V e t er ans in Fr anchising
FRANCHISEE IN ACTION: Joe Birkhead | Frios Gourmet Pops
How we swapped a life in the military
for a fun, family-run business “Frios Gourmet Pops works with our family for numerous reasons, but there was one driving factor: It has allowed us to fill that value of family.”
People often ask me how I ended up as a franchisee at Frios Gourmet Pops. The answer in short: It’s given me the opportunity I’ve long been seeking: Time with my family. Franchising USA
What led me to the brand is a longer story, 20 years in the making. September 11, 2001. I was serving in the Army, on my third deployment to Kosovo, when we were attending the nightly Battle Update Brief (BUB). We watched as a plane crashed into one of the towers. Our lives changed withing a matter of seconds. We were thousands of miles from our country and our families, unable to comfort or protect those we loved. When we returned later that year in November, we went directly to Uzbekistan with no turning back. I knew then I needed to be in the fight, so I applied for the most elite unit in the United States Army. After getting selected I completed eight more deployments between Iraq and Afghanistan. My wife and I have been together for 20 years, a great accomplishment in itself. We had fulfilled our duty in serving our country side-by-side for 16 years until we both eventually retired. Our family grew
in that time as we welcomed our daughter and our son. Deployments proved to be difficult, leaving us to uproot our family to the next city followed by the next city. Naturally we worried about our kids, wanting them to find a sense of community. Our 14-year-old daughter has moved five times, having to leave her friends and classmates behind. Our seven-year-old son has moved three times, but has fortunately been young enough to forget the hardships. After my wife and I retired, we wanted to prioritize our family, not only finding a place for us to settle, but a place for us to be together. In addition, we wanted to be a part of our community, something that was instilled in us during our time in the military. It was then that we found Frios Gourmet Pops. At first, we thought the brand seemed to be too simple of a concept. Could a mobile popsicle brand really be the answer? We were pleasantly surprised by the answer.
