Damian Garcia and Rogelio Villa, founders of Esprit de Corps Foundation

About the Founders

It started with
a conversation.

Before there was a Foundation, four pillars, Chapters, Ranks, or a vision for a permanent home, there were two veterans at the University of Illinois Chicago talking about what happens after service.

Damian Garcia, an Army infantry veteran, and Rogelio “Roger” Villa, a Marine Corps veteran who served as a communications operator, met in 2024 as student veterans at the University of Illinois Chicago.

Different branches. Different experiences. The same instinct - keep serving.

So they did. They spent that year showing up at nonprofits across Chicago. Packing boxes. Running drives. Backing community events. Staffing days built by people who were already doing the work.

And in every neighborhood, they saw the same thing. The city is full of organizations doing meaningful work. What it’s missing is a single permanent place for the people who served and the families beside them - a home that stays open, that welcomes everyone in the family, and that connects them into the city instead of walling them off from it.

Veterans don’t need another room where only veterans sit. They need a city that pulls them, their spouses, their kids, and their parents into everything else that’s happening in it.

Service doesn’t end when the uniform comes off. It evolves — and it belongs in the middle of the community, not off to the side of it.

That idea became Esprit de Corps Foundation.

What they kept hearing

Integration, not isolation.

Some people were navigating school. Some were looking for work. Some missed having a team.

Some wanted to serve again. Some wanted to lead. Some wanted to get outside, move, compete, and feel connected.

Some were raising families and building entirely new lives. Some needed help finding the right resource. Others didn’t need anything at all.

They just wanted somewhere they belonged - with the people they love beside them.

Family is at the center of this, not next to it. Spouses, kids, dependents, parents. Service happened to all of them. So the community has to make room for all of them.

And it has to open outward. The point isn’t to build a safer corner off to the side of the city. The point is to pull people back into it - neighborhoods, schools, civic life, the gym on Saturday morning, the service project around the block.

Belonging isn’t about keeping to yourself with people who look like you. It’s about having a home you leave from, and a city that’s glad you came back.

The founders

Two branches. One shared idea.

Portrait of Damian Garcia

Damian Garcia

Co-Founder - Founder, President & CEO

U.S. Army Veteran - Illinois Army National Guard

Damian served as an infantryman in the United States Army before returning to Chicago and continuing his education at UIC. His experience helped shape an early belief behind EDC: leaving military service shouldn't require leaving behind purpose, leadership, physical challenge, service, or the feeling of being part of something larger than yourself.

What would we build if we stopped thinking about transition as a problem to solve and started thinking about community as something worth building?

Portrait of Roger Villa

Roger Villa

Co-Founder - Board Member

U.S. Marine Corps Veteran

Roger served in the United States Marine Corps as a communications operator before continuing his education at UIC. His conversations with Damian helped turn individual experiences into a shared vision for something that could cross branches, generations, backgrounds, and stages of life.

EDC wasn't supposed to recreate a particular unit, branch, or version of military culture. It was meant to carry something deeper forward.

EDC team members

The name

The spirit of the group.

Esprit de corps is the pride, loyalty, trust, and shared sense of purpose that grows between people who know they are part of something larger than themselves.

Damian knew it in the Army. Roger knew it in the Marine Corps. They didn’t want to recreate military service. They wanted to preserve one of its most powerful lessons.

People are stronger when they know they belong to something, and when they know the people beside them will show up.

The name is a decision

Nothing we built is accidental.

Esprit de corps is a French military term for the shared pride, loyalty, honor, mutual trust, and deep camaraderie that binds the members of a unit together. In the field, commanders call it the magic substance - the hidden energy that brings a tired, strained organization back to life and makes a group outperform the sum of its parts.

It isn’t individual morale. It’s a collective belief that the people beside you are capable, that your team matters, and that you will not let each other down. It gets built through shared hardship, through honored history, through small competitions that pull people closer, and through leaders who take care of the people under them.

Damian knew it in the Army. Roger knew it in the Marine Corps. The Foundation is named after what we didn’t want to lose.

That intentionality runs through every decision we make. The name of the Foundation. The vocabulary we use for the spaces we’re building. The structure of our programs. The people we invite onto the team. The way the website reads. The language we use for recognition. We think about all of it.

The Foundation

Esprit de Corps - the thing we’re protecting from being lost after service.

The Campus - not a Center

A place people belong to and return to. A center delivers services; a campus brings a community together.

The Four Pillars

Recreation. Service. Growth. Family. The parts of life service members should be able to keep after the uniform.

The Operations

Adventure. Serve. Next Mission. Anchor. Named like missions because they are.

S.E.R.V.E.

Show up. Explore together. Reach forward. Value the family. Elevate the community. The behavior we expect from each other.

Ranks - the portal

The Foundation’s first unified space for the community. A digital version of what the Campus will one day become in person.

The team

Everyone was chosen for a specific reason. We don’t fill seats.

Recognition

A category of its own. Service that stands out deserves to be named, not buried in a sponsor list.

We put thought and heart into every decision. That’s not marketing. It’s the point.

Four ways the mission shows up.

Four pillars.

  • Recreation & Adventure

    Operation Adventure

    Camaraderie, wellness, challenge, and shared experiences that get people moving and bring them together.

  • Community & Service

    Operation Serve

    Opportunities to continue serving through neighborhoods, projects, events, volunteering, and community action.

  • Growth & Opportunity

    Operation Next Mission

    Leadership, careers, education, entrepreneurship, mentorship, benefits navigation, and the tools to move toward whatever comes next.

  • Family & Belonging

    Operation Anchor

    Programs and experiences built with spouses, dependents, children, and families in mind because service has never affected only the person wearing the uniform.

Adventure - Serve - Next Mission - Anchor

Purpose - Belonging - Community

Esprit de Corps Foundation

From a conversation to a Foundation

How it unfolded.

  • 01

    Meet

    UIC Student Veterans Affairs

    Damian and Roger meet as student veterans at the University of Illinois Chicago.

  • 02

    Listen

    The conversations grow.

    They begin talking with other veterans, service members, students, families, and people across the military-connected community.

  • 03

    Envision

    What if we built something different?

    The conversations become an idea for a community that could continue long after service.

  • 04

    Build

    Esprit de Corps Foundation

    The idea becomes an organization with a mission, structure, programs, and four pillars.

  • 05

    Connect

    The community grows.

    Partners, volunteers, families, companies, nonprofits, universities, and civic leaders begin building alongside EDC.

  • 06

    Endure

    Build something that lasts.

    Chapters. Ranks. Programs. Annual traditions. And eventually a permanent EDC Campus.

What comes next

This was never supposed to belong to two people.

Founders get to start things. Communities are what make them last.

The measure of what gets built here won’t be whether people remember Damian or Roger. It will be whether a family finds somewhere they belong, whether a veteran finds their next opportunity, whether a neighborhood is stronger because people showed up.

There is a place for me here.

Future home of Esprit de Corps Foundation in Chicago

Esprit de Corps Foundation

Where service continues.

It started with two veterans. What comes next belongs to all of us.

Our missionGet involvedFounding partners

The Campus vision