Michael J. Penney

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Veteran On the Move #136: Cigars and Sea Stories (2016)

On October 24, 2016, Veteran On the Move released episode 136, “Cigars and Sea Stories with Marine Veteran Michael Penney.” The host was Joe Crane. His show had passed 100 episodes of interviews about the people, programs and resources that help veterans move into entrepreneurship. The episode runs about 51 minutes.

What the episode covered

The show notes introduce Michael as the founder and host of the Cigars and Sea Stories podcast. They also mark a new role:

Michael recently took over as the director of the Bunker in Raleigh Durham, NC.

Veteran On the Move #136 show notes

The notes describe Bunker Labs as a national 501(c)(3) built by military veteran entrepreneurs. At the time it had chapters in 12 cities and offered educational programs, mentors, events and local networks to help veterans start and grow businesses.

Most of the notes lay out Cigars and Sea Stories. They use the same operations-order format the show had used since early 2016:

  • The show: a place for veterans “to act out and speak their minds,” covering relevant topics, interviews with prominent veterans and war stories. Any Marine or FMF corpsman could be a guest, recorded in by Skype.
  • Intent: empower veterans to act as a whole by creating positive change, voting on issues that matter, raising awareness for worthy causes and speaking out against injustice.
  • Desired end state: “a network of veterans that can accomplish any task and, an America that can actually police itself.”
  • Execution: the team travels to veterans who are making a difference and records on site, so listeners get candid access to their insights and sea stories.

The notes also announce a release schedule: two episodes a week, every Tuesday and Thursday.

Why it mattered then

This episode came at a turning point. Through 2015 and early 2016, Michael was introduced mainly as a podcaster and a BloodStripes.com contributor. By the fall he was leading the Bunker in Raleigh-Durham. That put him on the program side of veteran entrepreneurship, helping other veterans build businesses in addition to telling their stories.

Veteran On the Move had a big audience among transitioning veterans. The show claimed more than 500,000 verified listens. That was a strong place to announce both projects.

Looking back

The Bunker role and the operations-order habit both fed the 5 Paragraph Business Plan, his O-SMEAC-based framework for planning a business. The intent behind Cigars and Sea Stories, veterans speaking up and acting together, still runs through his work today.

Listen to the episode on ListenNotes

This post is part of the From the Archive series, which collects Michael’s past media appearances in one place. See the full media archive.

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The War Horse: Michael Penney’s 9/11 Remembrance Essay (2016)

On September 11, 2016, the fifteenth anniversary of the attacks, The War Horse published an essay by Michael Penney in its Reflections section. It was titled “Ignore The Awful Times, And Concentrate On The Good Ones.” The War Horse is a nonprofit newsroom that covers the military and veterans. This is the only piece of his found on its author page.

What the essay covers

The essay is built as a calendar. Michael goes year by year and tells where he was on each September 11.

  • 2001: Fifteen years old, buying snacks at the school store when classmates ran in about the news. He went on to math class, where a television was wheeled in and the class watched the second plane hit live. He writes that he decided then to go after the people responsible.
  • 2005: Deployed to Ramadi with 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines, repairing a damaged Humvee and trading a strange local story about Hurricane Point.
  • 2006: A moment of silence during mountain warfare training at Bridgeport, California.
  • 2007: Back in Ramadi, “sleeping in the same hooch,” in a city that had gone quiet.
  • 2008–2010: Hard years at home after his first marriage ended, which he writes about plainly. Then a 2010 anniversary in the field with police advisor teams.
  • 2011: Kajaki, Afghanistan, where his Afghan police counterpart, Abdul Hadi, apologized to him for the war.

He closes with what the date still means to him. He sets aside time every year to mourn the 2,996 people killed that day.

What a terrible thing to ever forget. So I take the time to mourn it, because I still can’t believe it.

Michael Penney, The War Horse, September 2016

He also describes leaving the Corps after eight years and three combat tours. He threw a mismatched pair of combat boots, marked with his deployment dates, onto the power lines outside the gate at Camp Pendleton. He writes that he planned to take a second pair to Ground Zero.

Why it mattered then

By 2016 a generation of Marines who were in school on 9/11 had fought the wars that followed it and come home. Most anniversary coverage looked at the day itself. This essay looked at the fifteen years after it through one Marine, from a math class to Ramadi to Helmand Province. It did not skip the rough stretches in between.

The title carries the lesson: remember the losses, and choose to put your attention on the good.

Looking back

The essay is some of his most personal published writing. It sits beside his TEDxRaleigh talk from that March, which also dealt with getting through devastating moments with your values intact.

Read the essay on The War Horse

This post is part of the From the Archive series, which collects Michael’s past media appearances in one place. See the full media archive.

Work with Michael

Marine veteran, TEDx speaker and author of the 5 Paragraph Business Plan. Bring him to your stage, wear the gear, or catch him live.

Book Michael to Speak
Shop the MJP Store
Get the 5 Paragraph Business Plan
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The Decision Hour: Michael Penney of Bunker Labs RDU (2016)

On August 26, 2016, The Decision Hour released an episode titled “Bunker Labs Raleigh-Durham – Mr. Michael Penney.” The show was part of the Heroes Media Group podcast network, and the conversation runs just over an hour.

The Decision Hour: Bunker Labs Raleigh-Durham – Mr. Michael Penney (August 2016)

What the episode covered

The episode notes introduce Michael with three roles at once:

USMC Veteran, Program Director at Bunker Labs Raleigh-Durham, Podcast Co-Host at Cigars and Sea Stories and my friend Mr. Michael Penney.

The Decision Hour episode notes

According to the notes, the conversation moved through three parts of his life:

  • The Marine Corps: some of his “Sea Stories” from his time as a Marine
  • After the Corps: starting a business and going back to school
  • The work in front of him: the Cigars and Sea Stories podcast, and what Bunker Labs was doing for veterans across the country

The notes close by pointing listeners to his Facebook page, the Cigars and Sea Stories page and bunkerlabs.org.

Why it mattered then

August 2016 was a busy month. Five months earlier he had given his TEDxRaleigh talk, “What’s Your IED?” On August 18 he was the billed guest speaker at a veteran entrepreneur event in Wilmington, North Carolina, for Bunker Labs RDU. By October another podcast would describe him as having recently taken over as director of the Bunker in Raleigh.

Bunker Labs is a national nonprofit built by veteran entrepreneurs to help other veterans start and grow businesses. For Michael, the program director job turned his own path, from the infantry to his first business, into something he could help other veterans with.

The episode also connects two parts of his podcast history. Cigars and Sea Stories was a member of the Heroes Media Group network. Here he was a guest on another show in that same network.

His service record: eight-plus years in Marine Corps infantry and three combat tours: two to Ramadi, Iraq, with 3rd Battalion, 7th Marines (2005-06 and 2007), and one to Kajaki and Sangin, Afghanistan, with 1st Battalion, 5th Marines in 2011, where he led a section of advisors. Between those tours he served at Quantico as a weapons instructor. He left the Corps as a Sergeant with an honorable discharge.

Where to find it

The episode page is still online at Podbean, and the episode is also listed on Apple Podcasts. The player above streams the original audio file from the show’s feed.

Listen on Podbean

This post is part of the From the Archive series, which collects Michael’s past media appearances in one place. See the full media archive.

Work with Michael

Marine veteran, TEDx speaker and author of the 5 Paragraph Business Plan. Bring him to your stage, wear the gear, or catch him live.

Book Michael to Speak
Shop the MJP Store
Get the 5 Paragraph Business Plan
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Port City Daily: Bunker Labs Speaker at Wilmington Vet Event

On July 17, 2016, Port City Daily reporter Hilary Snow previewed an event for veterans starting businesses in Wilmington, North Carolina. It was set for Thursday, August 18, 2016, from 4 to 6:30 p.m. at Ironclad Brewery, 115 N. Second St., downtown. The featured guest speaker was Michael Penney of Bunker Labs RDU.

An upcoming entrepreneurial event will serve those who have served their country.

Hilary Snow, Port City Daily, July 2016

What was on the program

The host was Jim Roberts. He had led UNCW’s Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and was running the Network for Entrepreneurs in Wilmington (NEW). The article laid out the program:

  • Short pitches from local veterans who had launched start-ups
  • A talk from guest speaker Michael Penney of Bunker Labs’ RDU branch
  • A panel on resources and opportunities for former service members, followed by networking

The panel included:

  • Dean Bundschu, executive director of Bunker Labs RDU
  • Stephen Clossick, who manages an angel investing group in the Triangle
  • Chris Kelly, former head of Durham’s First Flight Venture Center

Clare Pozek, a venture capital specialist and military spouse, was listed as moderator.

The event was free. Veterans and their spouses were welcome, and registration was encouraged because seating was limited. When the article ran, 55 seats were left.

Why it mattered then

Bunker Labs started as a Chicago-based national nonprofit that helps veterans use their military experience to start businesses. In 2016 it was expanding into the Triangle. Taking the RDU team down to Wilmington pushed that work past Raleigh-Durham to the coast.

Roberts told the paper the visit was especially relevant because Wilmington had a reputation for veteran-founded companies. The article named some of them:

  • Andrew Williams of Elite Innovations
  • Edward Hall of Petrics
  • Jeremy Tomlinson, co-creator of Port City Brew Bus

For a veteran in eastern North Carolina with a business idea, the evening put a local investor, a venture-center veteran and the Bunker Labs team in one room.

This archive entry is based on the advance coverage. We have not found a separate write-up of the event as it happened.

Looking back

Two months later, the Veteran On the Move podcast introduced Michael with the line “Michael recently took over as the director of the Bunker in Raleigh Durham, NC.” His work helping veterans plan and launch businesses grew into the 5 Paragraph Business Plan.

Read the preview on Port City Daily

This post is part of the From the Archive series, which collects Michael’s past media appearances in one place. See the full media archive.

Work with Michael

Marine veteran, TEDx speaker and author of the 5 Paragraph Business Plan. Bring him to your stage, wear the gear, or catch him live.

Book Michael to Speak
Shop the MJP Store
Get the 5 Paragraph Business Plan
Watch Live

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TEDxRaleigh 2016: What’s Your IED? Adding Value Under Pressure

On March 19, 2016, Michael Penney took the stage at TEDxRaleigh with a talk titled “What’s your IED? How to add value in explosive situations.” The TEDx Talks channel published the recording on June 1, 2016. It runs about 12 minutes.

What the talk covered

The title takes the signature threat of the wars he fought in, the improvised explosive device, and turns it into a question for the audience. The official description sets up the idea:

There are moments of sheer devastation that have an explosively sobering effect on the human soul.

TEDxRaleigh talk description

The talk is about those moments: the hazards everyone meets on the way through life, and what happens to your values when you are in the middle of one. The description says these times of “hopeless despair” are when your values get tested. It says the talk is meant to help people deal with those moments and get through them. The second half of the title gives the answer he steers toward: look for how to add value, even when things are blowing up around you.

Who was on stage

The TEDx description introduced Michael as a Marine Corps combat veteran, former infantryman and combat arms instructor. It lists his deployments:

  • Ramadi, Iraq (2005–2006 and 2007)
  • Kajaki and Sangin, Afghanistan (2011)

As an instructor he trained Marines in combat marksmanship, precision weapon systems and foreign and threat weapons.

After leaving the Corps in 2012, the description says, he found “new ways to serve the country he loves” as an inventor, entrepreneur, author and public speaker. It called him the founder and co-host of Cigars and Sea Stories, “a podcast devoted to sharing sea stories with veterans who are adding VALUE to the world.” It also said he spent most of his time at Bunker Labs RDU, working with fellow veterans.

Why it mattered then

TEDx puts a speaker in front of a general audience, not a veterans crowd. This talk took a combat experience most of the room had never lived through and made it useful to them. Everybody has an IED moment. The talk was about what you do in it.

It also capped a busy few weeks. Before the event he did two video conversations with fellow presenter Doug Stewart and podcast interviews with SuccessVets and the Military Entrepreneur Show.

Looking back

“Add value” became a theme that kept coming back. In November 2016 the Veteran Resource Podcast titled its episode with him “Provide Value.” “TEDxRaleigh speaker” has been part of his introduction ever since, from the 5 Paragraph Business Plan to his speaking work today.

Watch on YouTube (TEDx Talks)

This post is part of the From the Archive series, which collects Michael’s past media appearances in one place. See the full media archive.

Work with Michael

Marine veteran, TEDx speaker and author of the 5 Paragraph Business Plan. Bring him to your stage, wear the gear, or catch him live.

Book Michael to Speak
Shop the MJP Store
Get the 5 Paragraph Business Plan
Watch Live