how to make it happen, and I really wanted a feasibility assessment. I wanted to see if it makes sense to execute my business idea.”
Enrolling in EBV turned out to be the best decision Iskander had ever made. “It was as if they distilled an MBA program to let the cream rise to the top and gave us the very best of the academic experience,” she says. Iskander felt she had access to the best professors and entrepreneurs who had the knowledge she needed to launch her business successfully. She was also thrilled to share the experience with her fellow veterans.
“Our class had great chemistry,” she says. “Everyone really got along with everyone else, and it was multi-service. I knew a lot of pilots and people from the Air Force, but until the EBV I didn’t know people in different specialties, people who had been on a submarine, dealt with artillery … and everyone was able to relate to each other easily. It was interesting to see what their lifestyle was like, and what their service was like. Plus, everyone was so motivated to go out and make their ideas happen.”
The classroom camaraderie continued off campus, where Iskander and her fellow students would meet up for coffee to further support one another on their respective business projects. Iskander also found extended support from the faculty and entrepreneurs she met through the program. “I have a support structure,” she says. “Now if I have a problem with something like an operations issue, I have someone I can call.”
Now that she’s completed the EBV, Iskander has already taken her next step of assembling a personal board of advisors and setting up her corporate structure. But the most important thing she got from the program was the knowledge that her idea can take wing.
Says Iskander, “The program truly exceeded all expectations I had for it. The program really taught us the nuts and bolts, giving us the exposure and connection to people who were accomplished in their field, giving us that can-do spirit and knowing that if you hear ‘no,’ it just means try again. A lot of people starting out think entrepreneurs are big risk takers, but it’s not willy nilly — it’s calculated and thoughtful. And that’s what we got out of this: this is your action plan, here’s what you can do, and you can actually do this if you stick with it.”
Comments