Podcast: Speaking of Quality
Season 6 Episode 9
Title: From Loss to Legacy: A Story of Service, Sacrifice, and Lasting Impact

Episode Transcript:

Maxine Cuffe 00:03 

You’re listening to “Speaking of Quality” with Hank Smith, a podcast by The Haverford Trust Company. On “Speaking of Quality,” Hank features authors, business leaders and wealth management experts who share stories from their careers and insights on topics that impact financial wellness. And now, here’s your host, Hank Smith. 

Hank Smith 00:24 

Hello, and welcome to another episode of “Speaking of Quality.” I’m your host, Hank Smith, Director and Head of Investment Strategy at The Haverford Trust Company. On this podcast, we explore topics ranging from leadership and economics to civic engagement and community building. Today, I’m joined by Ryan Manion, the CEO and founder of the Travis Manion Foundation, a nonprofit organization that empowers veterans and surviving families to continue their service and make an impact on future generations. Welcome to Speaking of Quality, Ryan. 

Ryan Manion 00:57 

Oh, thanks so much for having me. Excited to be here. 

Hank Smith 00:59 

Well, before we jump in and talk about the foundation and you starting it and your inspiration for that, why don’t you give our listeners a little bit of your background? 

Ryan Manion 01:11 

Sure. So, I am a military child, and as a result of that, I moved around a lot. I was born on a Marine Corps base in North Carolina. And in the first 11 years of my life, I moved 13 times. My brother was just 15 months younger than me. So, the one kind of nice thing about growing up with an Irish twin, as they call it, is I knew that no matter where we were going to end up, I always had Travis right there with me. We were just a year apart in school, but definitely a lot of transitioning in my youth. But my parents were originally from the Philadelphia area. My dad went to Lower Merion High School, my mom, Conestoga. And so, when my dad left active duty, they brought us back to the Philadelphia area. This really is the place that I feel the most connected to out of all the different places that I’ve lived in my life. And I grew up here, went to high school at Central Bucks East. My brother went to La Salle. And then I stayed local. I went to Widener University for college, and my brother went to the United States Naval Academy. But we had a really awesome childhood. I look back on it a lot, and I look back on the transitions that I went through as a child and not realizing how much I learned about adversity and change as a result of having to pick up every year, year and a half, and be in a different location. But I look back on that now as such a positive thing in my life and something that helped me as I grew up and dealt with other challenges as life presents you with. And then after graduating from college, I stayed in the Philadelphia area and did a bunch of different things. I was a small business owner. I worked for the government for HUD here in Bucks County. And then, of course, my life path really took a sharp turn after my brother was killed in Iraq. 

Hank Smith 03:07 

And obviously that was the inspiration for you to start a foundation in your brother’s name, the Travis Manion Foundation. What was that like, organizing that endeavor? Tell us about some of the challenges of starting a foundation. 

Ryan Manion 03:24 

Yeah, it was really my mom who started the organization. I’ll tell you, after Travis was killed, my parents’ friends had set up, with a local bank here in Doylestown, a “First Lieutenant Travis Manion Memorial Fund,” so in lieu of flowers. And so, it was just a couple weeks after his death, we had several hundred thousand dollars in a bank account and really didn’t know what we were going to do with it. And it was my mom who said she really wanted to take it and start an organization in his name. So, she really founded the organization at first. And I always say that my dad and I kind of jumped on the bandwagon when we saw what she was doing and what she was building. But yeah, none of us had any experience in nonprofit. And I will tell you, it’s an industry that is very complex and complicated. And I always jokingly say, really what I did to learn the nonprofit industry is I went to Barnes & Noble and I bought Nonprofit 101 for Dummies. And I can’t tell you how much that taught me because there’s so many different complexities that you have to adhere to that you don’t in a for-profit business. And so, I really wanted to make sure if we were going to do this, this is an organization that will bear my brother’s name. It had to be done the right way. And we had to make sure that we were staying true to transparency and fiscal responsibility and all the things that come with running a nonprofit. And so, we really learned on the go in the early days, and we were just kind of learning as we went. But like you said, a lot of it was just, we just had this immense passion for being able to continue Travis’ legacy of service that he had really worked on while he was here. And we wanted to make sure that we were supporting those men and women in uniform in the right way. And so, it was a labor of love for us. I mean, it still is, frankly. 

Hank Smith 05:20 

So has the mission statement evolved over the years, or is it still that core of working with veterans and surviving families? But you also do a lot of work with the youth. Was that always part of the Travis Manion Foundation? 

Ryan Manion 05:37 

Yeah. So interestingly enough, when my mom filed our paperwork to become a 501(c)(3), she wrote the mission statement, and our original mission statement was “assist and support veterans and families of the fallen and to play a role in building the next generation of leaders.” And I remember being like, “Well, what does that mean? How are you going to do that?” And honestly, when she put that mission statement down, she was very clear in saying, “I don’t know, but what I do know is that the person Travis became was because of the incredible mentorship and leadership he had from people. He didn’t just become a leader on his own. And so, somehow, we need to figure that out.” And so, we kind of built programming around our mission statement as opposed to the latter, like, “This is what we’re going to do, and let’s define it.” We defined it before we even knew how we were going to accomplish it. And our mission statement, there’s some words that have changed loosely, but at the end of the day, we still have the same mission, and we’ve taken that, and like you said, our main goal, we are a veteran-service organization. So, it is to support our men and women who are serving and protecting the freedoms we hold so dear, whether in uniform or as they’re transitioning out. But as an offset of that, we’ve also made sure that we are playing a part in the next generation of leaders. And we’ve had over a million kids go through our character-development program. We’re nationally based now. We have 60 chapters across the country, started off here in the Philadelphia area and really grew community by community. I would say that our growth was very grassroot in the beginning. It’s now more intentional and strategic. 

Hank Smith 07:21 

Yeah, I just think it’s a fabulous mission. 

Ryan Manion 07:24 

Yeah. I always say that our military community, our men and women in uniform, when they take the uniform off, they’re perhaps some of the greatest civic assets that our country has to offer. And one of the things we found is that, and I think it’s a lot of reasons why people want to hire veterans, they have these intangible skillsets that our civilian world just doesn’t have. I mean, you don’t typically get a job and some of the fundamental core things you’re taught are leadership, courage, service, integrity. These are all things that are mandatory skillsets that they must possess to serve in the military. 

Hank Smith 07:59 

It’s a great reminder. It kind of leads me to the organization’s mantra. I don’t know if it’s a tagline, but certainly a mantra that Travis said: “If not me, then who?” And you write in the book that we’ll talk about a little bit, the children’s book you wrote that before he left for a second tour in Iraq, he went to an Eagles game, and his buddies were trying to talk him into not going back to Iraq and just hanging out. And he said, “If not me, then who?” When did you first hear your brother use that expression? And I mean, it’s very emotional. 

Ryan Manion 08:42 

Yeah. I never actually heard him say those words. They were shared with us after he was killed, that story and that moment that happened. And in fact, the person he said it to actually shared it with a reporter from The Philadelphia Inquirer. And so, I remember the front page of the Inquirer came out with a story on Travis, and it just said, “If not me, then who?” And one of the things we talked about as a family is we never actually heard him say those words, but when we look back over the course of Travis’ life, we can find so many instances where he was living by those five words for a really long time. And so, we did. We took those five words and said, “We want to turn it into a national movement. And we want to see how many people in America we can get just practicing and adopting that as their kind of daily mantra and a way to live by.” So, it’s not only a personal call to me, but just from organizationally, it is our guiding light for what we’re trying to instill in the people in our community. 

Hank Smith 09:51 

So, Ryan, where do you get your funding, and how do you market? 

Ryan Manion 09:57 

We don’t receive any government funding. So, we rely largely on individual donors, corporations, private foundations. And I would say that our portfolio is very evenly split between those three. And for us, it’s just making sure that more people … I always find that if you don’t know about the Travis Manion Foundation, but I have five minutes to share some of what we do, you’ll want to learn more. And so, we rely on the generous spirit of organizations like you here locally in the Philadelphia area. We’ve been blessed to have some great corporate partnerships with Comcast. So, they have run PSAs for us on TV, and it’s all about just brand awareness and getting our name out there and introducing the work we do to anyone we can. 

Hank Smith 10:46 

And how, if someone is so inclined and motivated listening to this podcast, where would they go if they wanted to make a donation? 

Ryan Manion 10:56 

The best place to go is right to our website, https://www.travismanion.org/. You can learn a lot about the work that we do. We have all our financials listed, and you can make a donation right there, right online. 

Hank Smith 11:09 

And how many employees do you have today? And I assume you also have a lot of volunteers as well. 

Ryan Manion 11:15 

Yeah, so we have currently over a hundred employees across the country. Most of those are on our regional teams working directly with our veterans on the ground. And then our community at large is well over 300,000. 

Hank Smith 11:28 

So, tell us a little bit about your book, Things My Brother Used to Say, an illustration for young children. What was your motivation there? And are you able to get schools to use this book? 

Ryan Manion 11:43 

Yeah. So, again, our flagship program at the Travis Manion Foundation is called “Character Does Matter.” So, we actually train veterans to go out and deliver character education and mentor youth. And I speak every year at my brother’s high school, his alma mater, La Salle College High School. I speak to the incoming freshman class and share his story. And I’m always talking about these different lessons that I learned from Travis growing up, many of them that made it into the children’s book. And, really, it was a couple years ago, someone had said to me, “You should put these down in a children’s book.” I had written a book in 2019 called The Knock at the Door about my experience losing Travis, but definitely too mature for a young reader. And so, we worked on this over the course of a year and were able to put it out in November. And I mean, the day after we hit our presales, opened up our presales, we were number one bestseller on Amazon. So, the book is doing very well. And really for us, it was less about, and I should note that all the proceeds from the book go back to the Travis Manion Foundation, but more than just writing a children’s book, it was exactly what you’re saying. How can we get this in the hands of kids, working with schools? And so that’s really our priority right now, is working with different schools to make sure that there’s a copy of this in the library, that kids have access to it. And our veteran mentors now also have it to use as a tool as they go out. If they’re mentoring that K-through-sixth-grade demographic, this is a great tool to use to teach kids about character. 

Hank Smith 13:25 

So, let’s shift gears a little bit. You are a fellow podcaster, and your podcast is “The Resilient Life.” How long have you been doing it for? And how often do you podcast, and who are you trying to attract on your podcast? 

Ryan Manion 13:44 

I started the podcast actually during COVID as I was sitting in my house, and I couldn’t leave. And it was actually one of our board members at the Travis Manion Foundation who said, “Did you ever think of doing a podcast?” And I was like, “I didn’t.” But, in fact, that individual was Alex Gorsky, who was the CEO and chairman of Johnson & Johnson. And so, they were currently working on a COVID vaccine at the time. And he said, “Would you ever think about doing a podcast?” I said, “Well, only if I can get you as my first guest. People clearly want to hear from you right now with everything going on.” And so, he agreed to that. He came on, and he was my first guest. And well over 150 guests later, I record … I used to be more every-other week. Now I’m about every three weeks I have a guest on. But for me, there’s no specific individual I’m looking for. What I learned is that everybody has their own story of resilience and things they’ve had to overcome in life. So, I’ve had former Chairmans of the Joint Chiefs, and I’ve also had reality stars. So, I really run the gamut. And I think one of the things is that when you think about resiliency, and my podcast, as you said, is called “The Resilient Life.” Resilience is kind of a muscle you have to build. You don’t just have something happen to you and say, “Oh, I will be resilient.” You kind of have to know what it takes to be resilient, and you kind of have to put it into practice in your daily life. And so, what I have found for my listeners is that they love the idea of hearing all these different perspectives of people that have gone through all different things over the course of their lives and seeing how they walk those steps and how they make those choices to move forward and, frankly, live a resilient life. 

Hank Smith 15:31 

Yeah. Probably the greatest growth you can have is when you encounter setbacks and how you respond to that. And whether it’s on the athletic field, whether it’s in your business career, I know of no one that has had a straight-up career with no setbacks. So, you’re right there. It almost doesn’t matter what the subject matter is or the individual that you’re podcasting; you can talk about some of the challenges they have faced. 

Ryan Manion 16:00 

Yep, absolutely. 

Hank Smith 16:01 

Any particular stories that come to mind that would just wow listeners? 

Ryan Manion 16:09 

I would say something that’s kind of timely. I had Lindsey Vonn on over the summer, and it was about two weeks before she decided to make the comeback for the Olympics. And at that time, we had a big conversation around failure, and it was so incredible to hear how she spoke about failure and how that defined her in many ways and made her stronger in so many ways outside of her success. And then to watch the trajectory of what took place and happened to her and that really fateful crash that she experienced and follow that journey, I was like, it was almost so telling to hear her talk about it, but then also watch her and continue to watch her practice that and put everything she said into practice. It was wild to see. And I went back and I listened to some of the clips, and I was just like, gosh, it was like, I don’t want to say it’s almost like she knew, but she was always, in our conversation, she was always talking about, “I never operate from a place where I think I’m going to be successful. I always operate from a place where I have to think about worst-case scenario.” And I mean, honestly, at the end of the day, the worst thing that could have happened to her. And just to see how she’s responding to that is truly incredible. 

Hank Smith 17:38 

Well, it truly is. And first of all, to come back at her age, that in itself was remarkable. The fact that she had a World Cup victory before the Olympics is remarkable. And look, she went all out and unfortunately is tragic, but in watching a lot of … I mean, she brought so much interest, not that there isn’t a lot of interest for that sport for the Olympics, but she brought added interest, and she’s not the only one that does downhill racing that hasn’t had so many setbacks, horrific accidents, and yet there’s a resilience. They come back.  

I just wish you, just, continued success. And I know The Haverford Trust Company has had you on the Speaker Series for Women before. And if there’s anything we can do to help support your mission and the Travis Manion Foundation, please let us know. And I can’t wait to go out and talk about the past 30 minutes we’ve had together because it’s a great story. Look what you’ve done and the people you’ve impacted. So, congratulations. 

Ryan Manion 18:06 

Thank you so much. Thanks for having me on, and thank you for everything The Haverford Trust Company has done, gosh, since really the beginning, since we started. So, we really appreciate the partnership and support. 

Hank Smith 18:16 

Well, Ryan, thank you for joining us on Speaking of Quality. I’ve really enjoyed learning more about your work with the Travis Manion Foundation and your family’s story. Thank you for listening to this episode of “Speaking of Quality.” Our next episode will be released shortly. In the meantime, please send suggestions or questions for me or the Haverford Trust team to podcast@haverfordquality.com. And don’t forget to subscribe, rate, review and share this podcast. Until next time, I’m Hank Smith. Stay bullish. 

Maxine Cuffe 18:50 

Thank you for listening to this episode of “Speaking of Quality” with Hank Smith. To hear future episodes of “Speaking of Quality,” please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. To learn more about The Haverford Trust Company, please visit https://haverfordquality.com/. This podcast is provided as general commentary and market overview, and should not be relied upon as research, a forecast or investment advice, and is not a recommendation, offer or solicitation to buy or sell any securities or to adopt an investment strategy. Any opinions expressed are as of the date this podcast was recorded and may change at any time and are the opinions of that commentator, not Haverford. Any opinion or information provided are believed by Haverford to be reliable at the time of this podcast’s recording but are not necessarily all-inclusive or guaranteed for accuracy. Before making any financial decisions, please consult with an investment professional.