Scott DeLuzio: [00:00:00] Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Drive On. I’m your host, Scott DeLuzio. And today my guest is Betsy Mercado. Uh, Betsy is a social entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience working with, uh, the military and veteran, uh, communities. And she serves as the co founder and executive director of Objective Zero, a non profit organization that uses technology to provide support, community, and resources to combat ve to combat, uh, veteran suicide.

Uh, Betsy is well known for her work. Uh, in this field, being a scholar of the, uh, George W. Bush Stand to Veteran, uh, leadership program and has been recognized with the Shield of Sparta Heroine of the Infantry Award. And today we’re, we’ll be talking about her work with Objective Zero and how her, uh, initiatives are making a difference in the lives of service members, veterans, and their [00:01:00] families.

Uh, before we get into all of that, though. Betsy, uh, welcome to the show. Really glad to have you here.

Betsey Mercado: Thank you so much for the opportunity. I’m looking forward to our conversation.

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, me too. Um, you know, we met, um, probably what, almost a month ago now, uh, you know, at the time of this recording anyways, uh, at the, uh, Military Influencer Conference, and we, uh, got to chat a little bit about, you know, what you do and everything. I thought it was pretty cool. And, um, you know, this show, It’s all about providing, uh, resources and opportunities and, and giving hope to people who may feel like all hope is lost.

And, um, that’s obviously not a place that we want people to be. And so, When I saw you and the app that you have and, um, the resources that are provided through it, I thought this would be a great opportunity to share it with, uh, my audience because, uh, you know, like I said, I want to get as many resources out there as possible to, to help some folks.

So, um, let’s [00:02:00] jump right in and, uh, could you share With us, what Objective Zero is? Uh, I know we talked a little bit about it just in the intro there, but, um, you know, what is it, kind of give us a background, what kind of inspired you and your team to, uh, address this issue of suicide in the military and veteran communities through, uh, through this approach?

Betsey Mercado: The Objective Zero Foundation is a tech non profit, and we’re connecting service members, veterans, their spouses, partners, families, and caregivers to on demand peer support through text, voice, and video chat, and also getting them connected to evidence based tools, training, and resources in an effort to prevent suicide.

Kind of the impetus for starting this was, it was almost about 10 years ago, uh, my husband’s still active duty army, uh, he noticed the signs that one of his former soldiers was struggling over social media, and so, uh, my husband, Chris, called his buddy, Justin, and said, Hey, you know what, what’s up? What’s going on?

Are you thinking about suicide? And Justin’s response was, had my weapon [00:03:00] been loaded the night before? We wouldn’t be talking. And so Chris and Justin spoke on the phone for over six hours and Chris asked Justin again if he was still thinking about suicide and Justin said he felt so much better that just having someone listening to him and sharing the story was, was what he needed to get through that, that, that moment of crisis.

And so thinking about that issue and knowing t...