In October, South King County-based company Cascadia Global Security was chosen to be part of the 2024-2025 CEOcircle program, where they will be part of a yearlong peer accountability training program, specifically designed for assisting veteran and military-spouse executives in growing and meeting their goals.
“It is an honor. It helps me feel like I’m doing something right,” said Joshua Harris, Cascadia Global Security founder and chairman and a U.S. Army veteran. “We are honored to be part of this work, and I think we were chosen because of the growth path we are able to achieve.”
Harris currently lives in Kent, which is also the location of the company’s Pacific headquarters. In the five years since starting the business out of his dad’s garage in Lacey, Washington, Cascadia has expanded throughout the country, with a Central HQ in San Antonio, Texas, and Eastern HQ in Duluth, Georgia.
Formerly located in Renton, the Kent location made the most sense for Harris. He says that it gives Cascadia better access to clients throughout the Puget Sound.
“It’s near the city and near the population centers. We can easily get to Bellevue, Seattle and Thurston County from here,” he said.
Cascadia offers armed and unarmed guards, off-duty law enforcement, mobile patrols and temporary or emergency security to different industries, including corporate, commercial, warehouse, distribution, construction sites, hotels, other hospitality sectors, retail centers, K-12 schools, college campuses, energy, petrochemical, healthcare, medical, parking facilities, financial, banking, industrial, manufacturing, airlines, terminals, multi-family housing and pharmaceuticals.
“I wanted to serve my country”
At Cascadia, 14% of employees are veterans like Harris, who had enlisted in the National Guard in 2013.
“I never planned on making a full career of it, but I wanted to serve my country,” Harris said. “My brother had joined a few years before and he had done work during the [2014 Oso] landslide. I wanted to be able to do that and I wanted to support non-international activities.”
Harris’ work in the military had him learning Mandarin and had taken him across the country and around the world, to countries like Turkey, Jordan and Taiwan.
After returning to civilian life, Harris worked toward a bachelor’s degree in finance when he co-founded the company.
“We were 24-years-old, no cash, no capital, working as security guards,” said Harris. “To be able to get this thing to work and grow, we were not paying ourselves for 18 months.”
Since founding Cascadia, Harris earned his finance degree and a law degree, saying that he “wanted to know as much about the world as possible to better run the company.”
About the program
CEOcircle chooses 71 different startups and businesses throughout the country, all led by veteran and military-spouses, with a gross of over $1 million or having raised over $5 million in capital. CEOcircle program businesses also show a high growth potential. That company is headed by Syracuse University’s D’Aniello Institute for Veteran & Military Families (IVMF) and JPMorgan Chase Commercial Banking.
The 2024-2025 CEOcircle program has just begun, according to Harris.
“It’s great. We just started orientation a few weeks ago,” said Harris. “They help you set goals and get in front of experts. As we go forward, our goals are to increase our presence in surrounding areas of Texas and through the Midwest, like Chicago.”
The next session will be in-person in Manhattan at the Chase headquarters. Harris says that starting up a company is “a lonely endeavor” and that having support from his cohort of veteran business owners helps.
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