This Thursday, the Triangle chapter of Bunker Labs will be hosting renowned Army veteran and nonprofit founder Mike Erwin for a talk sharing his journey to entrepreneurship.

Erwin is the founder of Team Red, White & Blue (Team RWB), a Florida-headquartered nonprofit that connects veterans to leadership development programs, community groups and fitness activities. Erwin started the organization in 2010 during his time as a captain in the U.S. Army, where he served three deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Team RWB has seven chapters in North Carolina, including Wilmington, Camp Lejeune, Raleigh, Fort Bragg, the Sandhills, Charlotte and Asheville.

Erwin is also president and co-founder of The Positivity Project, a nonprofit that trains educators in schools across the U.S. on ways to teach their students positive psychology and the 24 character strengths introduced in the book ‘Character Strengths and Virtues’ by psychologists Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman.

Erwin is currently based in Pinehurst. There, he runs The Character and Leadership Center, which hosts seminars covering five areas of leadership—positive psychology, character, relationships, interactions and solitude.

According to Bunker Labs Atlantic Region Experience Director Nick Bradfield, the suggestion to have Erwin as a speaker for its monthly Bunker Brews meetup came from one of the organization’s volunteer leaders in Raleigh—U.S. Army veteran and author Marjorie K. Eastman, who thought Erwin would add value to Bunker Labs’ community.

Bradfield added that Erwin’s experience reflects his relevancy to the mission and goals of Bunker Labs. The organization has replicated Erwin’s leadership strategies through its own operations.

“Our chapters are run by volunteers who are leaders in the local markets we serve. They are the boots on the ground so to speak that know how to build communities,” Bradfield said. “We saw how well that model worked for RWB and decided to implement it at Bunker. Our leadership team worked closely with RWB on numerous occasions as we have expanded. And in many of the local markets we ream up together.”

The Bunker Brews meetup will be held February 21 from 5:30-7:30 p.m. at The Loading Dock in Raleigh.

https://wraltechwire.com/event/bunker-brews-rdu-how-to-start-a-venture-that-changes-the-world/