Last week I wrote about two guys chasing power in places nobody else would look. I did not expect that post to land the way it did. So here is another one, same idea, different world. Two veterans who came home and built something that actually lasted.
The Ranger who built a business empire out of a storage lot
Nick Green enlisted in the Army in June of 2001. He started infantry school at Fort Benning on September 11th. He earned his parachutist badge, made it through Ranger Indoctrination, and spent four years with the 3rd Ranger Battalion. Three combat deployments, Afghanistan and Iraq.
When he came home to outstate Minnesota, he did not start with venture money or a big idea. He started with a 24 unit self storage lot behind his father’s shop. He grew it to 454 units across 100,000 square feet, then sold it at a premium. He is now building his fourth climate controlled storage project.
He did not stop there. He bought a family plumbing company, bought out his biggest competitor, merged the two into a full service HVAC operation, and sold that one too, again at a premium.
Growing up, Nick had a neighbor named Dick Kay, a D-Day veteran who built his own business after the war. Watching Kay showed him that a veteran could build something real and live life on his own terms. Years later, at a veteran entrepreneurship bootcamp, a mentor named Scott Lewis taught him something that stuck. Knowing when to sell is what lets you command a premium price and go build the same thing again somewhere else. Nick took that lesson and ran with it, twice.
Now he mentors newer veteran entrepreneurs through the same kind of program that helped him, teaching the next guy how to finance a first deal and think about an exit before he even signs the papers.
The couple who built a gathering place instead of a paycheck
Second story. Different goal, same starting point.
Donny and Kim Legans are both Air Force veterans. Instead of chasing the biggest exit they could find, they built Rail Haus, a restaurant and beer garden in Dover, Delaware. The whole idea was a place for their community to gather.
This year Rail Haus won the grand prize in a national small business grant program built for military connected owners, 25,000 dollars, chosen out of more than 1,200 applicants. They are using it to expand their outdoor space and bring in even more of their neighbors.
Nick built to scale and sell. Donny and Kim built to stay and host. Both are veterans. Both came home and built something with their own hands instead of waiting for someone to hand them a plan.
Why I am writing about this
I am not a veteran. I have never deployed anywhere and I have never signed for a business loan the size Nick signs for. I just believe in paying attention to people who come home from something hard and go build something harder.
Nobody handed Nick a storage lot. Nobody handed Donny and Kim a beer garden. They started small, in one case behind a father’s shop, and they built it themselves, brick by brick, deal by deal.
That is the message today. You do not need the perfect plan before you start. You need a first unit, a first table, a first customer. Nick started with 24 units. Donny and Kim started with one restaurant in one town. Neither of them waited to feel ready.
If you came home from something hard, in uniform or out of it, and you are still waiting for the right moment to start building, I do not think that moment is coming. Start with what is in front of you. Build the first small version. Let it grow from there.
More stories like this are coming. If you know a veteran, or anyone, quietly building something worth knowing about, send them my way.
Phil
Sources: Syracuse University D’Aniello Institute for Veterans and Military Families on Nick Green and Hiring Our Heroes on the 2026 Small Business Grant Award recipients.
