The Annual CA DVB Alliance Keeping the Promise (KTP) Conference - Wrap Up 2012

California veterans have a unique opportunity to do business each year. The annual Keeping the Promise (KTP) conference, this year held with the support of title sponsors Union Bank and McKesson, is the entrepreneurial rock in the center of a stream of discouraging unemployment statistics for California veterans. 

Created by the non-profit CA DVB Alliance nearly 20 years ago, Keeping the Promise is all about business matchmaking with sponsors and supporters, including Apple, Allergan, AT&T, Blue Shield of CA, Chevron, CVS, Dun & Bradstreet, Genentech, Hensel Phelps, Hewlett Packard, Kelly Amerit Fleet Services, Lockheed, MWD, Plantronics, Pothos, Robert Half, Southern California Edison, Southwest Gas, Swinerton, Verizon and the California Department of General Services (DGS).

For many of the thousands of returning and current veterans, creating a company to supply goods and services wanted by state and federal government as well as corporate America may be key to a successful return to civilian life.   Hundreds of disabled veterans, veteran-owned companies, and veterans who want to become their own bosses found opportunities to match their entrepreneurial spirit at KTP 2012.

Held annually by the CA DVB Alliance, hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts were available for veteran suppliers interested in doing business with the state of California, federal government agencies, regulated utilities, private industry firms, and special districts that were buying the goods and  services they require.  While business is the primary focus of the two-day event, military men and women who have served our country in the past, present, and future came together at the gala dinner celebration. As Active Duty troops who had recently returned from service in Iraq and Afghanistan joined veterans, 150 new recruits were sworn into Armed Forces service.

Keeping the Promise has grown to meet the demand for entrepreneurial independence and financial security for disabled military men and women returning from serving the country, with more than 1000 matchmaking sessions for hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts accomplished this year.

Keeping the Promise (KTP) is the largest disabled veteran business exposition in America held in Southern California each May.

Mark your calendar now for May 2013!
To learn more about the KTP and the CA DVB Alliance, go to www.cadvbe.org