Lt. Gen. Michael Ferriter: Empowering and Supporting Veterans with the National Veterans Memorial and Museum

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Lt. Gen. Michael Ferriter
Empowering and Supporting Veterans with the National Veterans Memorial and Museum

Lieutenant General Ferriter, U.S. Army (Retired), is the founding President and CEO of the National Veterans Memorial and Museum (NVMM). Not simply a museum, NVMM seeks to honor and positively impact the lives of Veterans by sharing the Veteran experience as well as through outreach programs directly supporting Veterans and their families.

Before heading to Columbus, Ohio, Lt. Gen. Ferriter successfully supported Veterans and their families, underserved groups, students, and business leaders with his consulting firm, the Ferriter Group LLC. He has dedicated his civilian career to helping organizations and associations, and remains committed and passionate about serving Veterans, military families, and families of the Fallen.

Lt. Gen. Ferriter served 35 years in the US Army commanding Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines, and International Forces at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels all around the world and has received numerous honors and distinctions for his service.

As an added bonus, we are also joined by Jennifer Ballou, Master Sgt., U.S. Army (Retired), who is the Deputy Chief of Staff of the NVMM supporting the entire staff and all programs, and is currently building up the museum’s Resilience and Wellness program.

For more info, check out the National Veterans Memorial and Museum website and follow them on Instagram.

Organizations, Programs, and Exhibits mentioned in the episode: 

05:15  Lt. Gen. Ferriter is joining us from the National Veterans Memorial and Museum (NVMM) in Columbus, Ohio on the 4th anniversary of the museum
05:50  The NVMM tells the story of all veterans with 14 alcoves depicting the journey and steps that all service members take
06:36  Lt. Gen. Ferriter saw this role as a platform to impact lives
07:00  Jennifer Ballou is the Deputy Chief of Staff of NVMM overseeing and synchronizing all that the staff has going on and additional she is working to stand up the NVMM’s new Resilience and Wellness program
07:50  The NVMM has several programs supporting Veterans by connecting them to each other and community – Rally Point, Veteran Voices, Vetrepreneur Shop, Veteran Concierge, Resilience and Wellness
10:11  Resilience and Wellness is the newest program at NVMM and started with Brazilian Jiu Jitsu classes (sidebar: Lt. Gen. Ferriter is a black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu) and has expanded with a yoga class
11:55  The current exhibition is Identity: Exploring Veteran Narratives through Art + Music
13:30  While deployed Lt. Gen. Ferriter was working towards his black belt and Kelly was able to help him through some rotator cuff pain
13:45  The idea of focused efforts such as sport, art, or music, is that the person gets into the moment and everything else fades away
14:50  Resilience is about how you bounce back for adversity
17:08  MVP, founded by Nate Boyer and Jay Glazer empowers combat veterans and former professional athletes by connecting them after the uniform comes off
21:05  Until you go through the transition from service member to civilian, it’s hard to appreciate what that change is like
23:55  Lt. Gen. Ferriter runs through a day in the life of a General
29:30  Lt. Gen. Ferriter had to pick up some new skills when transitioning to running the museum but has built a team of experts that can teach him
30:50  Lt. Gen. Ferriter’s last role in the Army was running all the army bases – that’s 75 cities in 17 time zones with 123,000 employees and a 12 billion dollar annual budget
32:18  In the interview for his current role, he described the NVMM as “awesome but insufficient for our needs”
33:34  Lt. Gen. Ferriter is a great example of continuing to move forward
34:30  A Gold Star Family is a family that lost their service member while they were serving
35:20  Jennifer is a veteran herself and also shares her experience losing her active duty husband during his 4th combat deployment making her family a Gold Star Family
37:17  Resources for Gold Star Families
40:00  Lt. Gen. Patty Horoho and Lt. Gen. Ferriter ran a Ready and Resilience program to serve all needs of the soldier be it mental health services or just activities like sport, entertainment, etc to keep morale up
45:17  Kids these days less fit than in previous generations – which requires a period of extra time to train kids up before the actual training can start; World Health Organization Study
50:17  Veterans are really an untapped workforce which NVMM is trying to support with their Veteran Concierge service, connecting Veterans with companies that want to hire
52:05  What Lt. Gen. Ferriter and Jennifer are looking forward to
53:15  The NVMM doesn’t get a dime of federal funding, the rely on donations and memberships
55:55  Museum socials

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