Scott DeLuzio 00:00:00 Thanks for tuning into the Drive On Podcast where we’re focused on giving hope and strength to the entire military community. Whether you’re a veteran, active duty guard, reserve, or family member, this podcast will share inspirational stories and resources that are useful to you. I’m your host, Scott DeLuzio, and now let’s get on with the show. Welcome back to the Drive On Podcast. Today, my guest is Bob Bryant. Bob is the chief technology officer for Mission K9 Rescue, an animal welfare group that’s dedicated to saving the lives of retired American working dogs. He’s here today to talk a little bit about the organization and what we can do to help support the organization and how these dogs can help us in our return back to civilian life. Welcome to the show, Bob, I’m glad to have you on,
Bob Bryant 00:00:52 Thank you, Scott. Appreciate being included in the podcast today. It’s always a pleasure.
Scott DeLuzio 00:00:57 When I first found out about Mission Canine, it really opened up my eyes to the world that these dogs, these working dogs have to experience after their services end, when they’ve kind of exceeded their useful life in their occupation, whatever it happens to be. I never really thought much of what happens to these dogs after the fact, but that’s really what Mission Canine is all about. Would you be able to tell us first off how you got involved with Mission Canine, but also, what mission canine is all about?
Bob Bryant 00:01:34 All right. My involvement with the working dog world came totally by accident. I had no intention of working with dogs. If you’d have told me 10 years ago, I’d be bringing home dogs from around the world. I would’ve told you were patently insane. However, life has a way of doing things. I work in the business of credit card processing. I provide merchant services primarily for e-commerce, companies, and as a service, and a way to give back to nonprofits, I occasionally would speak to organizations that did an interesting work and say, Hey, promote an offer to your followers. If they accept it, I’ll pay you 50% of the residual income from the accounts for life. Well, this was attractive to them because it was so money-saving for their fans and it would provide them income and they agreed to do it.
Bob Bryant 00:02:29 We’re the predecessors of what is now the mission. Can I rescue another organization that helped bring military working dogs home when they retired? However, the organization did not understand that it was necessary to spend money to get money just unfortunately capitalism works in the nonprofit world as well. You have to do some advertising to people outside of your realm to gain new donors. She was like, no, not gonna spend any money. As a result, the organization failed. My current partners, Kristen Maer and Louis Kaner were involved in this and they reached out and they said, we don’t wanna stop this work. We love what we’re doing. Will you help us build a new organization? I’d been watching what was happening with them for almost a year when this happened. I didn’t even have to think about it. I said, yes. Here we are 10 years, almost 10 years later. Now, it’s been quite a ride. We’ve gained an incredible amount of good, good supporters and can always use more. I’ll let you direct me a little further about what I probably didn’t just tell you
Bob Bryant 00:03:47 I get the one-track mind sometimes.
Scott De...
