COVER STORY: James Hendon Discusses New Role

from This Is Queensborugh - January 2020

by BQE Media - Queens Ledger Brooklyn Star Newspaper Group

Five Honored at Business Person of the Year Awards

COVER STOR Y DVS COMMISSIONER REFLECTS ON JOURNEY

BY BENJAMIN FANG

Only in its third year as a city agency, the Department of Veterans’ Services (DVS) has a new leader at the helm who boasts a background in both military service and entrepreneurship.

James Hendon was officially appointed as DVS commissioner by Mayor Bill de Blasio on November 1. He succeeded retired Brigadier General Lorree Sutton, who had served as the agency’s founding commissioner since 2016.

Hendon said he’s excited to be in his new role, which has raised his “A game” when it comes to doing right by the 210,000 veterans who call New York City home.

“It really pushes you to your next level, to be around good people,” he said. “Everyone is on the same sheet of music trying to do great things for this community.”

SERVING IN THE ARMY

The Miami native first decided to join the armed forces when he was in high school. Hendon said his mother took him to see Crimson Tide, a 1995 submarine film starring Denzel Washington and Gene Hackman.

Washington’s character was depicted attending a service academy in the movie, which put the idea in Hendon’s mind. It appealed to his desire to give back.

“I think deep down, I always wanted to serve, always wanted to help people and do right,” he said. “And contribute to other folks being able to succeed and have life, liberty and happiness.”

Hendon served in the U.S. Army for seven years as an active duty infantry officer. He was deployed as a mortar platoon leader and a battalion public affairs officer to Iraq in 2005.

He later worked as an admissions officer for West Point, where he graduated in 2002, for two year s from 2006 to 2007. He then served as the senior advisor to the Afghan Border Police in Afghanistan until 2009.

FROM DUTY TO BUSINESS

After leaving active duty, Hendon went to graduate school at the Harvard Kennedy School and Columbia Business School. He remains in the U.S. Army reserve today. “I like being available if they need me,” he said.

After graduating, Hendon worked as an associate in Real Estate Investment Banking Group at Deutsche Bank. But the job “didn’t take,” he said, because he couldn’t see the immediate benefit and impact it had on everyday people. “It was just starting to grate at me,” he said.

Around that time, one of Hendon’s friends from school was starting a new company, boosted by funding from the U.S. Department of Energy, to help small businesses and nonprofit organizations do energy retrofits.

Hendon became the first hire at the company BlocPower, and worked as the chief operating officer for the next three years.

“I loved helping the smaller groups. That is America, these small businesses and nonprofits and houses of worship,” he said. “I feel like that’s where our community is.”

After BlocPower began to “make a pivot,” Hendon took a class on entrepreneurship at New York University and set up his own company. He founded Energy Economic Development Corporation (EEDC), which had a similar function: helping small businesses finance and perform energy retrofits.

Those retrofits included actions to improve an organization or company’s heating, cooling, lighting and installation systems to reduce energy consumption and their carbon footprint.

LEARNING FROM DIVERSITY

While he was BlocPower and later with EEDC, Hendon joined the Queens Chamber of Commerce. He attended meetings of the chamber’s Energy Committee, for which he served as co-chair.

Understanding the rich diversity of Queens, Hendon said he learned how both the chamber and other Queens businesses used a demographic approach to outreach that could be applied to his work in city government today.

That translates to reaching out to and communicating with all demographics of veterans, from women and LGBTQ veterans to students, seniors and those still serving.

“I take that model and try my best to mimic it here within this organization,” he said.

BUSINESS LESSONS

Years after taking the entrepreneurship class at NYU, Hendon was also asked to run the Veterans Future Lab, the school’s first incubator for veteran entrepreneurs. He maintained that role until he was appointed DVS commissioner.

Today, Hendon serves as a visiting research scientist for the Institute for Invention, Innovation and Entrepreneurship. The unpaid position at NYU is another way for him to “continue to be of value to entrepreneurs in that space.”

“I feel like each job kind of prepared me for this one now,” Hendon said. “To go from someone who first worked at a traditional company to then working at a startup then having my own small business.”

At the Veterans Future Lab, different entrepreneurs seeking help approached Hendon with all sorts of challenges.

“I feel like that constant problem solving is something that I carry with me to this new job,” he added.

“The same things you look at when you have a startup or a small business, I think that analysis applies here.”

One overlap that Hendon has found between government and the business world is “constant intellectual curiosity.” Running a business, at the end of the day, is “just a science experiment,” he said, with hypotheses, tests and changes.

“That same thing is what we do here in government,” he said, “and I appreciate that.”

But a major difference is the “institutional heft and memory” that serving in the government involves. While it is a powerful strength, Hendon said, it also means not being as able to adjust as quickly on the fly.

“You’ve got to be mindful that it’s such a huge ship that it won’t be as agile,” he said. “It can’t change in the same way that things can change in a business.

“When it was a business, it was just myself and a few people. You

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can pivot on a dime,” he added. “Whereas here, there are so many mechanisms to go through.”

The upside of that “institutional heft,” Hendon said, is that the impact is much greater.

SETTING GOALS

In many ways, Hendon noted, DVS itself is like a startup in city government.

In just three years, the agency has already built a “strong suite of programs and offerings” to the veteran community, Hendon said. The next phase of their work is making sure people know about them.

“We’ve got such good things cooking here,” he said. “We just had to get it functioning and able to be self-sustaining.”

DVS offers VetConnectNYC, a network that connects service members, veterans and their families to service providers through an online platform. In partnership with NYC Service, DVS also runs Service2Service, a program that provides mentorship to veterans looking to work in the public sector.

Another project is Pay for Success, a rapid employment initiative targeted specifically at veterans who come from past combat employments.

“We’ve got great services, but we want to make sure now that we’re getting the word out,” Hendon said, “so they can take advantage of what we’ve got.”

One of his biggest goals is the outreach piece, and uplifting the entire veteran community in New York City in terms of social and economic outcomes.

“If the veteran community is a bell curve,” he said, “we’re looking to shift that entire bell curve to the right.”

CLOSING THE GAPS

As the only agency of its kind in the nation offering services to veterans on a city level, DVS was formed to better serve New York City’s more than 210,000 service members, veterans, and their families.

The commissioner said there are three ways DVS closes those gaps, such as introducing veterans to providers who can help them and convening stakeholders to create initiatives organically.

If there’s a gap that is not filled, he said, DVS can step in and play that role. The agency doesn’t just serve veterans, but also caregivers, survivors and family members.

Hendon concluded that the agency is open to any offerings, opportunities and comments that people in the community can provide to improve their services to veterans.

Just hiring a veteran, doing business with veteran-owned establishments or spreading the word about DVS helps.

“Whatever thoughts or suggestions folks have, things they can offer and bring to the table in support of veterans, let us know,” Hendon said.