Veterans from the National Guard and Marine Corps Reserve have been selected for a unique paid training program that prepares candidates for careers in the financial industry.
Bancroft Capital, a Pennsylvania-based certified Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business specializing in Institutional Brokerage and Capital Markets services, announced earlier this year the 2024 incoming class for its Veteran Training Program.
“What stuck out to me about Bancroft is that its main goal with the VTP is to help service-disabled veterans get their foot in the door of the financial services industry,” said Marine veteran Jonathan Huang, a recently named candidate. “I was very ecstatic when I found out I got in.”
Former Navy Lt. Cauldon Quinn started Bancroft in 2017. He medically separated seven years prior and learned something startling: disabled veterans were unemployed at twice the national average. He wanted to both change that unemployment and underemployment landscape while also providing a meaningful pathway of restoration through the development of veterans’ skillsets.
“It’s that skillset that allows for marketing for not just one job, but many jobs that will last the life of the career,” Quinn said.
Fully funded by Bancroft Capital, the VTP aims to give service-disabled veterans like Huang — as well as first responders and military spouses — the skills to eventually work as investment bankers or institutional traders. But the program, over the cycle of approximately one year each, also gives the chance for attendees to discover what they don’t like, too.
“We had an Air Force Academy graduate who came to our program and started to grow confident; every day you could see it more and more,” Quinn recalled. “As he made it to the five-month mark of the VTP, he wound up leaving for a mission commander role in NASA. Because our program is not about Bancroft but about facilitating a pathway for disabled veterans by helping them work through the development of a skillset that can become the foundation for a career elsewhere.”
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So far, 27 people have been supported through the program, which takes place on-site and online. Though not all have graduated, Quinn feels confident that each veteran touched by the VTP leaves on better footing than before.
“The reason we do this is to help veterans,” he said. “And the people that help veterans the most are veterans.”
Former Pennsylvania National Guardsman Sgt. Patrick Doherty came across Bancroft working in public finance for another institution. He was the only former military member in his group of co-workers there, so the idea of being surrounded by veterans within the financial world intrigued him. Doherty, alongside Huang and three other veterans, made it into the VTP’s latest class after multiple interviews with Quinn.
“I plan on taking full advantage of the opportunities I was given and earned here at Bancroft,” said Doherty, who aims to be an investment banker someday. “That involves networking and being able to pass more [industry-required] licensing but also just really learning the ins and outs of the industry.”
That learning often happens in the VTP’s different phases, including academic knowledge, rotating through various aspects of the industry and an internship. Because of his previous experience, Doherty bypassed the academic portion of the VTP, while Huang is still in it.
That model of flexibility for each veteran is quite intentional, Quinn said.
“Everyone has a different set of experiences, including their medical needs and personal concerns,” he said. “We can’t force veterans, especially disabled veterans, to match the boilerplate program set forth by so many organizations.”
Huang, for example, is completing the VTP both online and in-person. His end goal is to become fully licensed and perhaps earn his MBA.
“This program has been great to showcase that service-disabled veterans still have the grit and determination to succeed in the workforce,” Huang said. “That discipline from the military never left.”
Visit the Bancroft Capital website to learn more about the Veteran Training Program.