How Team Rubicon Partners With Brands Like Under Armor, T-Mobile And Home Depot To Help Communities Across America (Part Two)

(Click on right here for Aspect One of the Interview with Jake Wood, Cofounder and CEO of Staff Rubicon, an outstanding organization that serves communities by mobilizing veterans and initially responders to carry on their assistance by leveraging their skills and encounter to enable people today put together, answer, and recover from disasters and humanitarian crises, his phenomenal book ‘Once A Warrior’, and how they partner with models like Dwelling Depot, Below Armor and T-Cell to support communities throughout The usa.)

Afdhel Aziz: Thank you for sharing that. Remember to convey to us about your book and what prompted you to generate it?

Jake Wooden: As we approached the 10-yr anniversary of Staff Rubicon, I reflected on how considerably we experienced arrive from an primary workforce of 8 and imagined it was time to share the tale of the corporation and my personalized journey in the navy and my possess transition. And as a dad to two daughters, I realized this was a tale I was likely to have to share with them in the long run.

After a Warrior is a narrative on the accurate price of war for individuals who returned home – and at a time when our state is a lot more divided than ever, I wished to share a story of hope with my fellow Individuals. My target is for visitors to walk away from this guide understanding the prospective that our military veterans returning dwelling from war have for modern society – we at the moment have over 10 million veterans throughout our communities in the U.S. that we can transform to and leverage their exclusive skills. Immediately after a risky election and a single of the most chaotic many years in the latest memory, which includes a pandemic and an historic hurricane time, quite a few Us citizens are questioning what the potential of our country retains, and I want men and women to feel our most effective days are ahead of us. 

Aziz: I inspire everybody to go through this e-book! Remember to inform us about the Team Rubicon model and what it stands for?

Wood: From the beginning we desired Team Rubicon to stand for a thing. We took a lot of pride in establishing a model that experienced angle, that was unique, and that would speak to our persons. 

We have normally thrown close to phrases like gritty and tenacious, and sought to reflect individuals attitudes in our external images and messaging. But we also wished to reflect the tenderness and selflessness that defines our volunteers – folks who are virtually traveling to communities they’ve never been to aid folks they’ve hardly ever satisfied. And I assume we have struck that stability well, because we ended up after explained to that our volunteers were being a bunch of “Compassionate badasses.” 

I thought we ended up receiving the brand name and tradition correct when I saw the initially Group Rubicon tattoo inked on a volunteer’s arm. I realized we had been receiving it proper when I observed the second, and the third, and the tenth, and the hundredth. It was at that stage that I realized we hadn’t just crafted an firm, but a way of life that described who our men and women have been. That was powerful. 

Aziz: Impressive in truth. Lastly, who are some of the models you’ve partnered with and who are some you consider would be a excellent in good shape?

Wood: At the end of the working day, we’ll hard cash anyone’s look at (perfectly, almost anyone’s), but we’ll only spouse with providers and makes that align with our society and values, and wherever there’s mutual reward. Which is not constantly simple to obtain.

An case in point of an remarkable partnership is 1 we currently have with UnderArmour. Our marriage with UnderArmour began when their founder, Kevin Plank joined us at our Hurricane Harvey reaction. Soon after our initially cellphone contact he pretty much mentioned, “I want to see your operation on the ground, like, tomorrow.” He was there the up coming day. That bias for motion has appear to outline our partnership with UA. 

Since that first partnership, we have continued to broaden our partnership with UnderArmour’s existence by way of cellular locker rooms at neighborhood operations, brand name partnerships with Dwayne Johnson and Lindsay Vonn, and ongoing support throughout equally of our companies. 

In other partnerships we have labored with mega-brands like T-Cell, who was the top sponsor of the 2017 World Sequence. In the aftermath of storms like Harvey and Hurricane Maria, which strike Puerto Rico, T-Cell wanted to do extra than just offer facts offers to baseball supporters. We partnered with them on #HR4HR, or Household Runs for Hurricane Reduction and lifted more than $2 million that drop. 

In other predicaments, the alignment is far more natural. Consider our partnership with The Home Depot.  Property Depot has a long background of partaking in disaster reduction because of their line of do the job and have also contributed hundreds of thousands and thousands of pounds to veteran leads to. So there are a great deal of reasons why The Property Depot Basis is a single of TR’s longest-standing company partnership.

At the stop of the working day, we want our associates to see us as actually that, partners—thought partners, worker useful resource partners, and promoting companions.