Fayetteville CEO and veteran: From being unable to read to entrepreneur.
Kelsey Battle, 52, is a Gulf War Army veteran and a successful Fayetteville entrepreneur. He and his wife, Shannon, have several businesses.
Battle is the CFO of Family Services of America; president of All American Construction and ICAN Clothing, and CEO of Battle Properties Investments, LLC. It's impressive for a young man who grew up in the Montclair subdivision.
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However, the story of how he got there is even more inspiring.
Battle is the youngest of five children. His father wasn't around much, and his mother was addicted to drugs early in his life. And he and his siblings were left alone to figure things out for themselves.
Kelsey was a kid with a good attitude and was well-mannered. Teachers liked him because he was a "yes sir" and "no ma'am" guy. He also excelled in sports. He appeared to be the model student, starting at Montclair Elementary, proceeding to Anne Chestnut Middle, and graduating from 71st High.
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In 1990, armed with his high school diploma, Battle went to the Raleigh Army Recruiting Station to take the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) test.
Before you join the military, you must take the ASVAB. It's designed to help the military determine your strengths to find where a recruit will fit best and be the most likely to succeed. For enlistment into the Army, you must get a minimum ASVAB score of 31.
ASVAB results caused him to confess a secret
After Battle completed the test, a recruiter confronted him and asked if he had graduated from high school. Battle was emphatic that he had and had hand-carried his diploma to the recruiting station as proof.
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But the recruiter wasn't impressed based on Battle's scores, and Battle had to confess his tightly held secret. He couldn't read or write. He was functionally illiterate.
How could this happen? Battle had a high school diploma with his name on it, and it was legitimate. It was a strong case of social promotion; there's no other way to describe it.
Social promotion promotes a child to the next grade level regardless of skill mastery in the belief that it will encourage self-esteem. Battle showed me an official copy of his high school transcript. There is no denying what happened to him.
According to research, Battle was not alone since 19% of all high school graduates are also functionally illiterate.
Faith, and turning things around
But the story doesn't end there. The recruiter decided to send Battle back to Fayetteville, but he convinced him otherwise and went to basic training, determined to learn to read. He said he prayed and asked God to help him.
Through determination and faith, he turned things around and succeeded against the odds. After 11 years in the Army, he got out as an E-6 promotable, took another leap of faith, and started the ICAN clothing line, originally inspired by the Columbine High School shootings.
He wanted to create a brand that inspires people to develop a better way. The Battles have been married for 28 years with five children. This story doesn't just have a happy ending; this is an incredible story just beginning.
Troy Williams is a member of The Fayetteville Observer Community Advisory Board. He is a legal analyst and criminal defense investigator. He can be reached at talk2troywilliams@yahoo.com.
This article originally appeared on The Fayetteville Observer: Fayetteville CEO got it together after military test revealed secret
