Carl and Lori Churchill

Carl and Lori Churchill discovered their life’s purpose while mulling a career setback and drinking coffee their brother-in-law had roasted. The country was weathering a recession, and the software company where Carl was the chief operating officer had just gone bankrupt. But as a 21-year Army veteran and retired colonel, Carl wouldn’t be kept down for long.

Like so many who wore the uniform, and their spouses who shared in their sacrifices, Carl and Lori turned to entrepreneurship and took control of their destiny. On Sept. 11, 2010, they founded Alpha Coffee, a Utah-based company dedicated to great coffee and continued service through philanthropy. Along the way, they found support, community and expertise at DAV Patriot Boot Camp, an entrepreneurship program designed for business owners in the military and veteran community. They have since donated to support the entrepreneur program and sponsored the National Disabled Veterans Winter Sports Clinic co-presented by the Department of Veterans Affairs and DAV.

Carl sat down with the DAV Podcast to reflect on his 15-year journey as an entrepreneur and how DAV Patriot Boot Camp helped Alpha Coffee become what it is today. Below is an edited excerpt from that conversation. The full episode is embedded above, and you can find it wherever you listen to podcasts.

DAV: This September will mark 15 years of Alpha Coffee. What has been most rewarding for you and for Lori in this journey?

Carl: I think Lori would agree with me that one of the things that was most rewarding was doing this together. And as a family, we pulled ourselves up by the bootstraps. We were in a situation where we were having yard sales to get money for groceries. We were at the top of our game. I was an entrepreneur. So was Lori; she had a massage therapy business. We were doing great. And the recession completely knocked us off our horse. But we got back up; we jumped back on and we did this. So that’s been super rewarding to build something literally from nothing, from an idea, from two people sitting down over coffee and saying, “Hey, we have this crazy idea. Let’s make it work.” And I think that is super satisfying. …

… And then that give-back program, being able to do things for charities that are nonprofits that are doing great work in the communities, like DAV. I’m a lifetime member of DAV, and I love what DAV does and how it helps veterans. And so that’s our commitment to DAV and to Patriot Boot Camp is to give back and be part of the solution.

DAV: Now I’m going to ask you the flip side of that question. Over the 15 years, what’s been most challenging?

Carl: I think the definition of an entrepreneur is somebody who goes from one setback to the next with no loss of enthusiasm. And that’s really kind of the story of Alpha. Whether it was getting our first SBA loan, where it was approved and it wasn’t approved, and then we had to fight to get it approved again. COVID hitting us right after we opened up our second shop and having to quickly adapt and figure out how to do that. And then when inflation hit, and we go through probably about 200 gallons of milk a week between our two shops, and when inflation hit and the price of milk went up, the price of eggs went up, and we had to very quickly react. And you can’t just raise the price on your drinks every week.

All of those challenges are difficult. Hiring and retaining employees is difficult in the current environment where we’re at max employment and people can walk out the door and get a job the very next day or the same day someplace else. All of that is a challenge. Lori and I talk a lot about just that positive focus. Helen Keller said, “If you keep your face to the sun, you don’t see the shadows.” And that’s what we do. Every day we wake up excited to overcome the latest challenge.

DAV: You mentioned DAV Patriot Boot Camp. What was that experience like?

Carl: The instruction we got, the community that we joined, just the ideas and the camaraderie that you get with a bunch of other veteran and military spouse entrepreneurs is invaluable. When we went there, we were at that point just online. We just had our online shop, and it was at Patriot Boot Camp that we really had this idea of taking it further and really trying to grow the business. And we were motivated by the people around us and the speakers they brought in to really double down and grow the business. And that’s when we made the decision that, hey, we gotta get outta the basement. That and the fact that people were saying, “Hey, I wanna swing by your warehouse and see you guys to pick up the coffee.” And we were like, “Uh, that’s our basement.” So we needed a place to grow. So yeah, Patriot Boot Camp, and that’s why we wanna give back as graduates of Patriot Boot Camp. We just feel an obligation that somebody gave us a hand up, so we wanna be there for other veteran and military spouse entrepreneurs.