Veteran’s Entrepreneur Fund Recipients 2024

Penn State Smeal program supports military veteran entrepreneurs
Posted November 11, 2024 by Anne Louise Cropp

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – In 2017, Penn State Smeal College of Business graduate Jeffrey Goldberg and his friend Matthew Vogt, a third-generation naval aviator, founded Sky Devil Wines.

Sky Devil is a boutique wine producer focused on creating high-quality, small-batch wines with a commitment to sustainability and craftsmanship. The company was founded with three goals in mind: to make a really great wine, to pay tribute to the founders’ military families and to give back.  

To honor their military ties, Goldberg and Vogt pledged to contribute a significant portion of sales to veterans and veteran-specific causes.

“The transition from military to civilian life is a period of heightened risk for suicide and substance abuse, and we as a nation owe it to our veterans to empower them to achieve stable and meaningful careers where they feel valued,” said Goldberg, whose grandfather was a U.S. Marine during World War II. “Matt and I established a fund at Penn State to help advance this cause.”

The fund, which was established in 2018, was recently moved from a different unit to Penn State Smeal after Goldberg began to engage with Smeal’s Farrell Center for Corporate Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

According to Goldberg, the fund was created to support the entrepreneurial ideas of student-veterans and alumni veterans, covering costs associated with bringing ideas to market. This may include equipment or materials needed to fabricate or design physical or virtual prototypes; fees to attend trade shows, conferences or other meetings to interact with potential clients or experts in the market; or travel costs for business meetings or to facilitate mentoring opportunities.

“The Farrell Center aligns perfectly with our vision for the fund,” Goldberg said.

The Farrell Center recently announced its first two recipients of what is now called the Sky Devil Veteran’s Entrepreneur Fund: Ryan Brown Jr., who graduated with a master’s in corporate innovation and entrepreneurship in 2021, and Raymond Kusch, a current student in Smeal’s Doctorate of Business Administration (DBA) program.

Jeanette Miller, associate clinical professor, associate director of the Farrell Center and faculty director of Smeal’s DBA program, said it has been rewarding to get to know both Brown and Kusch as students and entrepreneurs.

“I encourage students who are actively starting companies or running companies to reach out to me to talk about their ventures, because the Farrell Center has several programs to support start-ups,” Miller said.

 “What I love about the Sky Devil Veteran’s Entrepreneurs Fund is that this fund supports entrepreneurs while also offering a tangible way to thank military veterans, like Ryan and Raymond, for their service and for using their business skills to become the entrepreneurs who will play an important role in the economic cycle in Pennsylvania and beyond.”

Ryan Brown

Brown and his wife, Iman McDonnaugh-Brown, started their entrepreneurial journey with a hot sauce recipe handed down by Iman’s Trinidadian grandmother. Together, they founded We Are Wonderfully Made — a specialty hot sauce offering a range of flavor profiles, from mild to intensely spicy.

The couple spent several years perfecting their sauces and solidifying their business plan before bringing We Are Wonderfully Made to market in January 2020. But the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic just two months later forced a rapid shift in their plans.

“As a business owner, you are always looking to innovate,” Brown said.

The couple was able to pivot quickly, selling their hot sauces at farmers markets and outdoor festivals; today they’ve expanded to a growing list of retail and online locations.

Brown, who earned a degree in integrative arts (architecture focus) from Penn State in 2013, served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy for close to a decade, retiring from the military in 2023. While still on active duty, he enrolled in the Master of Management in Corporate Innovation and Entrepreneurship program through Penn State’s World Campus and said that, as a student, he drew extensively on his experience with We Are Wonderfully Made, demonstrating his passion and drive for the business with faculty and classmates while also laying a foundation for his ongoing engagement at Smeal.

“To be Smeal’s first recipient of the Sky Devil Veteran’s Entrepreneur Fund has been incredibly humbling,” Brown said.

Brown said the gift was especially meaningful because it demonstrates the value Smeal has for its students long past their graduation day.

“It shows me that the Smeal community understands our story, and they care enough about us and our success to help pave the way forward,” Brown said. “Iman and I plan to use the support to continue our growth trajectory.”

Brown said the gift will also serve as an inspiration for their personal philanthropic ambitions. “We want to be able to pay it forward to other entrepreneurs one day, too,” he said.

Raymond Kusch

Kusch’s professional journey began in the U.S. Army, where he served as an infantryman, sniper and team leader. He served for more than seven years, including a 12-month deployment to Iraq and a 6-month deployment to Afghanistan, before retiring from service for medical reasons.

Kusch said his time in the Army taught him resilience, discipline and leadership. From his first day as an Army infantryman to his current role as a business strategist and entrepreneur, he said he is propelled by a drive to empower others.

“While I could no longer serve my country as a soldier, I realized I could continue to serve in other capacities. I found that creating and sustaining meaningful employment by empowering and positively impacting the lives of others was intrinsically rewarding,” he said.

During his recovery, Kusch said he found a renewed passion for learning. He earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Michigan, Flint; an MBA and master’s in business analytics from the University of Notre Dame; and a certificate in franchise management from Georgetown University, before enrolling in Smeal’s DBA program last year.  

Early in the DBA program, Kusch (now in his second year) said he struggled to keep pace with the rigorous curriculum of the program while maintaining the professional commitments of his day job. By drawing on his background in strategy, analytics and artificial intelligence (AI), he was able to develop an AI platform to help make academic research more accessible and applicable to professionals and scholars alike.

The result: Engaged Scholar, the first public offering through his company, American Inference. Engaged Scholar provides users with AI-powered features, such as summarizing and distilling complex research findings into actionable insights, bridging the gap between academic research and industry applications.

He said the resources from the Sky Devil Veteran’s Entrepreneur Fund, which he will receive in 2025, will allow the business to develop its brand and messaging strategy and help ensure it is delivering products and services to the right people and organizations in the most effective way possible.

Miller said that Kusch is one of several military veterans enrolled in Smeal’s DBA program.

“Our veteran-students are sharp, focused and fully grasp the complexity of the research they are expected to produce in the program,” she said. “We’re excited to be in a position to provide financial resources to Raymond through the Sky Devil Veteran’s Entrepreneur Fund.”

Kusch said that while he knew Penn State had an incredible ecosystem for entrepreneurship, he was still shocked to see just how far the University would go for its students.

“This kind of proactive support from Penn State staff reinforced that I’m in the right place as an entrepreneur working to make a difference,” he said.

Donors like Goldberg and Vogt advance the University’s historic land-grant mission to serve and lead. Through philanthropy, alumni and friends are helping students to join the Penn State family and prepare for lifelong success; driving research, outreach and economic development; and increasing the University’s impact for students, families, patients and communities across the commonwealth and around the world. Learn more by visiting raise.psu.edu.

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