Owner/Veteran Advocate/Host / Age 36
Wisconsin Veteran, LLC/The Fragout Podcast
Wisconsin Army National Guard veteran Ryan Lonergan has assisted thousands of veterans through his consulting firm Wisconsin Veteran, LLC, which he launched in 2019 after recognizing a need to assist veterans in their employment searches. He also has worked with hundreds of area companies to help create “veteran ready” internal cultures that help attract and retain employees who are military veterans.
“There are still a lot of veterans, service members that have a hard time with access to services and information,” Lonergan says. “There are also companies that want to … recruit, hire and retain that talent but are unsure of how to enter [the veteran] community.”
Lonergan also is the host of the popular The Fragout Podcast, which he started from his kitchen table and eventually grew it to be the No. 1 veteran podcast in Wisconsin. The podcast creates “a sense of belonging and acceptance for so many veterans that may feel marginalized or disenfranchised.”
For his work, Lonergan was recognized as the inaugural Northeast Wisconsin Veteran of the Year by U.S. Rep. Mike Gallagher in 2021 and as the Fox Cities Chamber’s 2022 Young Professional of the Year. Lonergan supports organizations including Vaspire316 and the Hunter Seven Foundation, which help veterans battling cancer and toxic exposure.
In his spare time, Lonergan enjoys smoking food on his Traeger grills and wants to “climb Machu Picchu and road trip to various parts of the U.S. with my family,” which includes his daughter Ava, who is almost 7.
