Col Brian D. Anderson, USAF (Ret), holds a Bachelor of Arts from Bowling Green State University, Ohio, and a Master of Arts in public administration from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, Colo. He served 26 years in the U.S. Air Force, where he served in a wide range of command and staff assignments including tours at U.S. Central Command, MacDill AFB, Fla., and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Brussels, Belgium.

Col Anderson retired in November 2010 following his last assignment as the mission support group commander at Bolling AFB, D.C., where he led a multi-disciplinary 1,500 person group in the operations and administration of the base to support over 40,000 Air Force personnel and family members in the National Capital Region. Col Anderson compiled over 4,000 flying hours in various aircraft and was awarded an Air Medal and Combat Action Medal as a B-52 aircraft commander during Operation Enduring Freedom.

He joined the staff of the Military Officers Association of America and has served as deputy director, in both the Career Transition Services and Council and Chapter Affairs Department. In July 2016, Col Anderson was named as the senior director, Career Transition and Member Services Department.

Phil is a retired Army Officer and a Vietnam veteran. His military career includes assignments in intelligence at the Continental Army Command Intelligence Center, National Security Agency and as a Corps level intelligence officer in Vietnam. Also his military career featured managing recruiting programs, developing training curriculum, and conducting race relations seminars.

Upon leaving active duty, Phil held senior management positions with national advertising agencies; W.B. Doner, DDB Needham Worldwide, Ketchum, and Salter and Associates. He was responsible for developing and implementing marketing strategies and plans that accomplished the goals of his clients which features work for the National Guard Bureau (recruiting and retention programs for the Air and Army National Guard), Cellular One, Bell Atlantic and defense contractors including Boeing Vertol, and several franchise companies.

For more than twenty years Phil has developed marketing programs and managed franchise recruiting programs at the corporate level and provided consultative services franchise companies. While serving national corporations and the National Guard Bureau, Phil enjoyed developing local market guerilla advertising and marketing programs that acquire and keep new customers while building the local brand.

During his franchise career Phil confirmed his doubts that while veterans had the potential to become quality franchisees there were no programs that specifically educated them on available opportunities. Most veterans did not know that entrepreneur opportunities were accessible. Phil developed a franchise recruitment program and presented the concept to military installations in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington DC. The first seminars were conducted at Andrews AFB. He discussed the concept of franchise seminars with a long-time colleague and best friend, Tim Labus. Together they developed a formal business plan for a non-profit 501 (c) (3) organization which became Veterans’ Transition Forum (VTF). VTF educates veterans and transitioning service members on the benefits of franchising as their next career opportunity. Additional mentors, who are veterans themselves and experienced having worked in the franchise industry and/or successfully operated a franchise business have been added to the staff. Today, VTF’s mentors guide veterans through the entire acquisition process including financing a business.

Ms. Shelton has been counseling Franchise / Business Opp. clients for over 30 years. She especially enjoys working with small business owners assisting them to "Expand their Brand®". Since starting the law firm, she has been focused on providing the “Missing Piece” with legal services to small and emerging businesses. Her business savviness combined with her belief in mentorship is the backbone of the law firms slogan, “Your Outsourced In-house Counsel”. Ms. Shelton focuses on ensuring clients are offered individualized service while handling Franchise Disclosures, registrations, legal creation and vendor distributions within a clients business.

Ms. Shelton has published many articles and has even written a book. She has been married for 32 years now to her husband Steve who is a retired Army Colonel, her son also served in the Army, and she personally did active duty with the Navy performing hundreds of hours of safety patrols on Boulder Dam at Lake Mead after 9/11 and assisted in setting up a new flotilla for the U.S. Coast Guard, which she was a charter member under Homeland Security.