Tara Smith, a veterinarian and military spouse, started DocTerra Mobile Veterinary Services using a converted church bus to bring vet care to rural homes. She used SBA resources and a veteran business center to secure a loan and grow her practice.
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I'm Tara Smith. I am a veterinarian and the owner of Docterra Mobile Veterinary Services. Most of our practice area is very rural, so when I decided to develop my own business and go out on my own, I really wanted to be strictly mobile, mostly because I saw the need to make it more convenient for people. So we pull up in their driveway, at their home, or at their barn and provide the services that their animals need. I love the interaction that I have with my clients. It's really encouraging to me to be able to go to their house and just understand who they are, not just know their pets, but know them as well. And so it. It's very fulfilling to me. About two hours after surgery, she can have about half of what she normally would eat. My husband was in the United States Marine Corps and he knew that there were home loans offered to veterans, so he recommended that I check into a business loan.
Our program is a SBA resource service to provide entrepreneurship training to the military community. That community is veterans, active duty, military spouses that are interested in entrepreneurship. So Tara reached out to our center and was needing assistance with access to capital to get her van started, get the business started, and the tools and equipment to to be able to successfully go out to different communities. So we worked with her on her business plan.
The VBOC then connected me with the Small Business Administration, and then I was able to get my business loan backed by the SBA through a community lender. The SBA has been very supportive, and the VBoC has also been very instrumental in the growth of my practice and helping me to develop as an entrepreneur. He's fixed, I guess whatever he did worked. Our initial thought of doing the mobile rig was to try to keep something small. So we had looked at an ambulance as an idea, and my dad said, oh, no, that's not big enough to do what you want to do. You're not going to be able to do surgeries in there. And I knew I definitely wanted to do basic small animal spays and neuters. And so we came across this church bus, and my dad actually converted the bus into the mobile clinic that it.
Is now battery down below.
And then when I added my associate, I needed another vehicle for her as well. So he's in the process of building that now, and it's worked out great. I'm very thankful to have had my dad to be able to do that for me.
She and I work good together because she can convey to me what she needs and then I can figure out a way to make it work, basically. So, yeah, we're a pretty good team when it comes to that.
Our goal and mission is to be able to provide them with the necessary tools and resources to be successful and sustainable. So in following up with our clients, just like with Tara, what we like to do is get out of the office and actually go see our clients to assess their needs and see what are some of the small business development issues or concerns that they may have that we tailor our program to meet the needs of our clients. It's all about our client and helping them be a true success. In veteran entrepreneurship, other military spouses can hear and be inspired and encouraged to go into the same pathway.
Yeah, absolutely. The VBOC was huge in where I am today. I don't feel like I would have started my business as strong because I didn't even know what a business plan was when I started. And it was a lot of work, but it was a very seamless process, and the SBA has been very supportive in helping me along the way. I definitely don't feel like my business would be as profitable as it is if it had not been for the VBOC and the sba, because that's what they do. They know small business, and they know how to help us start out on the right foot.
