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You're going to find this interview that we do today interesting because for the longest time it's been
just a few days, she's next to impossible to get somebody from the Detroit Medical Center to talk to veterans radio
and reach out to veterans in general.
And as a result, you kind of felt that, ah, somebody's hiding the ball and in fact there have been VA offices
and Inspector General reports.
The past director had all kinds of problems.
The past medical director had all kinds of problems.
We get to talk to the new director who's a breath of fresh air.
We want to welcome to Veterans Radio today Chris Colley.
He is the CEO of the VA Detroit Medical Center and recently appointed this year and he's got a lot of great background.
We're going to talk about it and some new ideas and just helps shed some light on the John Dingell VA Medical Center in Detroit.
Director Colley, welcome to Veterans Radio.
Well, hello Jim. Thanks for having me.
I'm excited to be able to get the exciting news out what the Detroit VA is bringing these days.
Well, let's set this up first by, I'll explain a little bit, but then I'm going to ask you to add to it.
Director Colley did his undergraduate work at the University of Illinois.
He obtained a master's in healthcare administration.
He is a fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives.
You've been with VA for 24 or 25 years.
You've had various leadership roles and headed up different medical centers.
Round out your background a little bit. This is clearly a passion of yours. It's your professional career.
Tell us what puts you in a great spot to be the CEO of the VA Detroit Medical Center.
All right. Well, I'll tell you my story coming into the VA.
Right, graduated from the University of Illinois. I've got a degree in kinesiology.
I had plans to become an athletic trainer for the Chicago Bears. Yes, I said it.
I am very impressed with the Lions, by the way, and am following them.
But I had plans to do that when I graduated, waiting on the next semester to come around in the fall to get my master's degree in physical therapy.
I went back home and there was an article in the newspaper that the local VA was hiring kinesiotherapists.
And I said, what? Don't know what that is, but I have a degree in it. I'm not doing anything this summer. I'll go check that out.
So I started at the VA in Danville, Illinois as a student trainee kinesiotherapist and just figured I'm just biding my time for the summer.
And, you know, I really enjoyed working with the veterans, but I will tell you, one particular day I was working with a veteran and he had a speech impediment.
I couldn't understand what he was saying. He was permanently in a wheelchair. He kept, you know, using his motions with his hands like he was chopping at his knees.
I didn't know what that was. And I asked the nurses later, I said, hey, you know, what's this guy's story? Why does he keep doing that?
Does he have pain in his knees? Something I need to know? And they said, well, no, he's a baton deathmark survivor.
Oh boy. I'll tell you, Jim, it stopped me in my tracks. Maybe I was naive Midwest kid.
And I, you know, read about, you know, baton death march and I went back and did a little research and studied it.
And I tell you, my respect just went through the roof. I said, how am I, what honor do I have of treating this guy who went through so much?
And they talked about, right, so he's chopping at his knees because his knees were broken as he was on that march and he survived.
And I just said, wow, I get it. I want to be an athletic trainer for Chicago Bears. Okay. But holy cow, this mission is cool.
And I know you said, yeah, I had a 25 years service actually 28. That was 28 years ago.
Wow.
Never left the VA. I, you know, I am not a veteran. I didn't serve. And that's when I said, this is, this is how I'm going to serve.
It's how I'm going to serve my country. I'm going to serve the veterans and I've been with it ever since and it is an absolute passion and honor to do that.
Well, you've certainly, yeah, if you risen through the ranks and before your current stop at the CEO in Detroit, you were the executive director of the lead of Lutz VA Medical Center in Saginaw, Michigan.
Again, a long, a long way from being a summer intern.
And that it is right. So coming out of being a summer intern and just knowing I wanted to do more for the veterans, there were, there were some legislation, some laws that were being passed back in the day that I whole hardly agreed with, but I'm just going to be honest with you.
I, I didn't feel that leadership was doing it correctly.
I just had this inkling, yes, this naive kid out of Illinois that I felt that I could do a little bit better.
And so that, that was my goal is to get in some type of leadership.
Not that I did not have a goal of being the CEO of a hospital at the time, but I wanted to get into some type of supervisory and really start, you know, charging folks with, you know, this is the mission.
This is servant leadership. This is how you get back. So just over time, yes, I, you know, took different jobs as a patient education coordinator, chief of prosthetics at Mountain Home, Tennessee, and then moved up to Michigan and went to Ann Arbor back in 2009 as the executive assistant to the associate director, the CEO.
And that's when I really got a taste for the C suite, what the executive leaders can do, what impact they have done only in the facility, but on the, on the veterans directly.
And that's what I really said. Now, this is really what I want to do. So, so from there, right, I, you know, advanced my degree became a fellow in American College health care executives went through a lot of leadership development trainings and was given the opportunity to be the CEO.
I was the CEO of the Ann Arbor VA and really enjoyed it. And then from there, yeah, became the CEO at the Saginaw VA medical center. Now Saginaw is in our market. It's in our Michigan market. Saginaw is a level three complexity.
It's low. They don't have any inpatient beds other than a nursing home. But what really kept tugging at me was Ann Arbor though is a 1B facility. It's a very complex facility and I missed that.
And when given the opportunity to take over Detroit, which is a one C complexity, and that's just, man, that's just Nicollin Dimes away from being a 1B facility. I really jumped at that chance.
You know, being in Michigan since 2009, working with Detroit always felt that Detroit just had felt like they had more offer. And I really felt that, you know, if given the opportunity, I think this facility can excel.
And I tell you, Jim, since I've been here, that's what I've seen. The folks here are so eager. They're anxious. They're ready to go. I mean, kind of easy for me. I don't want to say that too much, but really just letting loose of the reins, the employees here, they get it.
They get the mission.
Yeah, let's talk a little bit about the Detroit VA Medical Center. It's number of employees, number of beds. Give folks some sense in this around the country.
We're talking to give them some sense of what goes on at the Detroit VA Medical Center. And we're talking to Chris Collie, who's the CEO of that center appointed this year.
And honestly, he's appointed because, you know, there were some challenges at the Detroit Center. So, but tell us, give us that sense of what's there at the complex.
Yeah, absolutely. And you're right, Jim, there were some challenges. And we're going to be digging out of that already started a lot of things.
But the Detroit VA, like I said, is a level one C facility. So what that means to the veterans? High complexity, full tertiary facility.
So we have, you know, full emergency department, we have full surgery capacity. We have a lot of specialties that the lower level facilities don't have such as the Battle Creek and the Saginaw.
So we offer everything just about the only thing we're missing right now is cardiology. And we're working on that to add cardiology, which will increase our complexity rating.
We have about 150 beds, ranging in med surge to CLC, which is the community living center that's our nursing home. We have that on site as well.
We have ICU step down units. We have an inpatient mental health ward that has 25 beds. Now, I really want to stress that this state as a whole really is missing inpatient mental health.
It doesn't matter where you go and it doesn't need necessarily for veterans. I'm just saying the state as a whole is lacking in patient health.
And we have just increased, we were at 19 inpatient mental health beds, we have just increased to 25. And that's been very helpful for other facilities, Saginaw and Battle Creek who refer veterans over here for those services.
And how many employees work at the Detroit Medical Center?
Yeah, we've got just over 2300 and Jim, I'm going to tell you though, one year ago today, we were sitting probably at about, I don't know, 1900.
Well, that's been one of the challenges, right? You got to have appropriate staffing to do all this. And it's at 2300, what's sort of the goal? What do you need to get to to say, okay, I'm fully staffed, I can move to the next level?
Absolutely, well, I think we are right. So I think that was the goal 2300 wasn't something we just pulled out of thin air. This was a number that we looked across all services and said, What is it that you need to one, improve quality, improve access for the veterans?
We want wait times to decrease.
What is it that you need to run your service appropriately? And that was a number that we shot at and we've reached that. And we're really starting to see a turn.
Primary care, for instance, I will tell you, admittedly, our wait times in primary care are not that good. But boy, have we improved over the last couple of months. Just last month, we hired seven, seven new primary care physicians.
In one month, they came on board. That's huge. That's huge. That's huge. Yeah, that is.
That's just one area. One of the things I wanted to talk about, because I, you know, a lot of people don't realize this. But let's talk about the academic affiliations that Detroit Medical Center has, because really all around the country, these big VA medical centers are generally
associated or located, originally located and associated with that academic thought in mind. So tell us about the affiliations you have.
Yeah, so yeah, that is historically what one of the VA stands on. We're a learning organization and legislation was passed. Man, it could have been 80 years ago, for that matter, that we provide residency for new physicians.
Our academic affiliate is Wayne State University. So every year we have a rotation of residents that come in year one as they're going through their studies. They graduate to fellows.
And they get all their training here on site. They rotate through different disciplines. And yeah, you're right, across the country, I don't know that I have the exact number. Very large percent of physicians across this country at one point time walk through a VA medical center as part of their training.
Yeah, I don't remember the number exactly there, but it's something astounding, like 80% of all physicians have done some training at the VA and that's good on all fronts. And that's also true with some nursing programs. I don't know if you're affiliated with any nursing programs.
I don't recall that we have nursing programs affiliations, but I will tell you that what we do here we try to grow our own, whether it be RN, transition to practice, that we're going to be starting. So these are these are RNs that come out of school that don't have any experience.
However, we will hire them on as an RN, but they take a year to go through a transitional phase. They're mentors. They get on the job training. They have somebody a proctor with them the whole time. So after one year, they're fully ready to become an RN on their own.
But we did that within our own house.
And the point of that is, and I guess I want you to talk a little bit about this, all of this, whether it's hiring new folks or training up nurses to maybe be the full RN or being affiliated with an academic, the goal of all that is patient care and outcomes, isn't it?
Well, yeah, let's cut to the chase, right? That is it. Absolutely. We need to provide the highest quality of care for veterans and not only high quality, it's got to be timely.
And it's got to be what they need. Now, I'll tell you that the Mission Act came out and said, look, a couple of things, right? If the VA does not provide the service that you need, we'll send you to the community.
If you live 30 minutes away from primary care, we'll send you to the community. If you send, if you're 60 minutes away from specialty care, we'll send you to the community. I am absolutely fine with sending the veteran wherever they need the care.
I prefer they get the care in the VA. And that's why we're adding all of these staff so that we can improve quality. We can improve wait times.
When we talk about distance that you have to drive, let me speak to this real quick. So we have, currently we have two outpatient clinics. We have one in Pontiac and we have one in Yale.
That's not cutting it, Jim. We need to get out there, right? So I'm just going to ask you, Jim, if you lived in South Lion or something of that nature and you had to go to your primary care provider just to get your blood pressure taken and you got to fight this Detroit traffic, come all the way down here just to get your blood pressure taken and drawn.
That's old days. We can't do that anymore.
It's just a disincentive. It's a disincentive and I agree with you, the outpatient clinics and there seems to be, you know, some of this is Congress, right? Congress has got to fund these things.
They have to fund them, yes.
We also have to plan strategically and so I am excited to say at the early 2024, we're opening an outpatient clinic in Trenton in the downriver area. I'm very excited about that. That's going to have primary care, mental health and lab services and that's just to get started.
That's just to at least create a presence down there while we lease some space and then on the backside, we're going to be looking to build a new outpatient clinic and actually stand alone that belongs to us.
We're doing that. We just had a meeting two weeks ago with Selfridge Air National Guard Base creating a presence on site there as well.
We're looking at McComb County, Oakland County and Port Huron.
So Yale is too far away from Port Huron. The mission, it's 40 minutes away and you're already missing those veterans so we're going to move that closer.
So getting to bringing care closer to where the veterans are and that's our goal. We need to grow and that's what we're going to do.
We're, we've really, our number of veterans, we call them Uniques, a unique veteran, a unique social security number if you will, has been declining over the last couple of years.
And partly because we have not been flexible, this facility has not been flexible to get out there in the community, one, to recruit them.
Two, you said it, there has been some negative news coming out of the Detroit VA, but we're here to fix it, right? And getting out there, providing that high quality care.
Number one, if I had to get a message across to veterans, I'm just asking, hey, give us a chance. If you've been here before and you said, give us another chance, I will tell you, things have changed, guaranteed.
Well, and we all know in every organization, it starts at the top and they've brought you in with your set of experiences to push that change, to be a change agent.
So these are all good things to hear about. And it really is about delivering the services the veterans need for their care.
You mentioned some specialties. There are areas where your DACs and healthcare teams are really kind of especially or unique in serving veterans.
And that's why, you know, there's a lot of talk about community and care, but I've also talked to a lot of researchers who say the private sector doesn't understand military veteran issues.
That's why we have the VA system. So talk to us about some of the specialties that you have in Detroit that you're just not going to find these kind of experiences, maybe with other physician groups.
Oh, that's a good point. So one, let's talk about mental health real quick, right? So our mental health staff, our psychologists, psychiatrists, they have been trained in veterans, not disabilities, but the needs of what veterans need.
Yeah, they're health issues, yep.
Health issues, that's right. And the public sector has not been. And so we strive a lot on whether it be PTSD, whether it be other mental health issues, we really stand far and above the community in that.
So I would just say if you're a veteran and need a mental health, you may want to try the VA first. They get it. They know it. They've seen it all. And chances are they will be able to help you.
So that's the big one. Other specialties, surgery, for instance, we have really grown our surgery department here. I've got a new chief of surgery, Dr. John Paisley.
Well, this guy is a breath of fresh air. He's exciting. The staff really look up to him. He's got a vision. It's really going to take our surgery department to the next level.
And one, for instance, is plastics and hands. And we talk about orthopedics. We actually give referrals from the Ann Arbor VA.
So we do go back and forth. We send some referrals over there for some surgeries. They send folks over here for specifically plastics and hands. And that's very, very exciting that we're able to share our specialties like that.
Well, and that's what you want. You want the best care for the veteran at whichever hospital is best equipped for that. And we don't want to duplicate services because money is not unlimited in the VA system. You've got to work and cooperate together.
It's great to hear that you guys are. And one of the things that a lot of veterans have is sleep apnea or sleep problems. Is there any work that's being done there or any special work that's being done at the Detroit VA Medical Center?
Chris Colley, director, give us some insight on what's going on in that area.
Well, as a matter of fact, we have a very large research department and there's a lot of research going on specifically for sleep apnea.
Now, our new chief of research, Dr. Chaudhry, she was our chief of sleep and she's got a lot of research background. She's doing a lot of research on Gulf War veterans and sleep apnea in that arena.
Very, very impressed at what she's brought forward and what she brings to the table, not only in the research department, it's not only going to help the Detroit VA, it's going to help every VA across the country, what they're doing.
So our sleep department, though, in general, they get it.
So they know what Gulf War veterans went through, what other veterans in other areas went through, and so they can specifically tune into what their needs are.
Okay, I'm going to ask you the hard questions now. Everybody's listening going, hey, wait a minute, Jim, you're not hitting Chris with the stuff that people want to know about.
Right, what are the top three or four issues that you're working on because there were challenges that had to be overcome and that's why you're there. So what are those top issues that you're working on?
Let me put it this way, Jim. I'm going to tell you a little story and I share this with any time I get in front of veterans. You got a favorite restaurant you go to, I assume?
Absolutely.
You go there and you get a steak every time it's perfect and you go there one time and the steak is not that great.
And you figure, well, you know what, the chef's having a bad date. That's okay. It's my favorite place to go.
But you go back the next time the steak still isn't all that great and, well, the customer service wasn't all that great either.
So unfortunately, you just got to say, you know what, just something's happened here. I'm not sure what it is. I'm not going back.
So one day, Jim, you see a sign on the wall says under new management. What does that tell you?
Well, hopefully my steak will be better.
Right, right, right, right. It tells me that, you know what, somebody recognized something and a change has to be made and that's what's happening here.
So some of the things that we're working on, I will tell you, one of the issues right off the bat is customer service. Right?
So when I walked in the door the first day I was here, I talked about the all employees survey.
What does that mean? Right? People are looking at me like, are you kidding me? You're the new CEO. We've got all these issues going on.
You want to talk about a survey of the employees? Yes, I do because I want to know where the employees feel about working at the Detroit VA.
What are the issues here? Because we're not going to make change unless I know what the issues are.
And so there's been a big resounding feedback from the employees. They let their voices be known and that was great because in the past, that was not allowed.
They were not psychologically safe. They could not speak up. There's fear of reprisal. That's changing.
Now people are raising their hand and going, hey, look, I don't think this is right.
Look, I think this may harm the veteran. And I think in the past that was shied away from.
Well, now we're getting folks who are saying, look, if you don't change or if this happens, it's going to harm the veteran.
These are called close calls. We're having more close calls and then we're having adverse events.
So we're actually catching them ahead of time because people are raising their hands.
So that's psychological safety. That was a big issue. I talked about customer service. We really need to improve in that area.
I'll be honest with you. There were places where you would go and the person would, it was almost like you were bothering them when you walked up to the counter.
And we've done a lot in that area. A lot of folks have responded also and we've seen improvements in that area.
And then I talked about just that one, just overall our decrease in veterans and we really need to increase it.
This is how we get our funding. I do want to say for the veterans who are out there who are saying, hey, you know what, I don't need it.
Give it to the veterans who deserve it. Well, the reality is it's already paid for. It's already there.
But if we don't get your service, we don't bring you in. That's a unique, remember I talked about, that goes in through the big calculation in the sky, which is how we get our funding.
So I will tell you, you may not qualify for health care or being paid by the VA. You still get your care here.
If you have Blue Cross Blue Shield and maybe you're not service connected and you don't fall into one of those categories, you still get your care here, just like any other hospital.
Well, just charge your insurance company just like anybody else would. Go ahead and get that now. You may not think you need it now, but it'd be nice if you were already in the system, something or the other happened.
That's what we tell everybody that we get involved at Veterans Radio and at my full-time job. Go register. You may not qualify for health care by VA at the moment.
You may feel you don't need it, but get in the system because life changes, events change. You lose a job. You lose an insurance package, whatever it might be, but get in the system.
So registration, getting registered is a big deal and that helps as you're talking about making sure you've got enough Veteran units to justify continuing the programs.
Yeah. I will say, if you have an opportunity, go on Hospital Compare. It's a website.
This is the first time that the VA has been allowed to participate. So what this does, it's comparing all the hospitals in the community and you look up anybody and gives them a rating like a hotel star rating.
The Detroit VA is a four-star facility. The four-star facility, I want to put that out there and I'm not going to say what everybody else is.
Go ahead and do your own comparison. We do have a goal to become a five-star and we already know the areas that we're lacking to keep us from a five-star.
But being a four-star, it's pretty cool. I'm telling you.
Right. Getting that mentality across to people that, hey, don't run down our reputation. We're a four-star and we're moving to five and the employees are moving to five. That's the kind of culture change you're trying to drive, I think.
Absolutely correct. Okay. You talked customer service. You talked getting enough people through the doors and expanding the service territory. Any other issues that you go, yep, we're working on this. I want to dispel any rumor about this right now.
Oh boy. Yeah. So, well, there was a big OIG, Office of Inspector General, that came through last year and then the final report came out and, yeah, it smeared some ugly on us.
But I will tell you, if you read the report, the final report, what it says, our response to them is, you know, it says, we'll be compliant in January 2024. That's standard templated response that you have to give.
We've already replied and responded to every one of those issues. They've all been corrected. The reason we can't say they're compliant right now is we have to show sustainment.
We've got to show that six months worth of, you said you were going to do this. Oh yeah. Well, you are. You're doing it and so that's fine.
We have challenged everybody to step up, meet that challenge. I will tell you when the OIG report came out, I did not hide it, Jim. I didn't put it under my desk. I didn't sit on it, put it under a carpet.
I sent out, sent it out to every employee and we put it on our Facebook page because I want everybody to know we're not hiding behind this. We're transparent. This is the truth. This is what happened.
But it's not what's happening today and it's not what's going to happen in the future, guaranteed.
Well, that's why we have you on. That's why we have on the CEO of the VA Detroit Medical Center, the John Dingell Medical Center because we want all of our veterans to get the top care and it hurts all of us when we say, oh man, they're not living up to that expectation.
We want to hear from leadership that they're heading in this direction and they're getting the job done and Chris, I really appreciate you taking some extra time to talk to Veterans Radio today to get these messages out and we'll be back.
We'll talk to you some more in the future to see how the progress has gone and give you a chance in a forum to talk to the larger veteran population in the area.
Yeah, let's do that. Next time I'll give you an update on the Fisher House. We just broke ground last week and I'm super excited about that.
Well, we are Veterans Radio big supporters of Kate and the Fisher House team and have them on regularly so we've been following the progress and so that's going to be a great addition for the Detroit Medical Center to have that Fisher House nearby.
Chris, thanks for the time today. I really do appreciate it.
As I said, Director Crawley at the John Dingell VA Medical Center in Detroit is a breath of fresh air from what there was in the past.
We're all rooting for them because we all want our veterans to get the top care and it not depend on which medical center you go to.
It shouldn't be. There's a bad one here and a good one 60 miles away. So real good interview. We look forward to having them back on next year.
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We're going to hear now from an Army veteran who tells people that barbecue saved his life. We have veterans who are small business owners all over the country.
You need to search them out. You need to support them and help them. If you're a VSO, if you're a local post, I want to challenge you to make sure that you're using these kind of guys.
If you're a business owner or you're having a tailgater or party, again, search out veteran-owned small businesses to help them develop this business and also develop this people.
As you listen to this story, I think you'll see why we're so passionate about helping.
We want to welcome to Veterans Radio an Army veteran, Richard Werobelski, commonly known as Chubb Zee. We'll talk about that a little bit later.
Richard, welcome to Veterans Radio.
Well, thank you for having me, sir.
I'll probably call you Chubb Zee through this thing too because that's how I first met you at a barbecue festival.
We're going to get around to talking about that a little bit later.
Richard, why don't we start with why you joined the military and you served from 2006 to 2012, but you got some family history. Tell us why you joined.
I joined because I lost my dad at a young age.
Going through that, I lost my family and I knew at the time I needed something.
I was being recruited for baseball at the time and then when my dad passed on, my whole life flipped upside down.
My mom told me that the guy she was seeing was my real father, come to find out that wasn't the truth.
But at the time, I was in high school and I was really running with the wrong people and I needed an army more than they needed me at the time.
And that's what got me going into the recruitment office, doing all the testing.
And as I said, you had some family history. Talk about your grandfather a little bit.
Yeah, my grandfather, he served in Korean War and the Vietnam War as well.
So I had a little bit of history there. I had a cousin who joined the military and he's like, oh, you can't do it.
He went AWOL and things like that and he's like, you just couldn't. It's like, this is going to fuel me. People tell me I can't do something, I'm going to do it.
Yeah, I think that's like a lot of us these days. We get told, that'll never last or that won't work and you got to put the naysayers off to the side.
I think that's one of life lessons that you're passing along here.
Absolutely, same thing with this business that we started.
And when you went into the Army, tell us about what jobs you had, what was your MOS, that sort of thing.
So I was a 92 Yankee specialist. I went in as a unit supply and when opportunity came in for my unit, I did a cross MOS with 31 Bravo, which is a military police.
Well, one of those opportunities that Uncle Sam said I got for you, hey, I'm going to send you to Afghanistan.
So tell us about that rotation. When did you end up in Afghanistan? What year?
I was in Afghanistan in 2008-2009.
And you had some experiences there that kind of impacted the rest of your life, didn't you?
Yeah, and every day, it doesn't change.
During the elections in Afghanistan, I'm not going into too much details and stuff, but I was pretty injured pretty severely.
Suffered a traumatic brain injury. I had shoulder issues. I had my back and my neck is fused as well.
What we're going to focus on here is kind of the transition that the 10 or 12 years post getting out of the Army.
You were medically retired in 2012, I believe.
This is with a TBI and besides the other injuries you mentioned, you have PTSD.
And those things have affected your life over the last 10 or 11 years, 12 years.
And it's hard to work your way through all that, but you got to get on the other side.
So talk to us about some of those challenges.
The first challenge was my daughter was being born when I was being retired.
And I thank God every day because she kept me on a straight and narrow.
Every week or a month or two months go by and we're doing military ceremonies for guys who off themselves.
And I thank God every day that my kids are here and then my son was born a couple of years after.
And the family has really, is what changed me.
When I went in, you go in with a sense of, hey, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that.
And you change your whole life when your kids are born and I'm more understanding of things.
It gives you a whole new purpose in life.
And unfortunately veterans have a horrible daily suicide number.
And when you have a TBI or PTSD or other disabilities and life isn't going very well, it's easy to say,
I got no reason, no purpose to live.
But in your instance, Chubbzy, it was the kids who were in your life giving you that purpose and reason to live.
Absolutely, and my wife, who I've been married to for almost 10 years.
One of the things that we also have to realize is it's never just one hurdle to get over.
There's almost always multiple hurdles in life and they start particularly if veterans can they feel like they're stacking up on you.
And you had to face a lot of those hurdles, obviously the TBI, the PTSD, working through the VA system.
But in personal life, you were working on a house that you had a fire in.
The insurance was a problem that led to a bankruptcy.
We hit COVID.
It leads to tax issues.
I mean, it just kind of starts snowballing.
How do you stay in the game when all those problems feel like they're ganging up on you?
Well, you know, I never wanted to be wealthy.
You know, I've always wanted to give back.
You know, the same thing when I joined the military was all about giving back is finding a different purpose.
And the community has really been a touching situation for me because when COVID happened, I found purpose again.
And I was like, cool, I can't let this country be in such a turmoil.
And I wanted to show that there is humanity.
And we started up different fundraisers and stuff like that through the city.
I worked with big companies like Catamins to help donate 900 meals to our frontline workers to just show them that, hey, you know, we care.
You know, we understand what you're going through.
And, you know, with everything was so crazy at that time where people were taking these diseases home and they're willing to sacrifice their life for the job that they signed up for.
And that's the same thing we did in the military.
And I had ultimate respect for that and it started there.
And it gave me a purpose during those times I've retired from truck driving because some I shook and I didn't realize I had PTSD.
And it took me out of work for almost a year and then they came out with trial experiments to help with PTSD and they put kind of me through my blood.
And when they did that, they told me I totally lost it.
I had severe PTSD.
I needed to go get help.
And at that time I was working getting help.
I lost about a year of my life laying in bed.
And I tell people, you know, it was mental pains.
Yeah, I had some herniated disc and I had some other underlying things.
But ultimately they said it was mental pain.
I tell people to stay, you know, if you're struggling and you've seen things or, you know, you're going through a hardship, you're doing things that you don't understand.
And this is where fibromyalgia takes place as well.
It attacks your mental.
It attacks you as a depression.
And if you don't talk about it, your pains will go internal.
And if that happens, it is very hard every day to get out of that bed because the pain is so bad.
And I'm a pretty physical guy.
And I'll tell you, I was in the fetal position for some of these episodes and these pains.
And it really took me out.
Well, you had fortunately the support of your family.
You fortunately had some VA recognized care.
But you also had the support of your community.
And Chubbs is in a blue collar facility in southeast Michigan.
All good, solid working people.
And you kind of mentioned it that, you know, you joined the military to have public service.
And in COVID, you're recognizing the public service at all these first line responders and healthcare people are doing.
And you started catering meals to them.
And that kind of gets us into what you're doing now.
So talk to us how that gave you a new purpose to help those other public servants, but also gave you a lot back to the community.
Well, you know, first off, you have to be in a position to help others.
You know, I've always been told that, you know, before you can help others, you got to help yourself.
So a company was born, you know, Chubbs Smokehouse was born because not only when I make it, other people make it.
I have done numerous donations to our police, our fire, to our legion, to churches.
You know, I tried to do the best I can because in reality, this business saves my life.
It gives me a purpose.
And cooking food puts a smile.
It's a different type of service that you offer than being in the military.
Yes, it is a profitable business that has to be.
But at the same time, you see what it does to people.
And when you give back, you know, that's what helps me.
You know, I've always told my wife, you know, if I could cook for free, I would, you know, but at the end of the day, you know, we still got bills.
And I've taken on a lot more bills starting this business and still trying to pay for those mistakes and errors and things like that.
Because it's not the easiest thing to start a business.
Well, and that's one of the lessons you've got here to pass along is that, hey, here's a guy who was, you know, a truck driver, unit supply clerk, military police.
But who the heck did he think he was that he could run a business?
And you start small and you kind of build up.
Tell us about starting small and building up.
You know, after we donated 900 meals, first we had to have insurance and liability just to even donate.
And we went through all that stages.
I depleted my retirement fund because this was what I was passionate about.
It was a passion.
And then I didn't have the money to start a trailer and to go full out.
You know, I upgraded my equipment when I could.
We started in a tent and we did that for about three years.
And then in our city, you know, they passed food truck laws and it was also in turn towards me as well because some other brick and mortar thought I was taking business from them.
And it was very hard at the time.
It was hard to get meats.
Meats were very costly.
Still are.
That hasn't changed.
But we started in a tent.
We just went.
I got licensed every day to do those tent sales because I was always the one I told myself, you know, I'll be the one to get it.
You know, you get the guys with the smokers on the corners.
You get this guy and they're not licensed.
They haven't went through the process of doing it the right way.
And in turn, you could be sued and things like that.
So I had food insurance, I had the local health department giving me licenses on temporaries and those were very costly and expensive when we first started.
But it got me my clientele.
And that's the biggest thing in business.
Before you up your business and you want to make sure you have the right people, the place and the product.
You now have a fancy looking, beautiful eye kitchen trailer that goes to these fairs and festivals.
Let's talk about your menu.
What's on your menu that people just line up to get?
So what I am talking about lining up, oh man, what's laying barbecue and blues.
There were so many people and we try to feed as many as we can with what we got.
But I always do a chicken, pork and brisket.
And those are the main items because of now you're touching people's religions, you're touching people's appetites.
So you got a chicken and a pork and a brisket so in case someone doesn't eat something, then you have that.
Then we also have our mac and cheese for our vegans.
The mac and cheese is really good.
I can attestify to that as well as the ribs.
Yes, and then we always have a rib type on our truck.
We'll do either rib tips or we'll do our baby backs.
If we're doing dinner service and stuff, baby backs tend to do better.
But when you're at different events, you have to gauge what's going to go.
For that one event that you were at, Jim, we added turkey legs.
We did smoked turkey legs.
We call it the Chubbs Club.
The thing is like 28 to 32 ounces.
It will club you.
And one of the things too that you've learned along the way, and again this is the message to veterans who are thinking about,
I don't know if I can start a business, you start small and you grow it.
If you're passionate about it like Chubbs is, you'll find a way to grow it.
But you also found that fairs and festivals are one thing as you say, you kind of have to estimate the crowd.
Catering's a whole other thing, isn't it?
It is. It's a double business. Catering is more of a safety thing.
So you know how much you have to cook and how much.
When you go into these fairs, you never know.
You've got 100 people. They'll tell you 200 people and then only 25 people eat.
And now you're out, you know, because it's all pre-cooked foods and all your supplies.
You know, it's very hard to gauge.
So this was my very first big, big event where we paid a vendor fee as they call it to show up.
And now you're gambling.
It's a very, very mathematical equation that you need to put in.
How much food you need to have, how much you have to cook to make this amount.
So it's hard. Catering is very easy and anyone can start a catering company.
But as you say, you've got to have the clientele and part of your clientele comes out of having the trailer and the barbecue and everything.
There's two more things I want to cover before we get out of time.
One on your menu is pays homage to your mother.
Tell us about Chubb's mama on the menu.
Yeah. So my mom helped me start this business.
She was in and out of East Hospital, left and right.
And this was gave me the idea.
I fed the Garden City Hospital and she will walk around.
She goes, oh, my son's Chubb's, you know, he eats all who fed you.
And, you know, and she was a disabled person for most of her life and stuff.
And she wanted to be part of this movement and she was my cashier.
And for the longest time, you know, we worked together.
She loved it.
You know, we became so much closer than what we have with all of my family past and stuff.
And what's on when I order the Chubb's mama?
What am I getting?
And I think, again, here's a lesson for other veterans.
These businesses can pull the family together.
But what was on the menu?
So the Chubb's mama is all of her favorite foods.
So you're getting rib tips or baby back ribs in it.
You get brisket, you get chicken, you get pork,
you get two sides and we do that for $30.
So, and I tell people, you know, you can feed two people at least for that.
Well, I wish we're on radio, if you will.
You can't smell how wonderful this is.
But when he just explained what that's involved, I hope your mouth is grueling because it should be.
Now, there's one more thing I want to bring up here.
I want to challenge all veteran organizations to get out here
and do this and that is find a veteran-owned business,
a veteran-owned caterer, a veteran-owned food truck,
and help them make it by bringing them into your organization and getting them some business.
But I think we learn a lot from Chubb's by knowing the struggles that he went through
and what can be done to change it and the importance of family
and the importance of meaningful work.
So, if you get a chance, make sure this season you get out and help a veteran-owned business.
And until next time on Veterans Radio, I'm Jim Plosone and Dale Throneberry will be back next.
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