- [Narrator] Funding for this edition of One-On-One with Steve Adubato has been provided by RWJBarnabas Health.

Let’s be healthy together.

The New Jersey Economic Development Authority.

Johnson & Johnson.

PSE&G.

Powering progress.

The North Ward Center.

New Jersey’s Clean Energy program.

Lighting the way to a clean energy future.

The Russell Berrie Foundation.

Making a difference.

The Adler Aphasia Center.

And by EJI, Excellence in Medicine Awards.

A New Jersey health foundation program.

Promotional support provided by The New Jersey Business & Industry Association.

And by ROI-NJ.

Informing and connecting businesses in New Jersey.

- This is One-On-One.

- I'm an equal American just like you are.

- The way we change Presidents in this country is by voting.

- A quartet is already a jawn, it’s just The New Jawn.

- January 6th was not some sort of violent, crazy outlier.

- I don't care how good you are or how good you think you are, there is always something to learn.

- I mean what other country sends comedians over to embedded military to make them feel better.

- People call me 'cause they feel nobody's paying attention.

_ It’s not all about memorizing and getting information, it’s what you do with that information.

- (slowly) Start talking right now.

- That's a good question, high five.

(upbeat music) - Hi, everyone, Steve Adubato.

We kick off the program with a compelling, important conversation with Colonel Jeff Cantor, retired Army colonel and chief executive officer of New Jersey Veterans Chamber of Commerce.

Colonel, good to see you.

- Great to see you, Steve.

Great to be here with you.

- Website's up, tell everyone what the Veterans Chamber of Commerce is.

- Yeah, so we started this back in 2018 to really provide economic opportunities for veterans.

There's a lot of resources available for the surviving part of veteran care, but not so much in the thriving part.

So that's why we established the Veterans Chamber and got traction with the state of New Jersey to try and really produce more economic development opportunities for the veterans community.

- You came to our attention through our mutual friend, John Pearson, Jonathan Pearson.

And when John was talking to us about you, one of the things he said is that your commitment to veterans, and again, thank you for your service, Colonel.

- Thanks.

- Your commitment to veterans, particularly helping veterans get into businesses and start their own business, become entrepreneurs, is so important because it's this massive gap between the rhetoric, "Thank you for your service, we appreciate it," and the actions of actually making a difference for folks.

Why is this so passionate for you?

- Yeah, Steve, you wrote a book on leadership and you know how important it is to lead from the front.

And as a leader in the military, you never really stop providing a way forward for your troops.

So in this role, in this capacity, I continue to lead to try and help others establish themselves and create a bigger economic piece of the pie for the veterans community and military spouses.

It's really, really important.

I think it's vital that we get the state to enforce the set-aside laws that's been in place since 2015 to provide a way forward for the veterans community and-- - Hold on, Colonel, take a step back.

- Yeah.

- Make it clear that the state of New Jersey has specific set-aside laws.

What exactly does it say the state is supposed to do?

Then we'll talk about what the state actually does.

Please, Colonel.

- Absolutely.

So in 2015, the state of New Jersey passed a law stating that they are to set aside 3% of all state contracts for disabled veteran-owned businesses.

Initially, the state never enforced the law, and then under Governor Murphy's tenure, we got the state to provide some sort of enforcement on it to work towards 3% set aside for state contracts.

- Yeah, but we're not close.

- Yeah, it's an unfortunate situation.

We're not close at all.

So the state first tracked the data in 2021.

And in 2021, the state provided 0.53% set-asides for disabled veteran-owned businesses.

That's roughly $21 million in contracts.

In 2022, that number jumped up to $54 million, or roughly .9% of state contracts.

So nowhere near the 3%.

And if you compare that to New York State, New York State currently awards 374 million in contracts to disabled veteran-owned businesses, close to 6%.

So we're far behind our neighbors.

We really need to do a better job at enforcing this law and providing economic opportunities for veterans in our state.

- Colone, help us understand this in a way that only you and those who served and choose to, well, they don't choose to transition, you have to transition.

If you don't, we know what happens, and the suicide rates are what they are.

There are veterans who are homeless, right?

But I often wonder, and you're obviously, Colonel, in a unique position to respond to this, how incredibly difficult is it to transition from a military life, a way of life, to civilian slash business life?

I mean, I grew up in this, I didn't know anything else.

I can't even imagine what that transition is like.

Please, Colonel.

- Yeah, Steve, you raise a very, very important point.

Transitioning outta the military is one of the most difficult things you could do because you're going for something that you totally understand, a way of life that you've lived for years, now you're trying something completely new and different, and don't know anything about the way forward.

So when veterans come out of the military and they wanna establish a business, A, they don't have the networks that their non-veteran counterparts have, and B, they don't have access to capital like their non-veteran counterparts have.

So it's been very, very tumultuous in transitioning from the military to entrepreneurship.

What we've been trying to do is establish entrepreneurship training programs, establish networks for veterans so that they can meet buyers and supply diversity folks from various agencies, both in the public and private sectors.

And we also have access to capital events with banks and CDFIs to provide a way forward for funding their businesses.

But it has been a very difficult transition, to your point.

- I also wanna make clear that the colonel, that Jeff and his colleagues at the chamber are part of New Jersey Diverse Business Advisory Council, other chambers of commerce, the African American Chamber of Commerce, the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

I'm always curious about this, you're a nonprofit, we're a nonprofit.

We work way more than half the time raising money to be able to do this.

Where does your money come from?

- So our money comes from the generosity of private sector entities, like Horizon, Blue Cross Blue Shield, like Johnson & Johnson, like Provident Bank, like TD Bank.

They've stepped up and provided needed resources to our chamber, and there are multiple agencies and entities that have stepped up.

Additionally, in 2022, we got a grant from the state of New Jersey to provide outreach and support for the veterans business community, which was great, it was a one-time grant, which significantly helped out with veterans outreach and programming for veterans.

So it's a constant effort to try and raise funds.

We're always trying to do that.

Not only that, we have the Veterans Foundation of America, which is our foundation, and we provide support for like mental health resilience training, which is really important, outdoor therapy programs, to try and help veterans on a medical, healthcare and mental health basis.

- PS, the website is up.

If people want to contribute, there's a way to do it on the website.

And last question, for those of us who want to support veteran-owned businesses, support veterans, how the heck would we know that a business is a veteran-owned business?

- That's a great question.

So there is a certification process in the state of New Jersey and with the federal government, and there are lists that are out there.

But the best thing to do is just contact the Veterans Chamber.

Besides contacting the Veterans Chamber, there's also a portal, warriorportal.com, which will house sites for veteran businesses to let them know that there are veteran business out there.

There's also the NJ Savvy Program, which is run by the Department of Treasury in the state of New Jersey.

And you can download all the lists of veteran-owned businesses, disabled veteran-owned businesses, African American-owned businesses, Hispanic-owned businesses, LGBTQ-owned businesses, so that you can reach directly out to them.

- Colonel, thank you for the work you're doing, and once again, thank you for your service.

We appreciate it, Colonel Jeff Cantor.

Thank you, Jeff.

- Thank you, Steve.

- You got it.

Stay with us, we'll be right back.

- [Narrator] To watch more One on One with Steve Adubato find us online and follow us on Social media.

- We're now joined by Frank Preston, President and CEO of ACI Medical and Dental School.

Frank, good to see you.

- As well, Steve, thank you.

- Is it your 20th anniversary?

- It is, Steve, yes.

20 years this year.

- Congratulations.

Tell everyone what the school is, because this is all about vocational education outside of what people think may be the only way, going to traditional college, it ain't.

Please.

- ACI Medical and Dental School, as you said, started 20 years ago and we have two programs that we really specialized in.

We're an accredited by middle stage colleges and schools and our two programs is Medical Assistant with Phlebotomy, EKG, and Patient Care and our Dental Assistant with Radiology Licensing.

Both of those programs are accelerating and within four months, you're starting your internship and, or your employment.

- I love it.

By the way, to the English teachers who write to me, send me emails, text messages, "Hey, Steve, ain't was not appropriate."

I did that on purpose.

I know it's not, I just wanna clarify that.

So do this for us.

Vocational education.

There are some people like Gary Vaynerchuk.

I don't know if people have watched Gary Vaynerchuk, who is a social media maven, if you will, who's been on with us many times who has said, "Traditional college is not for everyone and there are other ways to succeed in life professionally."

And he talks a lot about vocational education.

Question, is vocational slash technical education, Frank, becoming bigger and more important than ever before?

And if so, why?

- Yes, I do feel it's becoming bigger and more validated than any time in the past.

A vocational education is a pathway, or at least in the medical and dental profession, you know, within four and a half weeks, like we've talked about, 14 weeks or three and a half months, 14 weeks, people are able to get the clinical and that didactic skillset that they need to be able to be successful on the front line.

Many of our students, after they complete that and are working in the medical or hospitals or dental practices, are going on to nursing, they're going on to become physician's assistants.

They're going on to become hygienists, but they're getting a jumpstart and they're working within their profession while they pursue the pathway to continual education.

Nothing wrong with just being a professional medical assistant or a dental assistant, but it becomes a pathway.

You don't have to go right to a four year program to get what you need to be able to start a career.

And so you can stop at any point, but at the end of the day, it's a professional career that is in demand.

- Frank, how did you find yourself into this role and into this field?

- Great question.

My mother and father always told us, whatever you're good at, just keep doing it.

I was a special education teacher at a college and a school principal, and I found myself back in New Jersey 22 years ago and found the need for short-term quality post-secondary education.

So I got an opportunity to open that door and start ACI Medical and Dental School and since then, it's been a work in progress, being accredited by middle states college and schools.

We have an advisory board, so Hackensack, RWJ, Center State, many, many smaller practices, larger practices sit on our advisory board and they come and do presentations to our students before they complete their didactic and clinical on campus.

And they're offering employment opportunities right away so that they know where they're going and they know who they're receiving once they complete their didactic on campus.

- You know Frank, something you're saying is, one of the things you're saying that's particularly interesting to me.

So, we're fortunate.

We have... Several of our kids who are in college, one who's graduated, my first son, and out working gainfully, but I was talking to our older son, my wife and I, our son Nick, and he's trying to figure out, he's graduated with a degree in Philosophy and a great hardworking student and proud of him, but I also know that as he is graduating in May of 2025, and I know that I'd speak for millions of parents whose kids may have done well in school, were like, "Okay, now what?"

Meaning, he's trying to figure it out like everyone else, but it's not a career.

It hasn't been a career advancement path where it's particularly clear where he is going, and my point is this, how often do you see people who've done well academically in a more traditional four-year school who have absolutely no idea what they're gonna do?

- Steve, that's a great question.

Our school has many, many students to have a four-year college degree, that has a two-year college degree or have attempted the four and two, but weren't successful.

So our population is really made up of all types of students in the population.

We have people here that are in health sciences going to Rutgers full-time, Monmouth University and other schools.

They find themselves coming to our school fourth semester to get the didactic, the clinical, and the terminology, anatomy, their physiology and cardio and then start working in the hospitals or local practices while they're continuing their four-year degree and they're finding themselves in a position sometimes where they're getting tuition reimbursement while they're in the hospital or while they're practicing the skillset that they're receiving from us and then continuing their path into nursing.

So it doesn't have to be that just the non-traditional students, we have empty-nesters, recently divorced people.

People who are on their third and fourth career.

One of the things I have found over the years and been validated, that healthcare is not age-discriminatory in any way.

They really prefer more mature women and men who have had their children, who have done different things that can relate to the patient experience and that's what they're training.

At the end of the day, our graduates and the people who are hiring them are for the skill sets and the medical and dental, but they really are hiring 'em to represent their practices and their hospitals, to enhance the patient experience.

So those soft skills are taught at ACI Medical and Dental School, on how to have those interpersonal skills, problem solving and multitasking, to optimize those outcomes.

- Wait a minute, did you just say Frank, that people who spend most of their day on a phone may not know how to interact interpersonally with people?

Are you saying such a controversial thing?

(Steve laughing) It's just a fact.

Hey, last, before I let you go, use shortage of certain kinds of healthcare professionals, your students, your school and your students are helping to fill that gap?

- Yes, absolutely.

Yes.

- Nursing shortage.

What other field has a significant shortage?

Physician shortages outside of where you are.

We talked to a lot of folks in the medical education community.

Is there another field, before I let you go, Frank, that is clearly there's a shortage and we need more folks there?

- It's, well, the patient care techs, and medical assistants that come to our school and they receive up to four national credentials and that's again, patient care tech, phlebotomy tech, EKG tech and certified medical assistance.

So those credentials, there's a shortage of graduates out there to feed the frontline and that's why the RWJs and the Hackensacks and Family First urgent cares, they're coming to present to our students before they complete their didactic and clinical and hiring them on the spot so that they know where they're going, they know who they're receiving.

There is a shortage.

- Frank Preston, President and CEO of ACI Medical and Dental School, celebrating their 20th anniversary.

Frank, thank you so much for joining us.

We appreciate it.

- You're so welcome, Steve.

Nice talking with you.

- You got it.

Stay with us, we'll be right back.

- [Narrator] To watch more One on One with Steve Adubato find us online and follow us on Social media.

- Welcome back folks.

We have an important conversation with a terrific leader in the world of organ and tissue donation.

Kelly Bonventre is Assistant Director of Community Services at the New Jersey Sharing Network, our partners in the initiative to create greater public awareness around organ and tissue donation.

Kelly, how you doing today?

- I'm doing great, Steve.

Thank you so, so much for having me here today.

You are such a huge friend of donation, and we're so thankful for your support and our relationship.

- Well, we all are trying to do the best we can to create, as I said, greater public awareness.

It's about ten years that you've been with the Sharing Network.

Describe your role, A and B, why you got into this and you're so passionate about it?

- I would be happy to.

So, yes, I am approaching my ten-year anniversary, and this is my third role with the Sharing Network.

I served on our foundation for a few years, and then I actually served as a hospital services manager on the front lines of donation so I could learn more about the clinical process, be involved in the actual donation approaches with our donor families, supporting our clinical team, supporting our donor families.

So I could really, it was a huge learning opportunity for me and I could really bring that knowledge back and then serve in the role that I am now serving in as the Assistant Director of Community Services, in which I oversee our public education team and our communications team.

And that really speaks to my heart, because I know and value how important that piece is to the donation process.

If we don't educate our public, and if people don't know about the Sharing Network and we don't dispel the myth and misconceptions about organ and tissue donation, we're not gonna be able to do the work that we do and save more lives.

So that really feeds my soul, and I became involved in organ and tissue donation because I read a poem when I was 19 years old called "To Remember Me."

- I got it in front of me.

- Yes.

- "To Remember Me"?

- Yeah.

- Robert N. Test wrote this.

You were 19 years of age?

- Yes I was.

- What was it about this poem that triggered for you to make an important decision in your life?

- It just touched my heart in such a deep place that it moved me to go to the Motor Vehicle the very next day and register to be an organ donor.

And it made me want to do this work.

To me, it showcased what donation makes possible, and it put donation in such a beautiful light that I had never even thought about or considered.

And once I read those words on the page, it's got me to where I am today.

I still use that poem in my programs.

It sits on my dresser at home in a frame.

It was just something that, to me, captured the essence of what donation makes possible.

- Do you mind if I just read a section?

there's so many sections of this poem that got my attention.

Robert Test writes in this poem "To Remember Me," "Give my blood to a teenager who has been pulled from the wreckage of his car so he might live to see his grandchildren play.

Give my kidneys to one who depends on a machine to exist from week to week.

Give my bones, every muscle, every fiber, every nerve in my body, and find a way to make crippled children walk."

Why does that still get to you?

- It still does, and I think it always will because we can do something to help those people.

I just feel that this was my calling, this was my passion, and I am blessed to do this work every day knowing the difference that it makes in other people's lives.

Not just the recipients, but also to the donor families.

Donation is a gift to our donor families as well as it is to our recipients.

And instead of having this horrible loss to mourn because they have lost a loved one, they now have these beautiful lives to celebrate that their loved one made possible.

So it really is such a win-win on both sides, and it is what beats my soul every day to be able to do this work.

- Yeah our website's coming up right now steveadubato.org Check out the interviews that my colleague Jacqui Tricarico has done at the Sharing Network the 5K.

It's a great event.

Everyone comes together to participate, not just in that competition.

It's not a competition, it's an event to raise money for organ tissue donation.

Check out those interviews that we've done.

Hey, Kelly, tell us what Give Back Beyond the Yes is.

What is that program?

- So we really want to establish our presence in our communities, and we're always asking for something, right?

We're asking people to listen to us, to be educated about donation.

At the bedside, we are asking people to say yes to donation.

So we want to give back to the community that we're asking so much from.

So we give back in a multitude of ways.

Our public education programs are really a big focus of what we do in the public, and hoping to give back in a way that if people are educated about donation, they are more apt to say yes when asked the question.

And then we do three Live Healthy & Move events that are planned for August.

We have one in Paterson, we have one in Plainfield, and we have one in Newark.

And those events are designed to reach our communities of color to give back to them, to help them understand the importance of living healthy lives, to hopefully get them up and moving, like live.

So we have the Zumba team that comes, we have a double Dutch team that comes, showing that exercise can be fun.

We do a hospital screenings at those sites.

We have our hospital partners there, screening for blood pressure.

We have the National Kidney Foundation there with us.

A lot of our partners are there to give back to that community.

We have a community garden there that gives out fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as our team there with our information.

And one of the highlights of those events is we do over the summer at the Sharing Network headquarters with our staff a school supply drive, where we are collecting school supplies from kindergarten through- - It's terrific.

- 12th grade.

And we give out those supplies at those events.

- All right, before I let you go, one to ten, your passion for the work you do at the New Jersey Sharing Network is a what?

- A ten plus plus plus.

- That'll work.

And Kelly, keep doing what you're doing with your colleagues at the New Jersey Sharing Network.

Kelly, I want to thank you so much for joining us.

We appreciate it.

April is, in fact, Donate Life Month.

I'm Steve Adubato, thank you so much for joining us.

We'll see you next time.

- [Narrator] One-On-One with Steve Adubato is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Funding has been provided by RWJBarnabas Health.

Let’s be healthy together.

The New Jersey Economic Development Authority.

Johnson & Johnson.

PSE&G.

The North Ward Center.

New Jersey’s Clean Energy program.

The Russell Berrie Foundation.

The Adler Aphasia Center.

And by EJI, Excellence in Medicine Awards.

Promotional support provided by The New Jersey Business & Industry Association.

And by ROI-NJ.

- The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities offers programs to help New Jersey residents save money and energy so we can all participate in making a cleaner and healthier New Jersey.

Our Free Comfort Partners program helps income qualified residents create a more comfortable home with energy efficient upgrades, which can help reduce your bills.

And our community solar program can help you save on your utility bills, even if you don't have an appropriate roof for solar.

Learn more at NJ.gov/BPU.