Essential Membership is $25 / year, and Executive Membership is $500 / year.

Having potential members complete a sign up form is our mechanism for reviewing applicant’s professional information, and verifying military service.

We review all applicants on a rolling basis and usually respond within 24 hours. Once accepted, you will receive an activation email to select membership level and finish building out your profile.

No. Upon completing the sign up form, those who qualify will receive an email with activation instructions. Prior to entering the platform for the first time, you will be required to select a paid membership level. Transitioning active duty service member and their spouses, and recently transitioned veterans, are encouraged to apply for a complimentary one year membership.

Open-enrollment networking communities lack filtering for relevance and quality of membership. Curated memberships like Meritorious ensure interactions are qualified, and a productive use of one’s time investment.

Meritorious is a community for military veteran and spouse business leaders, with private member portal, networking events and professional development, including Mentor Connect, Tactical Decision Games, and Masterminds. We connect members and businesses with each other, entrepreneurs with advisors and investors, and support mentorship between members, and transitioning service members. Our members can host events and join groups to move the needle on military-connected issues.

Meritorious is the brainchild of co-founders Katherine Kostreva, former national Director of Development and Marketing for PsychArmor Institute and Northeast Region Executive Director for Bunker Labs, and Ryan Loya, a US Marine Corps Veteran, and fractional CEO for startups at Columbia Technology Ventures. During Ryan’s transition from the military, the duo lobbied to reform the Department of Defense Transition Assistance Program (TAP), with key mandates now law in NDAA 2019, including the requirement that TAP be completed 365 days prior to End of Active Service, and program impact be measured, consolidated and delivered to Congress annually. Over the past few years Katherine and Ryan struggled to find groups specific to military connected individuals for peer-to-peer support and professional growth. They set out to build such a platform that would create connectivity and access to resources during a time of social distancing, with capacity to scale both virtually and physically post pandemic.