“Invest in Veterans Week is an opportunity to thank the men and women who served our country and continue serving our communities as entrepreneurs and job creators,”
He added: “Across Montana, veterans are starting businesses, creating good paying jobs, and strengthening local economies. I encourage Montanans to support veteran-owned businesses in their communities this week and throughout the year.”
Proclaimed Invest in Veterans Week in Montana
FLYOVER13 VETERAN-OWNED BUSINESSES THE GOVERNOR HIGHLIGHTED
Released by the Governor's Office on March 2, 2026. Press a badge or fly over all 13. Pins sit at the town, not the street address.
2023-2026WHAT THE GOVERNOR HAS DONE FOR VETERANS
VBSIMONTANA IN THE SBA RECORD
Featured Supporters Across America
Every pin is an advocate who publicly joined National Invest In Veterans Week®. Fly over the featured supporters, filter by category or state, and add your own.
FLYOVERADVOCATE MAP
COUNTSWHO IS ON THE MAP
BY CATEGORY (PRESS TO FILTER)
TOP STATES (PRESS TO FILTER)
JOINADD YOUR SUPPORT
Fill this in and it opens a ready-to-send email to info@investinveteransweek.com. Nothing is stored or sent from this page; you press send in your own email app.
Heat Map Command Dash: where veteran businesses cluster, thin out and open up
A thermal-style map of certified veteran-owned firms with automated fly-over briefings, a live data ticker and four analysis modules. Every briefing writes its own talking points, ready to email to yourself.
COMMAND MAPTHERMAL VIEW — FLY-OVER BRIEFINGS
Choose a layer, drag to pan, Ctrl + scroll or +/- to zoom, click a pulsing hotspot, or let the fly-over brief you hotspot by hotspot. Touching the map takes control.
MODULE 1GEOSPATIAL ANALYSIS & HOTSPOT DETECTION
Clusters are found by smoothing the density grid and picking local peaks at least three cells apart, so no firm is counted in two hotspots. Gaps are land cells with fewer than three listed firms.
HOTSPOT RANKING
CLUSTER SHARE OF ALL LOCATED FIRMS
MODULE 2MARKET RESEARCH & ANALYSIS
Trends, saturation and competitor presence among certified veteran-owned firms. A location quotient (LQ) above 1 means an industry is more common there than nationally; below 1 means less common.
INDUSTRY MIX IN SELECTED HOTSPOT (AMBER TICK = NATIONAL SHARE)
FIRMS BY START YEAR (NATIONAL)
First four bars are grouped bands. Recent years lag as new firms certify.
STATE SPECIALIZATION HEAT TABLE (LQ BY INDUSTRY)
Blue = less common than nationally, amber = more common. Click a column to select that industry.
MODULE 3LOCATION INTELLIGENCE — SITE SELECTION
Rank the 36 hotspots for a new opening or partnership using the industry above. Move the weights to match your plan.
WEIGHTS
TOP SITES FOR THIS INDUSTRY
MODULE 4FOOTFALL & DEMAND ESTIMATION
Foot traffic is not measured here. The Concentration Index is a stand-in built from business concentration (how many veteran firms cluster), online presence (share listing a website) and freshness (share started since 2020).
CLUSTER SIZE vs ONLINE PRESENCE (BUBBLE = NEW-FIRM SHARE)
CONCENTRATION INDEX (0-100)
BRIEFING PACKETEMAIL THE TALKING POINTS TO YOURSELF
The packet below is built from what you selected above. Edit it freely, then send it to your own inbox, copy it, or save it as a text file. Nothing is stored or sent from this page.
State Sources: more veteran-linked businesses, kept separate
Three state and city lists found outside the SBA record, shown as counts by age and city. No business names, owners, contacts, tax IDs or street addresses appear here.
The Allied Watch Floor
A blue-force style view of the allied world, built the veteran-first way: official data, plain talk, every layer labeled, nothing hidden. Let it run like a briefing, or stop it and take the controls. Only allied and partner nations are drawn. Hostile and unknown tracks: none displayed, by design.
LEVEL 0WORLD PICTURE — ALLIED NODES & LOCAL TIMES
Moving map presentation. It tours the alliance on its own; drag, click a node, or press STOP TOUR to take over. Ctrl + scroll or +/- to zoom. Day and night are computed from the real sun position right now.
LEVEL 1RADAR IN RADAR — REGION > NATION > SYSTEM
Three radars, one inside the next, each sweeping at its own rate. The outer ring is the five alliance regions. Click one and the middle ring becomes its nations. Click a nation and the inner ring shows the VBSI systems running for it.
LEVEL 2SYSTEMS IN SYSTEMS
The whole picture as nested boxes: a mission, its systems, their subsystems, and the parts inside those. Pick any box, or let the walker move through all of them.
LEVEL 3WORLD CLOCKS — WHO IS AT THEIR DESK
Every allied node, live. The blue band is a 09:00-17:00 local workday; the amber tick is the current local time. Click a tile to select it on the map above.
LEVEL 4BLUE-FORCE MESSAGE LOG
Generated live from the clocks and the sun: local midnights, workday opens and closes, sunrises and sunsets across the alliance. No news, no rumor, just time.
LEVEL 52030 TRAFFIC PROJECTION — WHAT-IF MAP
Where allied interest in veteran business intelligence could flow by 2030 under three growth stories. Bubbles are sized by a relative index and the amber lanes run toward the VBSI hub. Press play or scrub the years.
🫡Our Team
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![A woman wearing a navy blazer with an embroidered coat of arms, gold lapel pin, and jewelry, sitting with her hands clasped, with American flags in the background.]()
President Angel Shuford
Chief Financial Officer (CFO) | Army Veteran
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![A man in a blue suit and white shirt standing in front of an American flag against a black background.]()
Retired U.S. Army First Sergeant Kevin D. Shoun
Senior Advisor | Civic Leadership and Policy Development
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![A woman with blonde hair smiling in front of an American flag and a black background with a logo that says 'National Invest in Veteran Owned Business Week.']()
Sara Pomposo
Chief Advisor | Audience Growth & Strategic Syndication
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![A man in a red shirt holding a music award trophy, standing next to a framed platinum record plaque on display, with framed posters and awards hanging on the wall behind him.]()
Jim Freeman of The Five Satins
GRAMMY Hall of Famer | Brand Ambassador
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![A man with gray hair and glasses stands behind a music stand, speaking into a microphone while using hand gestures, against a dark background.]()
Pastor Ron Henson
Social Impact Advisor | Navy Veteran
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![A man in a U.S. military uniform in front of an American flag.]()
LTC Rickey L. Pope USA, Ret.
CO-FOUNDER | Retired Army Veteran, Retired Firefighter
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![A man in a gray blazer and shirt posing with arms crossed in front of a city skyline at dusk, with buildings and a bridge reflected in the water.]()
Jeff Shuford
CO-FOUNDER | Iraq War Veteran & Military Spouse
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![Three men in a discussion in an office break room with black and white geometric wallpaper. One man with a beard, wearing glasses and a suit, is talking to a bald man wearing a black sweater, who is making a gesture with his hands. The third man with dreadlocks, dressed in a blue suit and holding papers, listens attentively.]()
Drayton Florence
CO-FOUNDER | NFL Veteran & Military Brat
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![A smiling man with glasses, wearing a green sweater over a striped collared shirt, standing with crossed arms in an office space near a window, with framed certificates on the wall behind him.]()
Erik M. Pelton & Associates, PLLC
Trademark Attorney | Veteran IP Advocate
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![A man in a green vest with a plaid shirt and bow tie standing in front of a booth labeled 'Body Aqua' at a trade show or expo.]()
CPT Sherman WIlliams, USA, Ret.
Advisor | Retired Army Veteran
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![Two men in business suits having a meeting in an office with a window showing a city view, discussing a presentation on a laptop.]()
Brandon Sugar
Legacy UX/UI Designer | Army Veteran
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![A young man with dark hair styled back, light eyes, and a light beard, wearing a blue suit and white shirt, looking at the camera.]()
Mike Bicek
Creative Director | Army Veteran
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![A small brown and black puppy sitting on a red folding chair at the beach, with sunglasses and a colorful bag in the background.]()
Private Jewel
Co-Founders Pup | Biewer Terrier
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![A smiling man wearing sunglasses and a striped white shirt.]()
Lonnell McCall I
Sr. Spokesperson | Retired Navy Veteran
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Celeste Everett
Legacy IT Consultant | Army Veteran
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![Composite image of three young men dressed as a graduate, a football player, and a young man in formal wear against a stadium background.]()
Lonnell McCall II
Jr. Spokesperson | Military Brat
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![Close-up of a young man with dark brown hair, styled back, with light eyes, a light beard, and wearing a dark shirt, standing in front of a background with horizontal lines.]()
Christopher B. Mueller
Lead Video Spokesperson | Veteran Advocate
