HARFORD COUNTY, Md. — When Army veteran Justin Garrity left the military, the transition home was anything but smooth.
“I did five years of active duty as a combat engineer officer and then five years in the National Guard and went to all the fun places Iraq, Kuwait, Korea, all the places everyone wants to visit,” Garrity said.
After ten years of service, including earning a Bronze Star in Iraq, Garrity returned home to Maryland during the height of the economic downturn. Despite his leadership experience and military training, he found himself unable to secure a job.
“So my transition out of the military is not great,” he said.
In December 2008, Garrity received one of the military’s highest honors. Just six months later, his circumstances had drastically changed.
“In December of 2008, I got a Bronze Star in Iraq and six months later I was on unemployment back here at home,” he said.
The sudden shift from success in uniform to unemployment left Garrity feeling disconnected and discouraged.
“It was disappointing obviously to go from success in the military to not success or being kind of out of work and kind of feeling like no value,” he said.
Rather than staying stuck, Garrity began looking for something meaningful he could build on his own. Sustainability had always interested him, even though it wasn’t something he grew up practicing.
“I didn’t grow up in like a super hippie family. I didn’t eat organic food. I grew up a normal family in Columbia, Maryland near the mall,” Garrity said. “But I just always thought like waste was really a weird problem that we have all this material and we just throw it away.”
That curiosity turned into research and eventually, a business plan. Garrity learned that roughly two-thirds of the material in Maryland trash trucks could be composted rather than thrown away.
“Two-thirds of what’s in every trash truck in Maryland is compostable,” he said.
In 2010, Garrity founded Veteran Compost, launching the company with no customers and limited support. He found a farm property through Craigslist, signed a lease, and took a chance.
“It was either a great opportunity or going to be a huge mistake,” he said. “Thankfully it worked out.”
Now headquartered in Aberdeen, Veteran Compost collects food scraps from residential, commercial, and food manufacturing customers across the state. The material—including food waste, compostable products, and even crab shells, is processed on-site and turned into usable compost in about 90 to 100 days.
“We accept any kind of food, even the stuff you wouldn’t do in your backyard, so meat, dairy, bones,” Garrity said. “Our piles are 140 degrees, breaking things down.”
The work is demanding and far from glamorous, something Garrity readily acknowledges.
“The business Maryland veteran business is not easy. Now, if I had to do it over again, I don’t know that I would,” he said. “But we’re here now.”
What keeps the company going, he says, is the people—many of whom share a connection to military service. Veteran Compost currently employs 35 people, about half of them veterans or family members.
“The whole reason this started was my trouble finding work,” Garrity said. “Our goal every day is to try to hire veterans and family members of veterans.”
Garrity believes the mindset he developed in the Army continues to guide him through the challenges of running a business.
“I think like that never quitting thing is probably the thing that kicks in the most,” he said. “There’s a fine line between being stubborn and dedicated, and I think we’re somewhere in the middle.”
For veterans struggling to find their footing after leaving the military, Garrity offers practical advice drawn from his own experience.
“I think that sometimes people come out of the military and they’re only looking in that lane that they were in in the military,” he said. “You got to look at the skills you have from leadership and experiences in the military and think broadly.”
15 years after its founding, Veteran Compost continues to expand its capacity around the Baltimore region, turning food waste into soil, and setbacks into opportunity.