“On A Mission” showcases leaders who are going the extra mile each and every day. Each of the people we interview is on a mission to serve, inspire and educate. Our hosts highlight their impact and explore what motivates, engages and fulfills individuals and teams to be more productive, more effective, better at what they do, and happier to do it. Today our hosts, James Fenimore and Della Sellers, spoke with Michele McManamon.
Michele McManamon
CEO at Operation New Uniform
Website Address: https://onuvets.org/
Short company description:
Operation New Uniform is a Jacksonville-based nonprofit that helps servicemembers, veterans, and military spouses overcome the uncertainty, underemployment, and isolation that often follow military life. Many struggle to translate their experience into civilian careers, navigate unfamiliar hiring systems, or regain confidence after service. ONU bridges that gap through career readiness training, professional development, and lifelong alumni support, empowering participants to move from transition to stability and into purposeful, sustainable careers.
What is one question you would like the host to ask you?
How can our viewers help? We have a capitol campaign kicking off to help us move into a bigger space. We have outgrown our current place, and I would like for the new space to accommodate not just us, but other Veteran Service Organizations that would collaborate with us to better serve our Veteran community. We are calling the building Hope and Honor. On a smaller scale, our 24 for 24 campaign is a great way to get involved with ONU and help by a small donation of $24 dollars a month for $24 months.
What’s one thing we should know that makes your company unique?
One thing people should know that makes me and Operation New Uniform (ONU) unique is our deeply rooted commitment to serving each individual as more than just a veteran or military spouse. At ONU, we take a person-centered approach that meets our students where they are—physically, emotionally, and mentally—on their transition journey. My faith in God drives our mission to inspire hope and build confidence, helping veterans and spouses rediscover their worth and purpose beyond military life. This approach, coupled with our unwavering belief in the value of every individual, sets ONU apart as the only program of its kind.
How do you define success?
I define success as helping others find stability, purpose, and confidence in their next chapter while staying grounded in faith, family, and service. It’s not about titles or numbers—it’s about impact. If I’m making a difference in someone’s life and honoring my values along the way, that’s success.
How did you get started in your field of work?
Over a decade ago, Pat and I founded Operation New Uniform with a simple idea: to provide one veteran with a scholarship to attend our Sandler sales training program. Little did we know, God had a much bigger plan in mind. Today, ONU has served over 600 veterans in our classroom setting and impacted thousands of family members as well. Pat continues to lead our Sandler business, while I transitioned full-time in 2018 to focus on leading Operation New Uniform.
What is the most important lesson you’ve learned over your career?
The most important lesson I have learned in my career is the importance of having God at the center of everything we do. When decisions, relationships, and leadership are grounded in faith, there is greater clarity, humility, and purpose, especially during challenging seasons. At Operation New Uniform, our motto God, Family, Country is not just words on a wall. It is how we lead, how we serve, and how we show up for every student who walks through our doors. That foundation creates a culture of respect, accountability, and hope, and it has made a lasting impact on the servicemembers, veterans, and military spouses we serve. I have seen firsthand that when people feel valued, supported, and reminded that their work and their lives have purpose beyond a paycheck, they rise to the occasion. Keeping God first, honoring family, and serving our country has shaped my leadership and continues to shape the outcomes for those we are privileged to serve.
What nonprofit do you have a heart for and how do you support it?
One nonprofit that is especially close to my heart is Operation New Uniform. I support ONU because I see firsthand how career readiness can transform lives. Servicemembers, veterans, and military spouses bring incredible leadership and discipline, but translating that experience into meaningful civilian careers is not always easy. Operation New Uniform equips them with the skills, confidence, and ongoing support they need to successfully transition into purposeful, stable careers. Supporting that mission is deeply personal and mission-driven for me. I am also a strong supporter of THE PLAYERS because of their commitment to giving back across Northeast Florida. Their philanthropic model strengthens a wide range of local nonprofits and addresses real needs throughout our community, creating a lasting impact for families and individuals across the region. Another organization that is very important to us is Champions For Hope. My best friend passed away from pancreatic cancer, and supporting this organization is a way for me to honor her memory while helping fund research, raise awareness, and support families walking through an incredibly difficult journey. Finally, our church, Redeemer Church in PV, plays a central role in how we serve our community. Through Redeemer, we support outreach efforts that meet people where they are and provide encouragement, care, and practical support. It is a meaningful way for our family to stay grounded in service and faith while giving back locally. Each of these organizations reflects a different aspect of how I choose to serve—through career empowerment, community investment, faith-based outreach, and honoring the memory of those who have meant so much in my life.
What’s your favorite way to get involved in the community?
One of my favorite ways to get involved with the community is through my involvement with THE PLAYERS. I appreciate how intentionally they invest in Northeast Florida by supporting a wide range of local nonprofits and addressing real, on-the-ground needs. Being part of an organization that brings people together, leverages its platform for good, and creates meaningful impact across our community is incredibly rewarding to me.
If you could be remembered for one thing, what would it be?
That I gave all the glory and all the praise to God for all that is true and right in my life, my family and my work. That I treated others with respect and love even sometimes when it hurt.
What lessons from sports have you applied to your personal life and career?
One of the biggest lessons sports taught me is that you don’t win alone. Success comes from discipline, showing up even when it’s hard, trusting your team, and getting back up after setbacks. I’ve carried that into my life and career—stay coachable, keep moving forward, and remember that every challenge is preparation for what’s next.
What strategies do you use to improve your performance?
I focus on discipline, accountability, and continuous learning. I set goals, surround myself with people who challenge me, stay coachable, and regularly assess what’s working and what’s not. Most importantly, I lead with purpose—when you’re mission-driven, performance follows. God takes care of the rest.
Can You Discuss a Time When You Had to Work with a Team to Achieve a Goal?
Every day. Whether at work or at home raising my kids when they were little, everything meaningful requires teamwork. Buy-in and trust are essential. I’m incredibly grateful for the team I have today. I trust them with both the small and big decisions, even when they don’t always trust themselves yet. Empowering people is half the work; the other half is giving them grace to learn and make mistakes. I’ve made plenty myself, and I believe leadership means offering the same grace you hope to receive.
Transcript
James Fenimore
Hi and welcome to On a Mission, where we like to spotlight people that are really doing great work in our community. I’m James Fenimore, and joining me, as always is Della Sellers. Della, how are you?
Della Sellers
I’m wonderful. How are you?
James Fenimore
So good. Thank you for, thank you for asking. Yeah, absolutely. And I’m excited. Today I get to introduce to you guys, Michele McManamon with Operation New Uniform, and I actually met Michele standing in a line at a Christian chamber at one time. And we happened to be talking. I was talking to a gentleman about what God had done, and she turned around and she goes, oh my God, you need to get connected with life. She called me and she turned on and and me a card. And that’s just been a story in its own of my journey. But, Michele, I’m so glad you’re here.
Michele McManamon
Thank you so much for inviting me. I’m so excited to be here because we get to talk about our favorite topic, Jesus. And I love it.
James Fenimore
So before we get started, can you tell everybody a little bit about who you are and what you guys do?
Michele McManamon
Sure. So Operation New Uniform is an organization that empowers veterans, military spouses, and active duty to get to fulfilling careers after they leave the military. And we’re really excited about just giving them the tools and the things that they need to be a successful, easy transition, because transitioning from the military can be really tough. We just want to make sure that we can make it a little easier for them.
Della Sellers
I love that that is something. I was a Navy spouse when he retired after 20 years. And it was on me before that. So and it was the same when he transitioned after 22 years. He did it. He’s like, I spent 22 years and I’ve been told where to go, what to do, what to wear, how to do it since he’d been 18 years old.
Yeah. And interesting he went right back into firefighting because he said it felt comfortable. Right. And it’s so funny. I was talking to someone this morning and they said, you know, what are the challenges they face? What is it that you that you’re seeing a lot of? And it’s that the comfort zone? I would, you know, most of them would rather jump out of perfectly good airplanes, then go to a networking event, which is for us, it’s easy, right?
We go to networking events all the time, and for most of our folks, it’s a it’s a difficult situation because they don’t speak the same language.
James Fenimore
I, I noticed, you know, you reminded me by saying that that they all have when I say thank you for your service, it’s all the same line that comes back to me. Thank you for your support. Because they’re not used to they don’t know how to respond. And that’s what networking event I can only imagine right after you’ve been told where to go, what to do. Like Della said, how do you work with the spouses?
Michele McManamon
Yeah, that’s a great question. Well, Della, why don’t you tell me a little bit about what was it like for you as a spouse? Did you have gaps in your resume?
Della Sellers
So I never had to relocate. So we stayed local. And when he was relocated, I stayed. Okay. Only because at that point I was. We met in our late 30s, so I’d always really structured into my career. But I do have, like, one of my best friends. She’s married to a guy. She’s a navigator of the C-130s, and hers has been that, like, it’s a lot. She’s got three masters, but her job changes every couple years, and it’s completely disrupted because of his, which has been tough. So spouses are very educated. They’re one of the most educated population of around. The thing is that it’s when you have gaps in your resume, how do you speak to that?
Michele McManamon
So a lot of them lose their confidence because how do I talk to an employer when there’s nothing there to show what I just did for the last three years? And we’re like, but what you just did in the last three years is you were able to move your entire family. So you engineered all of that. You did the logistics for all of that. You volunteered at all these amazing places. So you were doing a lot. You just didn’t realize it. You didn’t know how to put it in paper and how to speak to it, and we get them comfortable speaking to it. So we use a a sales training program, believe it or not, to teach them how to sell themselves instead of a product or service. So we use Sandler in place of a regular traditional transition curriculum. And it’s unique. It’s different the minute they walk in the door. We tell them we love them, and that’s a whole different ballgame.
We’re like, I know you guys are all these big burly, you know, Army, Navy, Air Force Marines pick a branch of service. But we love you. But we’re going to be here for you for the long haul. So immediately it feels different for when for all of them, our spouses and our service members that come through. So it’s an interesting, interesting process.
James Fenimore
That’s beautiful. Thanks for sharing that. And, I know you guys have some events coming up or I mean, you said we’d like to speak to that. We’d love to let our audience know.
Michele McManamon
Yes, yes. October 17th at the Sawgrass Marriott. We have our gala. We’re bringing it back. So we took a year off and we’re bringing it back because there was like once the gala. So, it’s going to be October 17th, Sawgrass Marriott and it’s going to be Mssion Possible. So Heroes Gala look at our website.
We’d be happy to help you find some type of sponsorship level or something to get involved. But we want the whole community. We have seating for about 350 to 400 people.
James Fenimore
That’s impressive and I am very familiar with the organization. I know a lot of people that have gone through your organization work with your organization. So it’s doing great work in our community. So I love it.
And like I mentioned, we met on the life work side. So as individuals that we’re kind of coming together and kind of wanting to talk about what God has done in our lives, where do you tie that into ministry, but also kind of opening that up to individuals to make sure they also feel welcomed if they feel differently?
I know that’s one of the things is a ministry leader I’ve learned to navigate. Would you like to share a little bit about that?
Michele McManamon
Absolutely. I mean, it’s so interesting when my husband and I thought about starting this organization and being able to do this, we prayed a lot about it. And everybody I talked to, I said, listen, this is not my organization. It’s not my husband’s. It’s it is God’s.
And when you walk in that door, you’ll feel his presence. I mean, the Holy Spirit is in there. We pray before our meetings. We pray before our classes. We tell them, we pray for them when they walk in. And sometimes we’re praying when they’re leaving. You know, when we do joke around about that.
But the truth is, we give everyone the opportunity in that room. Look, whatever your faith is, I want you to know that we’re praying for you. And if you have anything going on in your world that you just maybe are struggling with and you need prayer, come to us.
And we’re here at early before class to pray if you want to join us. And we have a few that come in early and pray with us, it’s amazing. But our staff knows every single day we are God’s hands and feet. Do not bring your ego here. This is not about us. It’s truly about who we serve.
And we’re serving God first, family second and country third.
Della Sellers
That’s impressive. I love it because it’s God’s. If it wasn’t impressive, you’d say, oh, Michele, that’s all you’ve that’s it. Just. And honestly, I think that’s the part that’s impressive to me because I understand the obedience of what it takes to stand on that.
As an entrepreneur. Yeah. And also how difficult it is to create the culture where you do both, where I can invite my team in in the mornings and say, we’re all going to come early if you choose to, to want to join for prayer and Bible study.
Yeah. But also going out of my way to make sure that anybody else on my team that doesn’t join knows that I just love you anyways. Right. And we do it a lot with our youth. I’m like, I’m just going to love on you.
And if I pray for you, you’ll know I love you. Because if you just listen to me, pray for you, you can’t miss that at least. And genuinely, I want the best for you. So even if we don’t agree, the love behind it seems to bring a unity that I had never seen before.
But it did take my obedience to step out first, like I generally had to do that and be willing to take the backlash. Then then realize that it wasn’t as bad as most people kind of thought it was going to be if we just went into it.
In the context of starting with, we’re just here to serve, we’re just here to love, and I want to love you just like we’re loving who we’re serving.
So that’s why I say it’s impressive.
Michele McManamon
That’s so huge. And, you know, so many people said, well, aren’t you worried about you could state funding. Aren’t you worried about the state taking the money away?
So you know what? This is God’s anyway. And if he wants it to go away, it’s going to go away. But I don’t force anybody to pray. We, you know, at all times invite.
And it’s not what we’re supposed to do. We simply invite. We just, you know, plant the seed. If they want to take it, that’s great. If they don’t, we understand. We’re going to love them anyway.
Like you said, we love them from a distance. We pray for them, and that’s what we’re supposed to do. So it’s, pretty incredible that every day if somebody says, you know what? You can get that money taken away. If you’re going to keep praying like that, well, then the money goes away.
We’ll find it somewhere else. God will provide. Amen. He’ll give us what we need.
James Fenimore
So. Well, I know if anybody in the area wants to find out more about, like, getting involved at their spouse or military, where can they go to get connected with you guys?
Michele McManamon
Everything. Just go to our website if you want to. Time, talent, treasure. If you want to, donate, if you want to, you know you have something special that you do that could benefit anyone you that wants to help and you know, treasure. Of course, if you would like to donate.
However, I think I may have said that already, but feel free. ONUvets.org. Oh and you vets talk is how you can get Ahold of us, get Ahold of me or anybody on our team. We’d love to help.
James Fenimore
Michele. We’re gonna have all your information right below this video, okay? Anybody needs to reach you. If they forgot, they didn’t have a pen. Don’t worry. We’re going to get them to you, and you’re going to get them to you on October 17th.
Michele McManamon
Thank you. That would be amazing.
James Fenimore
Thank you so much for joining us. It’s been a real pleasure. And thank you for all that you do for our for armed Services.
Michele McManamon
Thank you for having me on the show. I appreciate it.
James Fenimore
Absolutely. This has been On A Mission. I’m James Fenimore. This is Della Sellers and we can’t wait to see you next time.
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