Drexel Hamilton LLC's "vet-with-a-vet" mentoring program has helped the eight-year old broker dealer expand — and is starting have ripple effects outside the firm.
Drexel, a service disabled veteran owned broker-dealer founded on the principle of offering meaningful employment opportunities to wounded soldiers, has around 85 employees. The firm's goal is to maintain a work force of 40% military veterans, of which half are service-disabled.
The firm's managing partners work with the veterans across a number of products, teaching them the market through a unique "vet-with-a-vet" mentoring partnership.
"It's a formula that has really worked," said Tom Mead, chief operating officer and managing director of municipals. "Industry vets intensively mentor and teach our military veterans, and although this business has a steep learning curve, it's nothing they can't handle compared to what they have gone through serving our country in Iraq and Afghanistan."
It's a formula that has worked so well, in fact, that larger and better-known firms have been poaching or attempting to hire away some veterans who have gone through the training, passed necessary exams, and started to make names for themselves on Wall Street.
"We never like to lose one of our own professionals to another firm, but it underscores the fact that we are doing a great job of teaching and growing their skill sets. When someone leaves, it opens up a spot for us to bring in another military vet and start the process again," said Mead.
Drexel currently has an "alumni employees" list of 15, seven of them disabled vets.
"In a perfect world, our current military vets and disabled vets will rise to a level of experience where they ultimately become the 'Wall Street' veterans that teach the new crop of veterans," said Mead. "We're proud of the veterans we've trained and of creating a firm where veterans that we've trained are now training others."
Drexel's municipal department has increased volume by more than half in a little over four years since receiving its new-issue license. The firm's volume has increased 58% and the number of deals is up 46% since March 2011. Drexel has participated in more than $14.7 billion in underwriting since the start of 2015.
That growth has paralleled similar growth in other products at Drexel, including equities, Treasuries, agencies, corporate bonds, ABS/CMBS, and capital markets. Firm president James Cahill said it's the balance of involvement across all of the platforms that has provided both financial stability and the variety of opportunities to employ additional veterans.
"We think of it as more than just helping a military veteran; we're also helping the families of the vets," said Cahill. "The vets and their families have sacrificed so much for us, so that we can enjoy life and provide for our families, and we want to give them the opportunity to do the same thing. We are not giving them a handout and they are not looking for one. They are looking for an opportunity and that is the least we can provide for them, after all they have done for us."
