Undaunted Dauntless Wine Co., a Growing Company owned by three local veterans, routinely gives back to other veterans in the community Above: Dauntless co-founder Ben Martin served in the Marine Corps for five years before starting a wine company with two fellow veterans. 10
VETERANS NEWS MAGAZINE
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hen Ben Martin joined the U.S. Marine Corps just a week before the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, he had no idea what to expect. He didn’t know he would be part of the invasion on Iraq in 2003, and he didn’t know he would be serving alongside two men who would later become his good friends and business partners. After getting out of the Marine Corps in 2006, Martin, who grew up in Forest Grove and graduated from Forest Grove High School, tried out several career paths before deciding to go back to school. After arguing the same point as another student in his philosophy class at Portland Community College, the two struck up a conversation. His classmate Paul Warmbier and Martin had both served in the Marine Corps at the same time, both stationed in Twentynine Palms, Calif., just east of Los Angeles, but they hadn’t met before. Warmbier introduced Martin to a friend of his, Ryan Mills, who was also stationed in Twentynine Palms at the same time. The three became good friends, and one day in 2014, after drinking a few glasses of wine, Mills and Warmbier listened to Martin’s business pitch. They decided right there and then they would open up a veteran-owned winery, Dauntless Wine Co. in Gaston. Four years later, while Dauntless is still a work in progress, the company is quickly earning recognition from all over the country. The winery was one of this year’s FedEx small business grant recipients. The company was awarded $7,500 in grant money as well as $1,000 in FedEx print and office services.
