Building bridges: The Military Affairs Council's commitment to Fort Bragg and Fayetteville’s collaborative future

By Eddie Velazquez, posted Oct 22, 2026 on BizFayetteville.com

The Military Affairs Council currently has around 170 members and is always looking to grow and recruit additional members. Photo provided by The MAC.

A mainstay institution that helps connect Fort Bragg to the greater Fayetteville area continues to chart a path toward a better community partnership.

“Fort Bragg is part of the community, and the community is part of Fort Bragg,” Rob Patton, the chair of the board at the Military Affairs Council, said.

The Military Affairs Council (MAC), which has stood in Fayetteville since 1956, has spent the past five years rebuilding its membership. Near 2022, the MAC had dwindled to around 30 members. Now, according to Patton, there are almost 170 members. The MAC is part of the Greater Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce.

“The number one mission for the MAC is to connect the community to the installation, and the installation to the community, so furthering the relationship, furthering the ties, furthering mutual supportability,” Patton said.

Patton, who also serves as vice president of the Fayetteville Cumberland Economic Development Corporation, said the MAC has delivered on continuing to bring programming, leadership conversations, networking events and other benefits to its members.

“You get access to people for these briefings that you’re not going to get anywhere else, or are very hard to get anywhere else,” Patton said.

“If they do business with the military or military-connected people, people should consider joining the MAC because we are strengthening that community,” Patton said. “The ties and the relationships and network that you build in the organization are unparalleled. We all feel this connection to the installation. So whether you’ve served or not, the installation in Fayetteville, Cumberland County, [is] really symbiotic.”

The MAC is currently choosing to show their support for the military by promoting a yellow ribbon campaign. Free yellow ribbon pins can be found at the Greater Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce. The ribbons will help show support for forward-deployed troops, which are military units stationed in foreign nations or pushed close to active combat zones.

“Equally, if not more important, [are] the families that are back here,” Patton said. “If you support the mission or not, that’s not what’s important. The important thing is to support those soldiers, airmen, sailors, marines, etc. and their families while they’re called to do their duty overseas. They don’t get to pick and choose what missions they go to.”

The MAC has also brought in speakers for their quarterly Leadership Breakfasts.

For instance, Patton said that MAC brought Marri “Nicki” Fryar, the executive director for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ Fayetteville Coastal Health Care, as one of the recent speakers. “ The ties and the relationships and network that you build in the organization are unparalleled. We all feel this connection to the installation. So whether you’ve (JIOP) at Fort Bragg in January 2027. JIOP is a hub for innovative approaches for problem solving, Patton said. served or not, the installation in Fayetteville, Cumberland County, [is] really symbiotic.” — Rob Patton, Chair of the MAC Board

“She was able to introduce a lot of her team, give us kind of an overview of what the Coastal Carolina VA Health System looks like, some of their missions, responsibilities, ways ahead,” Patton said of Fryar’s presentation. “We were able to connect some folks that are interested in doing more business with the VA writ large, with her team, and vice versa.”

Connecting with the VA was key, Patton noted. He said that those types of partnerships can help link Veterans and service members with key resources — like health care.

“A lot of the population is retired or former military, and get their health care through the VA,” Patton said. “We think that there’s a lot of misconceptions about the VA that could be done away with through closer relationships.”

The next leadership breakfast will be at the Joint Innovation Outpost (JIOP) at Fort Bragg in January 2027. JIOP is a hub for innovative approaches to problem-solving, Patton said.

“People can go in with this idea on how to solve a problem, get together with other innovators, get together with industry, academia and there are also acquisition people there,” Patton noted. “Then once that problem is solved through innovation, they figure out how that product can be sent out to market or be purchased by the military.”

Active duty service members and Veterans, Patton said, are a vital part of the community. After all, he noted, it is their community.

Every year, the mindset will be to continue delivering quality events, programs and opportunities to network, while also adding at least one new event or program.

“That way, we’re not trying to do too much too soon and fail,” Patton said. “Because the last thing we want to do is do too much…I’d rather do less stuff better and slowly, then add in other events that have meaningful impact to both the installation and the community, and just continue to grow that way.”

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