I sat down with Max Cormier and Wyatt Frasier, the guys behind Sitreps. If you’re a veteran in business you already know the meme page. What you might not know is that they turned that community into a recruiting firm that places vets into leadership roles at defense tech startups and private equity portfolio companies.
We got into how that actually happened. It started as beer money from advertising lip balm, and it became something real once companies realized Sitreps could find trusted people fast, inside a community that already vouches for them. Max and Wyatt walk through where they fit that nobody else does, and why the volume play, a hundred bodies at a job site, was never their game.
Both of them have hired and been hired, and they are blunt about what each side gets wrong. They will tell you about companies that drag out interviews for months and then lowball the good candidates, and about vets who assume their rank alone should open doors. The line that ties it together is one they say to clients all the time. Being cheap is expensive.
I had them on because I want that kind of high-grade military leadership moving into energy, not just the volume roles.
Timestamps
00:00 - Being cheap is expensive
01:19 - Singapore and the semiconductor trip
05:07 - From a meme page to a veteran community
10:15 - Why the volume play was never the game
14:30 - Where they fit: defense tech and PE portfolios
20:05 - Speed to market
22:00 - Why Max and Wyatt joined
27:12 - Getting out: MBAs and the GI Bill
31:00 - The pig-waste startup that didn't work
35:47 - What companies get wrong about hiring
38:53 - What candidates get wrong
43:00 - Skin in the game
Resources
Resources
People & Organizations
Kevin Doffing (LinkedIn)
Project Vanguard (Website - Linkedin - Newsletter - Apple Podcasts - Spotify)
Sitreps (Website)
Sitreps2Steercos, the community and newsletter (LinkedIn - Substack)
SkillBridge, the DoD program Wyatt used in his transition (Website)
Company & Industry News
CHIPS Act overview, the semiconductor policy referenced in the Singapore discussion (Website)
Related Project Vanguard Episodes
Don’t Play Small with Marcus Barnes, NextOp Vets on energy careers for junior enlisted veterans
