With his dream business on the line, former Marine 1st Lieutenant Mark Phillippe used the lessons he learned on deployment to save it.About five years ago, FOX 7 Austin introduced viewers to former Marine First Lieutenant Mark Phillippe right as he had achieved a seven-year dream.got off to a great start, but then came the challenges. The three-year construction project on 183 made it almost impossible to get to his location, and then there was the pandemic.
"I had nobody making beer, no employees, just me. And I took out a sticky note and wrote YCF, you cannot fail, on it. So I'd walk in and know there's more riding on this than just myself," Phillippe said. With his dream business on the line, the lessons he learned on deployment in Helmond Province began to kick in.
"It was a parallel mindset to being a platoon commander in Afghanistan. For me that YCF was a mentality...it was like you can't fail your Marines. If you do the job poorly, plan, execute poorly, don't train them properly," said Phillippe.It took about three years to do it, all the while knowing and being prepared that every day would bring unexpected twists, turns and challenges.
"There's that training that doesn't leave you when you finish your contract. There were times during COVID when I'd wake up, and we had one employee. I'd think to myself 'there's nothing today that's going to be harder than losing a Marine, so this stuff is fine...we just make beer.'"Almost everything is new, the staff, the equipment, the taproom.