America’s independence has always depended on our ability to build.

That belief is behind the America 250 Builder Fund, a partnership between T1 Energy and Project Vanguard created to support veterans helping build America’s next era of independence.

Earlier this year, we opened the fund to veterans who are building businesses, skills, and services that strengthen American energy, industry, manufacturing, skilled trades, logistics, local supply chains, workforce training, and technical services.

The idea was simple: back the people doing the work.

Selected builders will receive funding, visibility, and the opportunity to share their stories through T1. We hope this will help shine a light on the people creating the companies, capabilities, and infrastructure America will depend on next.

Recipients were selected based on the strength of their story, a clear need, the practical use of the funding, and the potential impact of what they are building in their communities.

Read the original America 250 Builder Fund story here.

• $50,000 in total funding supporting 11 veteran builders.
• One $25,000 Power Grant and ten $2,500 Builder Grants.
• Selected grants span energy storage, workforce development, logistics, agriculture, renewable fuels, leadership, manufacturing, and veteran entrepreneurship.
• Projects share a focus on strengthening American capability, independence, and opportunity from the ground up.

Autumn Woodward is creating pathways for veterans to not only enter the energy and transportation workforce, but ultimately to build businesses of their own.

Through NextOp’s Veteran Owner-Operator Accelerator, experienced heavy-haul drivers gain the knowledge and support needed to pursue ownership, higher earning potential, and greater independence.

It is a natural extension of NextOp’s work helping veterans translate military experience into meaningful civilian careers. The Accelerator focuses on promoting entrepreneurship.

Company: NextOp Veterans

Location: Houston, TX

Harper Jones is helping build the workforce behind grid-scale battery storage.

Through GreEnergy Resources, multidisciplinary technicians are trained to install, commission, operate, and bring battery storage projects online, the kind of highly technical work that supports grid reliability, domestic energy capacity, and national energy security.

As America adds more storage to the grid, Harper is focused on making sure there are skilled people ready to build and operate it.

Company: GreEnergy Resources

Location: Spring, TX

Daniel Maxwell is building leadership infrastructure.

Through Summit Point Leadership, he helps organizations develop stronger leaders and teams, and is expanding that work from in-person training into a digital platform designed to reinforce accountability and lasting behavior change over time.

The goal is not simply to deliver another seminar, but to create a system organizations can use to make better leadership stick.

Company: Summit Point Leadership

Location: Houston, TX

Nick Martocci is helping build a practical pipeline into the American energy workforce.

At Technical Training Academy, students receive rigorous safety and job-readiness training for careers in electrical and energy infrastructure. Nick is also developing battery-specific programs to prepare young people and transitioning veterans for work in one of the fastest-growing parts of the energy sector.

His work addresses a simple but urgent question: as America builds more energy infrastructure, who will be trained to do the work?

Company: Technical Training Academy

Location: Las Vegas, NV

Chamai Shahim is focused on connecting the people, industries, technologies, and supply chains shaping America’s next industrial era.

Through Gambek, she works across the industrial ecosystem, helping create the relationships and networks required for domestic manufacturing, workforce development, and innovation to scale together.

Her approach recognizes that industrial growth does not happen in isolation. It depends on stronger connections between the companies, materials, technologies, and people building alongside one another.

Company: Gambek

Location: Chandler, AZ

Jason Sikora is connecting veterans with careers in West Texas’ energy industry, including oil and gas, and power.

The West Texas Veteran Energy Workforce Initiative is designed to help veterans transition into meaningful civilian work while giving energy employers access to experienced, disciplined talent.

The initiative begins with individual placements, but the larger goal is to create a repeatable regional network connecting veterans, employers, and communities throughout West Texas.

Company: West Texas Counseling & Guidance

Location: San Angelo, TX

Kelly Redmond is working on a less visible but critical part of domestic renewable fuel production: the feedstocks behind it.

Through Oleo, Kelly is developing lower-cost, carbon-negative feedstocks made from biomass waste, with the goal of making renewable fuel projects more financially competitive and strengthening an emerging American industrial supply chain.

It is a technical solution with a practical industrial purpose: turn low-value waste into a useful input for domestic fuel production.

Company: West Texas Counseling & Guidance

Location: Berkeley, CA

Bradford Quigley is combining solar energy and agriculture in a distinctly Texas way.

Through Solar Ranch Xperts, his veteran-led business uses livestock-based vegetation management and agrivoltaics to maintain utility-scale solar sites. Sheep graze beneath solar panels, helping control vegetation while supporting productive agricultural use of the land.

Builder Fund support would help Bradford invest directly in the assets needed to grow including a starter sheep herd and commercial mower and take on more utility-scale solar projects.

Company: Solar Ranch Xperts

Location: San Angelo, TX

Website: https://www.linkedin.com/company/solar-ranch-xperts

Seth Mansur is strengthening the domestic supply chain for battery energy storage by helping U.S.-made components and equipment become commercially deployable projects.

Through Ampify, he is qualifying domestic suppliers and developing a battery energy storage system configuration that can be financed and deployed at scale.

His work sits at the intersection of sourcing, engineering, financing, and deployment — helping strengthen domestic battery capacity while moving equipment from the supply chain into real projects.

Company: Ampify

Location: Sturbridge, MA

Kevin Burns is creating a pathway from military service into one of the systems American industry depends on every day: logistics.

Through Legion 1 Logistics’ Veterans Specialized Driver Program, veterans can translate their military experience into skilled civilian driving careers.

The program supports veterans entering the workforce while strengthening the transportation network that domestic manufacturing, construction, and energy rely on to move people, materials, and equipment across the country.

Company: Legion 1 Logistics

Location: Clifton Park, NY

After 27 years of U.S. Army service, including Special Forces experience, Robert Kinard began a new chapter as a farmer and entrepreneur.

At Good Times Farm, he is building a diversified agricultural business around beekeeping, mushrooms, fruit production, and value-added manufacturing through Good Times Mead.

Robert’s story is a strong example of what the Builder Fund was created to support: a veteran taking decades of experience, discipline, and resilience and applying them to the work of creating a productive American business from the ground up.

Company: Good Times Farm

Location: Marion, NC