BTM31-The Monthly Housing Allowance Gap Initiative
Show Summary
On this episode, we feature the Monthly Housing Allowance Gap Initiative with veteran and military spouse Becky Scheusner and business owner Suzanne Novak.
About Today’s Guest
Becky Scheusner is a multi-faceted professional leading with an altruistic mission to do the most good for the most people.
Primarily Becky works in Business Development for WWC Global - a small, Women-owned government contracting firm based in Tampa that specializes in providing practical, innovative, and budget-conscious business solutions to the government.
Becky has also served in several volunteer roles focused on the military-affiliated community including Lead for the Hampton Roads Military Spouse Professional Network - winning the Hiring Our Heroes 2020 Network of the Year award - as well as founding the MHA Gap Initiative.
Prior to that, Becky served 11 years in the U.S. Navy as a Musician and in 2018, she earned her BA in Urban Studies from Brown University. She finds great fulfilment in raising her two boys, gardening, and making meaningful connections!
Ms. Suzanne Novak, President, ERUdyne Inc has extensive real-world emergency management and disaster response/recovery experience, working with all levels of the government (Federal, Tribal, State and Local) as well as Private Sector. She applies this knowledge and experience when developing training courses and emergency management exercises for her clients. Ms. Novak has served as the Private Sector Subject Matter Expert on numerous National Level Exercises including NLE 2011, Capstone 2014, and NLE 2018. Additionally, she has provided support to numerous other regional and state exercises in multiple roles. Her company ERUdyne, also develops exercises and training geared towards Senior Leaders responding to crisis management situations. In 2018 during a real-world response, she led a team of Rapid Responders
dispatched to Puerto Rico to support a client responding to Hurricane Maria. Ms. Novak led the operation from ERUdyne’s Business Resilience Center in Kilmarnock VA. Ms. Novak sent the team to Puerto Rico with enhanced technology capabilities to support the client which included drones, satellite communications, mobile radios and other equipment needed to maintain communications and provide situational awareness near real time based on island conditions.
Ms. Novak provides consulting services to public and private sector clients in support of their business continuity/emergency management and response and recovery efforts (planning, exercises, and operational reviews). Additionally, she provides strategic consulting to small businesses with technology-based products/services developed to improve homeland security and emergency management practices (mitigation, prevention/protection, response and recovery). In this role, Ms. Novak also serves as the Subject Matter Expert on all National Security and Emergency Management projects. Ms. Novak is developing a Private Sector driven Exercise Framework as well as a Recovery Focused model to assess long term recovery impacts on business and the community (rural, urban, and suburban).
Ms. Novak led the effort to launch ERUdyne’s Drone Flight School in 2018, which became the UAS Academy in 2020, focused on training public safety, military in transition and veterans, and other students interested in obtaining their commercial drone pilot’s license (Part 107 certification). She remains an integral part in the program development and course delivery focused on crisis management and emergency response. Ms. Novak led the ERUdyne team’s effort to enter the Drones as a Service market and in November 2019, ERUdyne was one of four companies in Virginia, out of fifteen total, that won the UAS Services nationwide contract led by the Commonwealth of Virginia and the National Association of State Procurement Officials.
Links Mentioned In This Episode
MHA Gap Initiative on LinkedIn
MHA Gap Initiative on Facebook
Theme Music
Our theme music Don’t Kill the Messenger was written and performed by Navy Veteran Jerry Maniscalco, in cooperation with Operation Encore, a non profit committed to supporting singer/songwriter and musicians across the military and Veteran communities.
This Episode Sponsored By:
This episode is sponsored by PsychArmor, the premier education and learning ecosystem specializing in military culture content. PsychArmor offers an online e-learning laboratory with custom training options for organizations.
Producer and Host Duane France is a retired Army Noncommissioned Officer, combat veteran, and clinical mental health counselor for service members, veterans, and their families. You can find more about the work that he is doing at www.veteranmentalhealth.com