In this episode of the WPAOG Podcast, Bridget Altenburg ‘95, President and CEO of the National Able Network, is joined by Kimberly Jung ‘08, CEO of Blanchard, and Emily Miller ‘08, Senior Impact Fund Manager at Twilio.org. In 2014, they founded Rumi Spice, an award-winning social enterprise that provides high-quality, sustainably farmed saffron to world class chefs and Michelin-rated restaurants, by sourcing directly from Afghan farmers in an economic partnership partners in the supply chain.
In this episode of the WPAOG Podcast, Bridget Altenburg ‘95, President and CEO of the National Able Network, is joined by Kimberly Jung ‘08, CEO of Blanchard, and Emily Miller ‘08, Senior Impact Fund Manager at Twilio.org. In 2014, they founded Rumi Spice, an award-winning social enterprise that provides high-quality, sustainably farmed saffron to world class chefs and Michelin-rated restaurants, by sourcing directly from Afghan farmers in an economic partnership partners in the supply chain.
Kimberly and Emily are 2008 graduates of the US Military Academy at West Point, former US Army Engineer officers, and Harvard Business School graduates. As social entrepreneurs and co-founders, Kimberly led Rumi Spice as CEO and Emily as COO. They have employed more than 4,000 Afghan women and partnered with more than 300 Afghan farmers. Their work has been featured on Shark Tank, selected for Y Combinator's social fellowship program, and featured in the New York Times, the Atlantic, Foreign Policy, NPR, Forbes, the Chicago Tribune, Nightline with Diane Sawyer, Voice of America, Food & Wine, and more.
In this episode, Kimberly and Emily talk about how their time at West Point and in the military prepared them for becoming entrepreneurs, the tremendous impact Rumi has had on the spice trade in Afghanistan, and how their startup has helped create jobs for women in the country. They also recount stories of their experiences serving abroad in the Middle East.
---------
“I think really what West Point teaches you is about leadership and management, which I think has been the most helpful in my career, and also in my time as an officer in the Army. That leadership part, you really just can't get anywhere else in the same way that West Point gives it to you. And you learn it by doing. You learn it through practice. You learn it by following. You learn it by leading in small teams over and over again, and getting feedback for how to do it better. And that's what I think is the most important thing that comes out of West Point into the Army” - Kimberly Jung
“Entrepreneurship is not for everybody, but it is addicting once you do it because you realize it has so many similarities to the West Point and Army experience, you know, in combat. It's fast paced, it relies on a small, tight team. You have to move fast. You have to ruthlessly prioritize. You have to be incredibly creative about how you problem solve, and you know, make things happen. You know, you've got this big commander's intent and you have to figure out how you operationalize this and work. And then I think the other thing is just being undaunted by failure and by being told no. You know, getting comfortable with being uncomfortable all the time. I think that is, that is what entrepreneurship is.” - Emily Miller
---------
(02:46) High School Experiences
(04:30) Why they attended West Point
(06:31) Their R-Day experiences
(10:03) Stories at the academy
(11:09) Activities at West Point
(13:15) Picking a military branch
(17:58) Attending Sapper school
(22:45 ) Deployment experiences
(31:09) Creating Rumi Spice
(35:30) Rumi’s impact on Afghanistan
(39:19) Business Ventures after Rumi Spice
(40:49) How West Point and the military prepares entrepreneurs
(43:00) How West Point and the military have helped Rumi Spice
West Point Association of Graduates
[00:00:00] Narrator: Hello and welcome to the WPAOG Broadcast Network.
In this episode of the WPAOG Podcast, Bridget Altenburg ‘95, President and CEO of the National Able Network, is joined by Kimberly Jung ‘08, CEO of Blanchard, and Emily Miller ‘08, Senior Impact Fund Manager at Twilio.org. In 2014, they founded Rumi Spice, an award-winning social enterprise that provides high-quality, sustainably farmed saffron to world class chefs and Michelin-rated restaurants, by sourcing directly from Afghan farmers in an economic partnership in the supply chain.
Kimberly and Emily are 2008 graduates of the US Military Academy at West Point, former US Army Engineer officers, and Harvard Business School graduates. As social entrepreneurs and co-founders, Kimberly led Rumi Spice as CEO and Emily as COO. They have employed over 4,000 Afghan women and partnered with over 300 Afghan farmers. Their work has been featured on Shark Tank, selected for Y Combinator's social fellowship program, and featured in the New York Times, the Atlantic, Foreign Policy, NPR, Forbes, the Chicago Tribune, Nightline with Diane Sawyer, Voice of America, Food & Wine, and more.
In this episode, Kimberly and Emily talk about how their time at West Point and in the military prepared them for becoming entrepreneurs, the tremendous impact Rumi has had on spice trade in Afghanistan, and how their startup has helped create jobs for women in the country. They also recount stories of their experiences serving abroad in the Middle East.
Now, please enjoy this interview between Kimberly Jung, Emily Miller, and your host Bridget Altenburg.
[00:01:56] Bridget Altenburg: Hi, Emily and Kim. It's great to see you so glad you could join me today. How are you both doing, doing Wells excited. I think the last time we were together was in Chicago and I believe we were eating saffron ice cream, if I'm not mistaken.
[00:02:10] Kimberly Jung: Oh yes. Potentially. We also had
[00:02:13] Bridget Altenburg: SAAF yeah, there were saffron gummies.
That's the same. I think there were probably other saffron products, but yeah, I still got. So this is a new bottle, cuz I used the other bottle that we used years ago. So this is a new saffron bottle. So good to see you both and so excited for everything that's happened with roomy. I'm really excited to talk to y'all about your journey and how all this came about.
I think it'll be an exciting story for a lot of people, so let's get things going. So first off, walk us back. Tell us a little bit about what you were like in high school.
[00:02:48] Kimberly Jung: So this is Kim. I grew up in Chinatown, Los Angeles. My parents are from Hong Kong and they're immigrants. And so I grew up with a stereotypical tiger mom.
And so like a minuses were not acceptable. And I had to get a 1600 on the S a, that was the goal. And I did all the after extracurricular activities and whatnot. And so for me, it was all. Getting, you know, to the, the best college and becoming a doctor in life. And so I very much drank that Kool-Aid until I [00:03:20] left home, but I'm really glad I did because then I ended up going to west point and my whole life changed.
Wow.
[00:03:25] Bridget Altenburg: Emily. Yeah, just the same, I think.
[00:03:28] Emily Miller: Right. Just exact same. Yeah, no, um, very different. I grew up in Evansville, Indiana. So in the Midwest and I don't know, had a really fun chilled childhood, I think, compared to Kim, but, you know, I was kind of a tomboy just running around in the cornfield, playing with the boys, you know, doing everything they were doing as much as I could, uh, love sports.
Obviously I'm a Hoosier, so basketball. Running track and cross country and very competitive when it came to sports, but like him very driven valedictorian and cared a lot about school and grades and participating in kind of activities in high school. And, um, actually remember the exact day that I found out about west point, I was a sophomore and a friend of mine had gone to the Naval academy summer program.
And that was it. I knew that's what I wanted to. From that moment
[00:04:11] Bridget Altenburg: on. Yeah, I am curious cuz I came from a military family. So like west point was always a thing you looked forward to, you know, you tried for, but for both of you from non-military families, I'm just curious, like how did you even know? West point was a thing?
What, what made you aspire to go to west point? I know
for
[00:04:29] Emily Miller: me, at least I didn't have any family that were really affiliated with the military at all. And I'm not even sure. I would've found out about west point, had my really close friend who I ran track and cross country with. Not told me about the Naval academy.
And after I looked at the Naval academy, I was like, ah, that place doesn't seem very cool. But west point seems really cool. And you know, I think the moment, it sounds really cheesy, but it was just one of those like life changing moments where you're like your pulse quickens and you just like, feel it you're like, that is what I wanna do that place is.
Like the coolest thing I've ever [00:05:00] seen. And I had kind of been waffling between various colleges, you know, Purdue or, or Indiana university. And, and then I found west point and I knew that's, that's where I wanted to be. And
[00:05:09] Bridget Altenburg: Kim, I can't imagine an immigrant family in LA that west point is like on the radar, even all the way across the country.
[00:05:18] Kimberly Jung: Definitely not. Bridget. I think my parents only had heard about Harvard and that's the only place they wanted me to go. Uh, when in fact that's, you know, there's a ton of awesome places to go and they had never heard of west point. And I heard about this guy who had gone to west point, and it's a place where you learn to become a leader and you lead soldiers into battle and you get to travel the world and defend your country.
And. and it spoke to me, it, like Emily said, it just went into my bones and I was like, this is where I want to go. And I was really excited and I was always like Emily. I was always a really like physical person. And I played a lot of sports and I wasn't outside as much because I lived in a concrete jungle in Los Angeles, but I felt like I had the same sort of like worry mentality that you bridge.
It probably have also, and Emily and all these other west pointers. That's what we come to west point for. And. I just had to go.
[00:06:07] Bridget Altenburg: So talk to me about R day having not, you know, been there before and not having a military family or background, how did that go down R day
[00:06:19] Kimberly Jung: for me was I also decided to cut my hair.
Let's me too. One
[00:06:23] Bridget Altenburg: less thing, one less thing. Excited. I'm gonna do it too.
[00:06:27] Emily Miller: I do bun. So. Cutting.
[00:06:30] Bridget Altenburg: It was, oh, we were allowed to do buns. We had to have it off the collar and I think they had to touch your hair just for the emotional trauma. So like, they'd still butchered it got, [00:06:40] but I had it off. I had it regs before our day, cuz.
Yeah. I, I mean, people said don't, don't like, just take it care of it. You don't want it to be that day. So, so that's good. At least you didn't have that, but I'm sure you did everything else perfectly, cuz you knew everything to expect and you knew how to do facing movements and right.
[00:07:00] Kimberly Jung: Right. You just know that because you're born with that knowledge, not and like anybody who goes to west point for the first time, it's always really nervewracking.
It's your first experience outside of being in the home that you grew up in and you are on your own, but the truth is you're not actually on your own. You're with a bunch of other people who are going through the same thing as you. So it's not that scary. And you know, you have these cadre members who are yelling at you and screaming at you and basically teaching you in a very short amount of time.
All these. The, the lessons of the military, the things you're supposed to do, the behaviors, the rules, and it's just coming at you really fast, but you know what, some of the coolest stuff has even come from R day, you know, there's the cadet and the red sash at the very end where you're walking up to the line and you have to repeat, I forgot.
I actually know at this point, forgot what you had to say, but you see what stuff you're made of, you know, like, can you withstand this? Are you able to execute and speak? And do what you need to do even under stress. And that's some of the most valuable skills that I think that really shapes character for anyone coming into west point.
And when you come out
[00:08:05] Bridget Altenburg: of it, not to be a big nerd, but I believe it was new cadet. Altenburg reporting to the cadet and the red sash for the first, second or third time as ordered sir, or ma'am,
[00:08:15] Kimberly Jung: that's amazing. You still got it. I pass you.
[00:08:17] Bridget Altenburg: First thing still got it. I, I may have been a, a [00:08:20] cadet in the red sash as a Firstie, so I, I heard it a lot, so I cheat.
Emily your R day went like smooth sailing. I'm sure. Right. I was
[00:08:27] Emily Miller: so dorky that summer leading up to it. I read every book I could get my hands on about west point have actually on my bookshelf, one of those old books. So, you know, it's funny. I, I memorized what I could, but this is like him was saying. You just, you can't prepare for what's coming.
There's just nothing. You know, and I remember I was like running into my room and my roommate and future roommate and best friend Whitney Winchester was there and she'd done ROTC for all JTC in high school. And so she was very squared away. She was dressed, had all of her stuff laid out perfectly ready to go.
I didn't even know how to put my belt buckle together. I mean, I think I spent like 15 minutes trying to get that brass buckle, you know, so I couldn't even get. And I was like, okay. So I remembered all the lines, but I can't even get dressed. And I remember thinking, and this is just day one, such, such funny memories, looking back.
[00:09:16] Bridget Altenburg: So you got through, are they any fond beast or PLE your stories
[00:09:20] Kimberly Jung: you wanna share? So for me, I grew up in Los Angeles, so I had never really been out in the woods and played around, like in the Hoosier state. Like Emily did. And so I was really bad at land navigation, which is one of the basic skills that you need as a cadet and later on as an officer.
So I failed my first two land naves there's the night land Ave and the day land Ave. And I managed to fail both. And, you know, I was crying at the end and I was, you know, I just felt like it' the absolute worst. They paired me up with another cadet who was supposedly much more squared away. And he actually had to very embarrassingly.
Hold my hand in the [00:10:00] dark, because I had bad night vision. I didn't know how to maneuver around. And I'm sure that they made fun of me so badly behind my back as I'm fine with that because I got much better at it. And we're all friends now, but that's the level of not good that I came into the academy, but the academy trains, you you'll get better.
[00:10:19] Bridget Altenburg: Any other, remember when stories that you all wanna share about your experience at west point? Good or.
[00:10:25] Emily Miller: I will say PLE beer for me was dark times. You know, I always caveat. I'm like I loved my west point experience, but not that first year. I really struggled. I'm trying to think. One of the funny memories from beast was I'm traumatized by the, the food.
I was always hungry and having to put your utensils down and, and take your, how many bites you got? Three bites. Four bites. And actually all of my, my squad mates were also very hungry and one of the guys actually started choking because we were so hungry and our squad leader was so intense about not taking it.
You know, the certain number of chews he starts choking. And my other squad mate had to do the Heim, like, and he got like a medal for it. Oh my God. I just remember being really hungry. You know, that first summer. What activities
[00:11:07] Bridget Altenburg: did y'all participate in at west point,
[00:11:09] Emily Miller: I spent the first year I walked onto the cross country and track team, and that was, I had a blast.
That's hard. It was hard. And I didn't do well. I did not perform well as a runner under the PLE year circumstances. And then I switched actually to, um, to team handball yuckier on and just fell in love with that sport. My teammates, it was. A blast learning a new sport like
[00:11:29] Bridget Altenburg: that.
[00:11:30] Kimberly Jung: I was on the volleyball team.
My first year. I had a really rough time as well as a plebe. And I think I had gained 15 pounds. Didn't know how to use my body as well, either. [00:11:40] Like, you know, jumping for volleyball. And I was constantly late to the tables. I actually got floated from my own volleyball tables one time cuz I kept coming late.
And so yeah, I mean there were some members of the volleyball team who were really just understood what it was like to be a plebe. And you're really awkward. You just, you know, you say the wrong thing and you don't take social cues very well, but there was other people who were not so nice in the volleyball.
Oh, that's too bad. You know, I just learned. That's okay. You know, it's, uh, it is just a part of growing up and you, you are on either side sometimes, right? Like sometimes you're the one who gets the short end of the stick and the other time you're dealing the sticks in a way that you shouldn't be and you learn from it later.
Yeah. And then I joined Sandhurst after that, and that was fantastic because I was very militarily, somewhat incompetent. And since joining Sandhurst, I learned all these basic skills of land navigation. of tying ropes of working in a team to go over a wall, all the shooting skills, my shooting got much better after that.
And I was part of a team we'd wake up at 5:00 AM in the morning, you know, and the, the blue, black cold, and we would be working out. And I just felt this sense of being part of the small elite group in our company, like doing something great, competing for something. Did you
[00:12:52] Bridget Altenburg: join Sandhurst because you wanted to improve your military?
[00:12:56] Kimberly Jung: Actually, yes, I did. And I had talked to my tech officer about it and I was like, you know, I know that my military grades are low and you know, I don't know how to do these military things. And she was like, you should join Sandhurst. And I was like, okay, I joined Sandhurst. And I'm really glad that I did.
That's really cool. So
[00:13:12] Bridget Altenburg: when it got to senior year now, what are you starting to think about? Like you're in your majors? What are you starting to think about in terms of, [00:13:20] you know, being a platoon leader, picking a branch, picking a post? What was that process
[00:13:24] Emily Miller: like for you. I was a philosophy major and I loved it and I chose that for very specific reasons.
But when it came time for a branch, I remember thinking, you know, this was the combat exclusion policy was still in place. So women were still. Barred from, you know, the combat arms branches. And I remember, you know, feeling like you kind of had a few options in front of you and I knew, I knew I didn't really wanna be a pilot.
I, it just didn't quite call to me. I couldn't even drive stick shifts. So the idea of flying a big helicopter sounded like a little outta my league. Didn't really wanna be a police officer either. So it kind of ruled out military police, which I think for a lot of women was a close corollary to maybe infantry.
So I was really drawn engineer. Because to me, it seems like, uh, I was always impressed by all the engineer officers I met. They seemed like genuine problem solvers, you know, really thoughtful people. And I think the, the mission of the engineers was really fascinating to me that, you know, you could do everything from.
Building to blowing up, you got your demolitions, the fun stuff, but then you're also building roads and airways and bridges so that, you know, just the versatility of the branch is why I ended up initially going with engineers.
[00:14:30] Kimberly Jung: Yeah. Like Emily, I also was attracted to the engineers for the same reasons.
And it was as close to infantry that I thought I could be at. And also I studied mechanical engineering when I was an undergrad at, at west point. And I felt, you know, I felt like there was some overlap and I could use those skills that I learned. To build bridges and construction, you know, build air fields and roads.
And I did end up doing some of that in a limited fashion, but we ended up becoming a route clearance platoon later on when I was an [00:15:00] officer and blowing up stuff. So as Emily said, we love engineers, SAS bridge. Were you an engineer? I was
[00:15:06] Bridget Altenburg: an engineer too. I took Emily's route. I studied Russian in French, so my degree.
Didn't help at all as an engineer, but I sort of felt like engineering, like army engineering is sort of like Lincoln logs and Legos. Like it's not that complicated. Maybe like later on, if you go core of engineers, I'm sure it gets more complicated, but ours was like, it doesn't fit. Get a bigger sledgehammer.
I wasn't calculating a whole lot. . Do you feel like your major helped you as an engineer, Kim or Emily? Maybe philosophy helps more than engineering? I don't know either one of you did your major help you as an.
[00:15:40] Kimberly Jung: No. I, I mean, I think really what west point teaches you is about leadership and management, which I think has been the most helpful in my career.
And also in my time, as an officer in the army, that leadership part, you really just can't get anywhere else in the same way that west point gives it to you. And you learn it by doing, you learn it through practice, you learn it by following you, learn it by leading in small teams over and over again and getting feedback, um, for how to do it better.
And that's, what's what I think is the most important thing that comes out of, you know, west point to the army.
[00:16:08] Emily Miller: Yeah, well, I can't say philosophy naturally kind of segued into the engineer branch necessarily, but I am a staunch defender of the, of the philosophy and literature major. You know, I, I remember taking my first philosophy class and that was the first time I'd ever really been exposed to philosophy and being asked questions like.
What is the meaning of life? Like what is a just war? What is excellence? Right. Those types of questions. I was about to be an environmental science major. When I heard those questions. I remember thinking I wanna spend my time thinking about those types of questions. I think of it as you know, [00:16:40] it, it laid a great foundation for those kind of critical thinking skills.
and especially when you think about like moral leadership, that's how it prepared me. I think more for life and, and definitely to be an army officer, but no, it didn't help me build a bridge that's for sure. but they kind of
[00:16:54] Bridget Altenburg: just like fold out. I, I also sort of feel like four years of being told, you know, you're responsible for this group of people.
You're responsible for these people. You're responsible for this mission when you're a platoon leader, when you're a platoon on you hear that. Four years. And it sort of drilled into you that you're responsible for getting the mission done and taking care of your troops. I don't know how many times we heard take care of your troops, take care of your troops.
And so there's more to it than your major. So those of you that are out there that are considering engineers, but scared about the engineering part, like don't worry about it. You can handle it. There's no calculators in the engineer until later on. Now did both of you go to the same E O C? So
[00:17:30] Kimberly Jung: for our year group, we had both Bullic two Andic.
So we spent our Bullock time actually together also in Fort Benning, Georgia. I think it was in August. So at
[00:17:41] Bridget Altenburg: Bening, not
[00:17:42] Emily Miller: at Leonard wood at Benning, that's when I first met Kim. So we actually didn't know each other at school. So Bullock was when we, you know, we were in the same, we were in the same company,
[00:17:51] Bridget Altenburg: right?
[00:17:52] Kimberly Jung: Yeah, we were. And you were like a couple doors down from me.
[00:17:56] Bridget Altenburg: So did you went to SRA school? Right after I actually went
[00:17:59] Kimberly Jung: later on and Emily, we had another time where Emily and I saw each other. We were like passing ships, like I had just left SRA school and she was just coming in and you know what, and going back to the E O C days, Emily and I would train up.
Because we really wanted to go to Saper school and get a tab. And I remember like right [00:18:20] before Bullock, we were like in the park in Indiana, at her parents' house doing pullups.
[00:18:26] Emily Miller: Yeah, that was an unfortunate day. We did like a hundred pullups and my, oh my God, tendons got swollen. And I had like Popeye arms showing up to my first day of EBC.
And, you know, it was just a whole thing. I had to wear a long sleeve PT shirt to take the PT. To, to hide how swollen my arms. It was ridiculous. so Kim and Emily have many antics, had they
[00:18:49] Bridget Altenburg: already allowed women to SAPRA school? Cuz we weren't allowed to go to SAPRA school when I graduated. So was that a, that was already a thing or were you guys gonna be some
[00:18:57] Emily Miller: of the first?
No, that was a
[00:18:59] Bridget Altenburg: thing. It was a thing. Okay. Well
[00:19:01] Kimberly Jung: that's cool. But there weren't that many women, at that point, when I was at CTLT, there was a, a west point woman Julian had bought Bowden hammer. And she had a Sapp tab and I was like, I wanna be like her, you know, she actually was an army cheerleader before that.
And at west point I just watched her do pullups, you know, in the gym. And she would give me advice about how to get to that point.
[00:19:23] Bridget Altenburg: That's awesome. And so did you go to the same supper school or you were just different times,
[00:19:28] Kimberly Jung: same location, but different times. Got it.
[00:19:31] Bridget Altenburg: So talk a little bit about SAPRA schools.
[00:19:33] Kimberly Jung: I think SAPRA school is where you push your limits really far. I think as women, there's not very many of you. And so if you've ever heard some of the ranger women talk about their experiences and they feel like they're representing all women, when they go to ranger school. And I think I, for myself, I felt that way.
And I wanted to make sure that I was representing the right way and in tip top shape and. I was a Lieutenant at that time as well. And so there were other [00:20:00] soldiers who were there and I wanted to make sure that I was representing female lieutenants in the right way. And I hope I did by points. I think I, I did.
Okay. But for me, I think what got me at the end was it was patrolling and I. At this point, you're really tired cuz you're not sleeping for several days. And I was like seeing visions. Like I saw these NUMs in the woods and I was having like a joint vision with other people who were in my squad. They're like, oh yeah, there's these NUMs.
Like they're gonna pull security for us. Like we can go to . It was so bizarre. But you learn some amazing things at SAPRA school. Like you learn how to do some mountaineering and there's this eight mile, uh, rock March that is really, really hilly and your feet get wet the whole time. Cuz you're just kind of like waiting through rivers.
You're learning all the K. Learning how to blow stuff up, all sorts of things to blow up. You're doing shape charges, like really deep craters. It was cool. We learned a lot,
[00:20:51] Bridget Altenburg: I think. And Emily similar experience, or how was your ser experience?
[00:20:55] Emily Miller: Very different. You know, Saper came at an interesting time because I had already deployed and been in combat.
Basically. I had already been in Iraq and I'd led a platoon and came back to Fort Lewis and I'd been an executive officer in the same company. And I was in a combat engineer battalion, and they put together a big training program to attend SAPRA school and was really lucky to be part of that. So I got to train up alongside the soldiers and NCOs and officers in my battalion.
You know, was lucky enough to get one of those coveted slots. It was really hard to get a slot too, you know, so sought. After school for me was my first taste of failure. Really? It was my first big, you know, I had really met my limits and I trained, trained, and trained. And within the first week I had a really, really serious case of, uh RSIs.
So [00:21:40] basically my. My kidneys started shutting down and they were trying to keep track of . Whether Rado had at this point become a pretty big issue and I kept hiding it. And then it got to a point where, you know, in the middle of one of our really long rock marches, I lost consciousness on the side of the road.
And they found me kinda rolled over on my, on my R sack. So I actually got hospitalized for quite a long time and didn't get to finish after school. So that was, but that was, I think it was a really good experience in the end. Coming face to face with, with failure and, and what that feels like and how you bounce back and, and also learning to respect your body's limits.
You know, I learned a lot about how to take care of myself and how to take care of my body and to, um, and to always watch out for, for those around me, my soldiers included that don't ever push beyond those limits, cuz you can get scary, close to some dangerous stuff. So different, very different experience that than Kim.
I think she made it all the way through and I, I didn't, but um, So grateful for the experience. It was just, it was one of those rough, rough patches, for
[00:22:39] Bridget Altenburg: sure. That's one of those west point women thing where it's like this terrible thing happened and I almost died, but I really appreciate the experience.
And I learned a lot from it. just like so, so weird. That's awesome. Well, let's shift and talk a little bit about your various deployments, cuz both of you graduated at a time when you know, we're in two theaters of operation and in, uh, a combat arms branch. So, and whoever wants to start talk about your first time getting deployed.
And what was that like as a, a young Lieutenant or captain being deployed in a combat theater?
[00:23:11] Kimberly Jung: I think Emily was lucky to be deployed pretty soon after she joined her unit after E O B C. But for me, I think I had to wait about a year and a [00:23:20] half or two years. I got stationed in Germany to the 54th.
Actually I started off with the 15th engineer battalion and then transferring to the 54th engineer battalion. And so we had trained up as a horizontal construction unit, like building roads and bridges and that kind of stuff. We ended up deploying as a route clearance platoon. So we were looking for roadside bonds and basically making sure that the routes were clear of any ambushes for any infantry platoons or any.
other units that were coming behind us. So my platoons deployed to Gosney, which is a base in the Southeast of Afghanistan, near the Pakistani border. And to be quite Frank, I was really nervous, you know, was my first time deploying and. Most of the other PLA of the platoon also had not deployed before with the exception of our platoon Sergeant and the squad leaders, and a couple of other soldiers who had had multiple deployments under their belts from Iraq, but it was everybody's first Afghanistan deployment, and you just don't really know what to expect, but you're here.
With the mission with the people you've been training for years to do this, and you've gotta trust in the Army's policies and the Army's processes. And like all the equipment that you gave you like trust your training. And that's why you try hard during the down times when you're not deployed. So that when, when the real time comes you're ready.
So for deployment, we were a platoon by ourselves. We were not with the other company, not with the rest of the battalion. And we were sort of farmed out to the battle space owner. Which was kind of the equivalent to a brigade combat team, but the polo army. [00:25:00] So we were really sort of on our own and we would do our missions and it would be different every time.
Sometimes we would meet with these people in the village. Sometimes there was children that we would give either candy or school supplies too. Uh, we would sometimes do missions with the Afghan national army, do it together and they would have some. fun and interesting ways that they would conduct battlefield operations that were surprising to us.
And I even had some philosophical discussions. So I sort of wished that I studied philosophy in west point, but I had some philosophical discussions with folks in Afghanistan. Like this man come up to me and was like, why are you here? You know? And you could just be here. You could marry my brother here.
Why are you coming here with all of your armor and all these people, you could be part of my family. and I think he was making a point, right. And that was sort of eventually getting to why Emily, me and a couple of, other of our co-founders felt like potentially we were missing the point as the military president Afghanistan.
It was much more than that. Had to go beyond that. The service goes beyond the military and it goes into connecting with the Afghan people, figuring out what, if there's anything holding back? What is that? And the root of the problems were actually economic problem. You know, so that was my deployment experience.
[00:26:21] Bridget Altenburg: Cool. Emily, talk a little bit about your deployment to Afghanistan. So you, you were in Iraq obviously as a platoon leader, and then you were in Afghanistan as a CST, or were you
[00:26:30] Emily Miller: in Afghanistan multiple times? I was in Afghanistan twice as a cultural support team member. So supporting the, the special ops teams, it was one of those miraculous moments.
When I [00:26:40] found out about the CST program, a little bit of context, we had been fighting these wars for about 10 years, almost a decade. And we still had these all male special operations teams going out and doing night raids and village stability operations. But culturally, it was inappropriate for men to be able to talk to Afghan women or children.
So they started the cultural support team program to train. Women to essentially join these on a temporary basis. These all male special operations teams. So I was really lucky to be in the second ever CST team. And I supported the direct action side. So 75th ranger regiment and seals, and also our, our, our Delta counterparts.
And so, yeah, it was a very. Kinetic intense deployment. It was short for me. It was night raids and going out night after night. And like Ken mentioned seeing the same kind of cycle of violence and not really feel like we were making enough of a difference. And then I got pretty severely injured in a fast roping accident training.
So that. Into that first deployment. And I was lucky enough to multiple surgeries later. Lots of physical therapy got to train the next cohort of CSTs and then go back with them as the officer in charge of that, that next cohort did
[00:27:51] Bridget Altenburg: not know that I remember seeing the, uh, contraption holding your leg together, but I did not know you went back.
That's intense. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:28:00] Emily Miller: Wow. I was hell bent on recovering and going back. You know, I felt like we had unfinished business. I felt like we could make the, the program better the CST program. So that was also part of it, which was helping revamp the training curriculum as somebody who'd been there, kind of boots on the ground.
But then also going back, my teammate, Ashley White. Was killed in combat while [00:28:20] I was recovering from multiple surgeries. So I just felt like there was a mission there that needed to be continued. And I really felt strongly that I, you know, needed to do my part and get back over there. But Kim and I overlapped.
On our deployments. So we, we weren't doing the same mission, but we were in country together at the same time. And we would stay up late at night talking on the SuperPhone when we probably were not supposed to be talking on the SuperPhone yeah, just like reminiscing,
[00:28:46] Kimberly Jung: but it was free. at that point, I was no longer a platoon leader, but I was doing night battle captaining.
And so I was up at night and Emily was also up at night because you know, she's with the Rangers and they're doing the. Night ops. And so, yeah, we would pick up the phone. I don't even know how, like, I guess we were emailing. We were like, oh my God, are you in country too? And like, what's your super line?
And then we would like call each other every night and just like, just reminisce about old times, talk about stuff. And honestly, like that connection with Emily kept me sane because I was not in a good place actually, when I was in Afghanistan at the time. And I don't think that I would've made it through without her friendship, without having someone else understand what it was like to be deployed for me.
I was a bit lonely too. I mean, it was me and my soldiers in the talk, but like, you know, it still wasn't quite the same. And so it was really nice to have like a fellow, a friend, a former classmate, someone who had gone to Bullock with me, like someone who understood the stuff and then eventually we would start a business together, you know?
So I think those were. Those were the times that we started building that foundation.
[00:29:55] Bridget Altenburg: That's awesome. Did you guys talk about going to, uh, Harvard business [00:30:00] school at that time? Like when did that decision
[00:30:02] Emily Miller: happen? I didn't even contemplate getting outta the military until I had been injured. And then came back from that second Afghanistan deployment.
It was in our fifth year of service. And I remember I was like, Kim, I kind of think I'm gonna go to grad school, but I don't really know like what I wanna do. And you were. Harvard business school seems really cool. And they do
[00:30:22] Bridget Altenburg: leadership. They get leadership. is it your mom whispering
[00:30:26] Kimberly Jung: in your ear, Kim? Yeah.
That's why my mom, my mom's training, like go to Harvard, go to Harvard. Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of military officers, when they get out. They consider gonna business school, cuz it's like the skillset is very transferable to business and you're like, well, I don't know what to do. I'll go to business school.
You do figure it out. You do, you figure out some part of you, you gotta try, you gotta make a choice for something. Right. And I think when you're in the military, you don't realize how big the world is and there's like a lot you could do and business. School's not a bad idea because they really emphasize the discipline of leadership, which is something that you've been practicing for the last five plus years at that point.
Nine years if you know, if include west point or, you know, ROTC.
[00:31:08] Bridget Altenburg: So you're, you're at Harvard business school together. When did the idea for roomi come up? When did those seeds get? I mean, I know the seeds got planted back in your deployment to Afghanistan, but when did you decide that you could make this a business?
[00:31:24] Kimberly Jung: We have a friend named Keith, Keith Allens. And he at the time was also in the army. He was deployed in Afghanistan as part of the FPAC hands program where he learned Darry and he really integrated within the population. I think he was helping out with like some local governance. [00:31:40] And so Emily and I were in Harvard business school at that time.
I think it was at the end of our first year. And we were Skyping with Keith and he was telling us about this farmer named HAF, who had. All the staff running, he was trying to sell. And he had a marketing video full of photos and videos and, you know, and he was, he knew what he was doing. Like he was selling.
He was, he was just really scrappy. And I remember thinking to myself, I wish I had more of that spirit. I wish I had more of an entrepreneurial spirit instead of me. You know, at that time for me, I was trying to go into consulting. There's nothing wrong with consulting, but again, I don't think it was like, I don't know if I was taking a stand towards something that I believed in and wanted to build.
So. So Keith and, and me and Emily were like, let's do this, let's start a business and bought a ticket to Afghanistan, Emily and I both have the same entrepreneurship professor Shekar go. And he ended up going with me to Afghanistan that first summer. And he was like our photographer actually. And we met up with Keith and we met with Haji yoof who was that farmer and bargained with him.
He had these super high prices, but he was just doing his thing. And then we met with 11 other farmers in the Guion. On the other side of Afghanistan and HIRA province, which is right next to Iran. So it's on the Western side of Afghanistan and bought the first saffron there. When it came into the room, you could smell just how amazing it was.
Um, it was so fresh. So fragrant, I mean, Afghanistan has the best saffron in the world. It's been rated. Number one, you know, for many, many years. And the ISO, you know, the, the crossing content is extremely high. so the Staffron came into the room and it was in a cardboard box wrapped in [00:33:20] string. So we realized that the problem was marketing and it wasn't getting to the right channels.
And so Emily, Keith and I decided, Hey, let's start a business around this. Let's bring this beautiful Afghan S phone to the international market. And so Emily and I were gonna use our Harvard business school education to figure that out. And we did, we, we knew everything, you know, I'm just kidding. Can we.
Who had to learn everything the hard way.
[00:33:43] Bridget Altenburg: Yeah. I mean, clearly you do know enough because I'm not a chef or a cook even, but you can tell the difference
[00:33:51] Emily Miller: because when you
[00:33:52] Bridget Altenburg: see regular saffron, it looks a little bit like wood chips and it's yellow. This saffron you can see is just brilliant red color. And when you, when you mix it in, it turns.
Bright yellow and it's different. I mean, I give it to people all the time that actually cook and they're always like, oh my God, I've never seen saffron like this before. Where'd you get it? And of course, you know, gives them an opportunity to talk about roomy, but it's amazing how different it is from the saffron that, you know, most people are
[00:34:23] Emily Miller: used to.
We were in this entrepreneurship class. And I remember when Kim came up with the idea and Kim went headlong into it, you know, she bought the website domain, she set up the company, she's a builder. I mean, Kim is quintessentially a builder. And I remember I was. This is never gonna work, Kim, I, I love you, but this is never gonna work.
And after that summer, though, we came back to our second year of business school and just went headlong into it, you know, and I just, we had a blast, you know, building it. And we were surrounded by wonderful advisors and mentors in Boston. And Kim is a great salesperson. So it was going around to these restaurants and, and selling it.
We just got so much traction early on and it [00:35:00] became clear that, you know, it was a great story, but more than that, it was a great product. and we were so connected to the mission and the people and, you know, it was just like we found our calling and from there on it was, it was a no brainer. That's
[00:35:12] Bridget Altenburg: awesome.
I remember you telling stories about like having DHL packages sent to your room and like putting stuff in little baggies and then taking 'em to restaurants. And obviously this story of roomi is just amazing. Talk to me a little bit about the impact roomi has had both on you on Afghanistan, on the people that you've, you know, that you've built through
[00:35:32] Kimberly Jung: this business.
It can't be overstated. How much roomy has impacted a lot of us, you know, Emily and me, for sure, the Afghan women, um, America, you know, and whole foods and just the conversation around Afghanistan and it's placed in the international market as a valuable producer in a capitalistic society. And we believe in capitalism, we believe in social enterprise that lives in capitalism, where everybody is a key stakeholder and everyone has something to give that's of value.
These farmers are not, they're not recipients of charity. They are our partners in the supply chain. And I think our best impact that we've made at roomy spice is what we did with the supply chain. So this was actually Emily's main purview when she was the COO. The chief operating officer is that she headed all the initiatives that we had around food safety, because.
In Afghanistan when we first started out and you'd mentioned, you know, these little packets that we had in like in the dorm rooms, like, I mean, we were doing it, but it was like barely legal. Like we actually did get our facility, which was our home actually, technically I think it was actually the Harvard iLab.
[00:36:40] We got that stamp and certified by the local health officials. But imagine having do that process and scaling it up in Afghani, Where in the past Afghan women had been doing it inside their homes, sitting on the floors on carpet and there's, you know, It's kind of open facility. They're not using gloves and there's a lot of, you know, contaminants that could come in.
And so what we did that I'm most proud of for Ruby spice is we brought in food safety. We had a whole program. We partnered with Purdue university, uh, and they had two professors to help us. And we trained up a whole cadre of quality assurance, quality control people out of the university of HIRA. So those were Afghan students who had graduat.
And who became professionals. And we trained them up in food safety and then got certified in Bangalore. Emily can speak a little bit more to this. And they made up our cadre of food safety in Afghanistan. And because of that, we are able to export that Staffron safely. And now it's in whole foods nationally.
We have 12 SKUs and whole foods. So if that can be replicated throughout Afghanistan and, and there is more food safety programs for not just saffron, but for everything. We could be exporting pomegranates. We could be exporting apples. And I sincerely hope that that is the future for Afghanistan. I think
[00:37:57] Emily Miller: for me, what I took away was that business can be a force for good.
And I think that's what we lived every day with roomy spice. And I think like Kim mentioned that the key to our success was that. It was an Afghan led operation on the ground. Right? And so we were training and empowering Afghans to leave their operations. And now we have hundreds of farmers, thousands of women who are working in our operations and [00:38:20] with the withdrawal of our forces this past year, roomy spice continues on because of that, right?
Because we've invested in the people who are on the ground. I think that's the biggest impact
[00:38:30] Kimberly Jung: we've made. When you ask any of these for Afghan farmers who roomy spices, they're gonna say. Those are our partners in a business. And they would not say that we're enemies or that we are trying to take things from them or that we're in war.
We as soldiers, former soldiers want to move the conversation away from war and into economic cooperation.
[00:38:53] Bridget Altenburg: That's an amazing story. I just can't tell you how proud I am just to have, you know, known you before and after roomy and just, you know, continuing to be your friend and, and you know, a very small part of the success.
I wish I cooked more cuz it's so it's so
[00:39:12] Kimberly Jung: amazing. You've been such a great supporter. Thank you so much, Bridget. You've been so great. We can't thank
you
[00:39:17] Bridget Altenburg: enough. You're not comfortable cooking with saffron. Buy the roomy saffron, give it to all of your cooking friends, but buy it for yourself and make saffron caram, mom, pistachio, ice cream, Google it it's the best ice cream you'll ever have.
And if you're scared of like buying saffron, then this is a good way to get you started with ice cream. That's always something we can all agree on, but as we close things up, what are y'all doing now? So
[00:39:41] Kimberly Jung: Emily and I are still involved in roomy spice, but we're just not involved in the day to day. We pass the Baton off to some other folks and we just, we know it's in good hands and we help out wherever we can.
I'm doing another startup, it's called Blanchard house. So we're a group of former BBC and economist radio producers. And we do narrative style of miniseries. [00:40:00] Um, and they're really epic with great sound design and composition, and we're aiming for like TV and film. So hopefully you'll be hearing about one of our stories and it'll be.
A movie starring Angelina Jolie or something. So that's, that's what we do. Very.
[00:40:13] Bridget Altenburg: Emily.
[00:40:14] Emily Miller: Yeah. I'm currently at Twilio, which is a technology company running their impact fund. So running their grant making and their impact investing, it's an area that has been near and dear to my heart as an entrepreneur, knowing that, you know, how capital gets deployed is, is really critical and, and making sure that it reaches those underrepresented, uh, populations is crucial.
That's what I do nowadays. And it's a pretty fun job.
[00:40:36] Bridget Altenburg: So given that you both have had a chance to, you know, start a business, be successful in business and kind of looking back, you know, how did west point, how did the military prepare you for being an entrepreneur? I
[00:40:49] Kimberly Jung: think the pace at west point were, they almost give you too many tasks so that you don't have enough time in the day to do drill school, all your duties, the laundry duties, sports, you know, FCDT, they give you too much to do so you have to priorit.
And you just can't get everything done, but you also become really efficient at doing things and you make decisions quickly. I think all of those skills that I'd mentioned are key to running a business, especially if it's your own startup. So that's one thing. And the second thing I would say is learning how to build trust within your team.
And I think oftentimes if you're in the military and you're in a stressful situation, you're deployed, you have no choice, but to trust the people to your left and your right to have trained enough to have your back. To never leave a fallen comrade to have the same values that you do, and to have their best judgment, because you need to rely on them [00:41:40] as a team.
And Emily and I had to do that, and we had been trained to do that before. And those skills were necessary for us to start roomy spice and to grow it to the point that we did. And it, I don't think it would be possible or successful if we hadn't trusted each other. If we had. You know, figured out how to work with each other, to have tough conversations, to figure things out and to problem solve.
And those are key skills that I think you get started learning at west point. Yeah. I mean,
[00:42:04] Emily Miller: I would, I would agree with Kim entirely there and that I think, you know, entrepreneurship is not for everybody, but. It is addicting once you do it because you realize it has so many similarities to the west point and army experience in combat it's fast paced.
It relies on a small tight team. You have to move fast, you have to ruthlessly prioritize. You have to be incredibly creative about how you problem solve and make things happen. But you've got this big commander's intent and you have to figure. How you operationalize this and work. And then I think the other thing is just being Ted by failure and by being told, no, getting comfortable with being uncomfortable all the time.
I think that is what entrepreneurship is. You are in constant discomfort. Will we make the next quarter, will we be able to pay ourselves? Will we be able to pay our farmers? You know, it's pushing a Boulder uphill. And I think for the veterans and service members who do find entrepreneurship and find that it's a fit it, the, the parallels are.
Pretty fascinating. I never would've guessed that. So that's
[00:43:03] Bridget Altenburg: a fantastic answer. Talk a little bit about how the west point and the
[00:43:07] Emily Miller: military community have helped you with
[00:43:09] Kimberly Jung: roomy. Our lead investors were actually a bunch of west point grads, class of 1979 and a couple from other classes. And they believed in us and they believed in this [00:43:20] because they knew that the training that west point provided and our sense of values and our leadership.
We're exactly the same skillset and what is necessary to be a good entrepreneur. And they had a, a mock shark tank panel for us, where they flew to Chicago and they pretended to be the sharks on shark tank and they grilled us in preparation. I mean, I can't thank them enough for doing that. It was so great.
And they helped us raise money and they would go, you know, talk to people on our behalf and opened up doors for us. Kate Shadock she's one of our beloved west point women. Her job in real life is to find and resource people. So she has a really great network and she connected us to so many people and.
Bridget. You're also one of those people who have supported us so much throughout the years and been this steadfast, loyal supporter, talking about us to, to other people, writing reviews on Amazon, allowing us to have speaking opportunities so we can tell the story of roomy spice. I cannot think enough of the west point community and the larger military community for being so supportive.
Bunker labs has been supportive and Tillman foundation has also been super support.
[00:44:26] Emily Miller: The list is just so long. And actually, I, I wanted to like double underline the point that Kim made, which is that we pitched our company to so many investors and got told no, but you know, it was the west point community that stepped up and they opened their pocketbook because they believed in our idea against all odds, frankly, growing saffron in Afghanistan at a time when the Taliban was at its peak strength.
Right. But they invested in us because they believed in us as people, they believed in us as leaders, it was values alignment. And that's the power of the west point network that the people you're working with [00:45:00] are rock solid. They're the character, they're everything you want. And I think that is really what enabled us.
If we hadn't gotten those initial investments from the hybrid and drivers in west point community, we. Rumi, I don't think would be around. So I think it really does go all the way back and it was game changing for the company and for us, that's
[00:45:17] Bridget Altenburg: amazing. It doesn't surprise me at all that the two of you are still finding ways to change the world.
And I think it's what. Brought you to west point. It's what made you choose engineers? It's what sent you to Afghanistan. And then what got you to start roomy is the belief that, that you can make a difference in the world. I'm, I'm so proud to know both of you. I'm so proud to have a chance to talk to you.
And I hope a lot of people hear this story, make some saffron ice cream and make a difference in the world. So thanks y'all for the time. I really, really enjoyed it. Thank you. Thanks for
[00:45:51] Kimberly Jung: having us. Thank you so much bridge.
[00:45:55] Narrator: This has been a production of the WPA, a OG broadcast network. Please take a moment to rate and review the show and join us each week for a new episode.
Thank you for listening.