Being the spouse of someone whose job takes them all over the world can be difficult, especially if it means having to pick up and move your family as often as every two years.
“As a military spouse, it was extremely difficult to find a career for myself – constantly moving and constantly having to rearrange your life around the military,” explains Jilan Hall-Johnson, owner of The Sassy Biscuit Company, with brick-and-mortar locations in Montana and New Hampshire.
WorkingNation sat down with Hall-Johnson at the NASWA Veterans Conference in Washington, D.C.
The unemployment rate for military spouses is 21%. Hall-Johnson says she can understand why.
“Working or looking for employment and having to convince employers that even though you don’t have much work experience that you have life experience that can equate to what they’re looking for in the workforce was difficult. The anxiety I had at every single interview because of my resume and being a military spouse, it was just sometimes overwhelming,” she explains.
When her husband was ordered to Billings, Montana, she was worried about finding a job in that small town. Hall-Johnson’s solution to that stress and anxiety was to start her own business.
“Growing up, I had always loved to cook. Food was sort of the center of my life. I went to culinary school when I was younger. I saw a show about waffles and it was like ding, ding, ding. I had never heard of a waffle biscuit. Let’s see where we can take this idea.” The Sassy Biscuit Company was born.
Among the many rewards, Hall-Johnson says her new business revived a lifelong passion for cooking. As an entrepreneur, her mission now is to use her role as an employer to hire those in need of a second chance.
“I had a parent with a substance abuse problem and it really impacted my life. The way I was able to grow from that experience was through culinary school. It really gave me a second chance at life. It actually was a godsend,” she says.
“My first chef was in recovery and he and I partnered together to make that the mission of Sassy. We want to allow people the chance to make a difference in their own lives.”
Learn more about The Sassy Biscuit Company.
© Copyright 2025 by Structural Unemployment, LLC dba WorkingNation
Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.
Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.
Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.
Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.
Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.
Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.
