Fayetteville, NC (WNCN) — From hairdos, t-shirts and tattoos to beer and more, Kraken-Skulls in Fayetteville is not your typical brick and mortar store.
After 20 years of military service, Chad wanted to be his own boss.
So he opened Kraken-Skulls as a store, which later grew into a store with more than half a dozen businesses in his “compound” in Fayetteville.
He said he wanted to create a creative, safe space for veterans to feel visible and follow their dreams.
“I created this place really to raise awareness about mental health,” Chad said. “I created this place so that when you have a day where you’ve been here and you need to step down a little bit, that’s where you can go.”
Over the years, he has become a go-to resource and mentor for local veterans.
“I now have the ability to facilitate people when they leave the military or when they just have a startup idea — now they can come to me and I can take them from start to finish into a successful business,” Chad said.
Like Ray St. Peter was laid off during the COVID-19 pandemic and now runs his own successful pest control business. British stone. The connections made within Kraken-Skulls made all the difference, Peter said.
“I have to support my family, and during COVID-19, no one is hiring. I just want to try and make it myself,” St. Peter said. “It’s like an extension of where we’re not asked to do it, like in the military, people are asked to help you. You do it because you want to and you want to be a part of it.”
Enrique Murillo launches Through Tragedy Comes Light, a nonprofit suicide program for veterans of the war.
Murillo works with Chad to coordinate an annual fundraiser and walk to raise awareness for veterans’ mental health.
“If it wasn’t for the tragic death of my friend, I wouldn’t have seen the light to try to fix myself, try to make myself better and give back to the community,” Murillo said. [Chad’s] What brings and brings us together as a community is starting to make an impact here. “
Tattoo artist and veteran, “Flip” said he doesn’t take for granted the opportunity to develop his art while running Kraken-Skulls tattoo parlor.
“If you look at the logo, it’s an octopus. It has all these different tentacles, which, to me, mean something else,” Flip said. “Tattoo brands, barbershops, nail salons, party buses, digital creativity on t-shirts. This guy has tentacles in everything.”