TREPNETWORK: Greetings To All

[TrepNetworkBlogger]

Hello Yaro and everybody here! First, my name is Sammy.

My story is a little different than most that will visit here. Same as all who visit Yaro's blog as often as I do, my first passion is Entrepreneurship and all things related.

If I could, I would spend every waking moment brainstorming, collaberating, coming up with new business ideas and taking action. Unfortunately, I can't do that at the moment. Here's where the "different" comes in...

I'm currently serving on Active Duty in the U.S. Marine Corps and have been for almost 10yrs now. Would you belive at the time of this posting, I am currently in Okinawa, Japan. In a few weeks, I'll be jumping aboard a large Naval Vessel and sailing around the world for the next few months, training with foreign militaries and hopefully get some breaks here and there.

Ok... now that I've got that out of the way, Yaro asked what do I do. Well, I recently created my own blog called TrepNetwork. I've had a great time building and contributing to it, when I can. As time grew closer to my deployment, I haven't been able to post as much as I would like. I hope readers don't hate me for that. I'll do what I can and post as often as I can while I am deployed, but I want to be sure I have good content, not just throw something together for the sake of posting.

Besided my blog, I've been involved in a few start-ups in the last 10yrs. What I like to do is incorporate my military experience and background with my Entrepreneurial spirit and come up with business ideas and start-ups that cater to the Military Customer, as well as all others.

Being in the military you can expect to relocate quite often. As a result, I have been limited as to the types of business ventures I can get involved with. Of course, there's always the internet, but I'm not a tech guru... Although I have some great ideas for internet based business ventures, so if anyone is ever interested give me a ring! I'll supply the ideas and concepts... you supply the technical expertise!


--- A few years ago, I decided to design and sell my own T-shirts by renting a booth at an Annual Air Show in Iwakuni, Japan. The experience was great and I earned over $60,000! Too bad most of it went back to my investors... lol. Oh well, it was a learning experience for me.

--- A very informative and fun project of mine involved coordination and, planning of a holiday Bazaar. I know... you're thinking, a Bazaar? what's so interesting 'bout that? Plenty... especially the story how I even got involved. It happened by accident... I'll save that story for some other time. Long story short, an event that took me(and a nice lady) about 2 months to coordinate and pull off ended up teaching me a lot about event planning and so much more. We had over 50 vendors, live music, activities. It was a blast and the vendors had a very lucrative experience, to say the least!

CURRENT & FUTURE PROJECTS

- An Online Classifieds site for military servicemembers to buy & sell their unwanted belongings. Every day, hundreds of military servicemembers are relocating from one assignment to another, sometimes from one country to another. They all have items they want to get rid of... trust me. What better service to provide than a Military Classifieds the TRULY offers the services and tools they need, not just some lame classifieds site. Currently seeking someone with the technical knowledge to create something like this. Picture Yahoo! Classifieds with a military twist.

- An online portal for Marines currently participating in the Marine Corps Martial Arts Program. As a Marine Corps Martial Arts Instructor, I know the frustration other instructors feel when first getting started. Wouldn't it be great to have a place where users and Instructors could collaberate, trade tips, pics and network? Currently seeking someone with the technical knowledge to create something like this. Ruby On Rails seems to be a good application to use.. .anyone familiar with it or something similar?


I've got more in my little Box O' Ideas... but I won't bore you.

I'm looking forward to meeting you all here, collaberating, networking and more here in Yaro's Forum!

Thanks for creating the Forum Yaro!

I like Trepnetwork - we read a lot of the same blogs I see.

The Marine classifieds idea sounds interesting. I'm sure that a site built directly to military members' needs would be far different than general sites like Craigslist, and so could develop a strong following in the military ranks.

Out of curiosity, where all have you traveled besides Okinawa through the Marine Corps? I really enjoy traveling but don't get to do it that often.

[Kirk]

What style of Martial Arts do you teach, Sammy?

Note, there's a website www.hiremarines.com that's pretty neat.

[TrepNetworkBlogger]

gentrysherill,

I'm glad you like my blog. Poor thing needs some TLC... I'll update it this week. You're right, a military version of Craigslit, if you will. Certain functions that would only make sense or be practical for the military.

You asked where else have I travelled? Hmm... let's see:

I began my Military Occupational Specialty Training at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. From there, I was transferred to Camp Pendleton in Oceanside, California. I then moved on to the Marine Corps Air Station in Iwakuni, Japan, where I remained for almost 4 years. I loved every moment there. My wife and kids were there with me, so that was a great experience. After returning to the US, I was sent to San Antonio, where I served at the Military Police School located on Lackland Air Force Base. I had the pleasure of working with all of my sister services, US Army, US Air Force and US Navy. Shortly after, I found myself back at Camp Pendleton and was deployed to Ar Ramadi, Iraq in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom from Aug 30, 2004 until Feb 18, 2005. Life changing experience from me. If you're ever interested, I have a few photos from my time there on my Flickr page. I even made a short clip for my Marines to send home during Thanksgiving. You can check it out here.

Currently, I am assigned to 2nd Battalion 5th Marines, 1st Marine Division. Our unit has deployed to Okinawa, Japan where we have joined forces with the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit. As a result, we are now known as the Battalion Landing Team 2/5 of the 31st MEU. We're scheduled to load ships in a few weeks and we'll be training with military organizations from countries like the Phillipines, South Korea and Thailand, so it should be interesting.

At my wife's request, I started a blog to document what I experience while on the MEU. I wish I had kept a blog when I was in Iraq... lot more interesting. I haven't had much to talk about since I'm not aboard the ships yet, but you're welcom to stop by and read.

I hope that answers your question... lol

[TrepNetworkBlogger]

Hi Kirk,

What style of Martial Arts do I teach? I teach Marine Corps Martial Arts. It's basically a type of Mixed Martial Arts comprised by the big wigs from all styles of Martial Arts. They've apparantly chosen the techniques that would best be executed during close combat... in combat.

The official site can be seen here.

A FAQ Page about the MCMAP can be seen herehere.

Nothing beats Entrepreneurship, though... just wanted to point that out.

Yes, HireMarines.com is a pretty nice site. In fact, there's been a lot of improvement. In the beginning, I was very disappointed with this site. If was a site where people could post jobs such as yard work, lawn care, handy man work, etc. for Marines to do. This was there way of "Supporting the Troops". Personally, I was insulted. I just took another look and they've gone away from that. Good! I'm still a little hesitant about visiting the site.

[Kirk]

Camp Lejeune, nice place. I was born in Cherry Point myself.

I know there's lots of Marines and lots of Marine bases, but just to ask, would you happen to know a guy by the name of Scott Montoya? He's like a 5th degree black belt in American Kenpo. I haven't met him, but from what I hear, he's a damned good man.