Roy O. Disney served in the Navy. While Walt was not old enough to join the military, he volunteered to be a Red Cross ambulance driver, and deployed to France at the tail end of WWI.

“While there, he actually started doodling military insignia,” said Cappy Surette, a Navy veteran who is Senior Manager, Executive Communications, Public Affairs, Disney Parks, Experiences and Products. Walt and many of his animators eventually “went on to create over 1,200 military emblems throughout World War II and beyond. And many of those are still in use.”

Today, Disney continues to support the armed forces in numerous ways, including its Heroes Work Here program and Veterans Institute summit.

A Beginning: Heroes Work Here

Disney’s focus on veteran outreach and hiring began in 2021, as veterans faced a high unemployment rate.

“We saw a great opportunity to see what we could do to help reduce that and find meaningful work for those who have served our nation. So Disney created a program called Heroes Work Here,” Surette said. “We guaranteed that we were going to hire 1,000 veterans over a three-year period. And then we ended up hiring 1,000 in a one-year period.”

Seeing the success of its hiring initiative and the benefits veterans brought to the table, the company chose to extend the program, and has hired more than 11,000 veterans since 2012.

The Veterans Institute Presented by Disney Institute

Building on the success of the Heroes Work Here initiative, Disney Institute hosted its first Veterans Institute summit in 2013. The summit “was a natural extension of the Heroes Work Here program,” said Surette. Disney’s Veterans Institute aims to educate, inspire and empower, sharing “best practices in veteran hiring with other organizations, so they help build veteran hiring initiatives and have their own programs.”

Returning to Walt Disney World in August 2022

This year, the Veterans Institute will take place on August 19th and 20th in person at ESPN Wide World of Sports located at Walt Disney World Resort and online via livestream. Registration details are available on the Disney Institute website.

“We’re really proud to bring it back to Walt Disney World for the first time since we hosted it in 2013,” said Ashley Taylor, Portfolio Director Disney Institute & National Geographic Live, and head of programming for Veterans Institute Summit. “And we’ve expanded it. Now, this is a two-day event focused on both veteran and military spouse hiring and care initiatives within organizations.”

The free event will focus on getting “robust and important content to the people who want to partake of it,” said Taylor. “This event isn’t just for HR or recruiters. This is designed for anyone within an organization because a culture is created in a business with the entirety of its employee base.”

Thanks to the livestream, everyone who wants the content will have access to it. By registering in advance, attendees will also have access to the on-demand replay.

The Speakers

The list of speakers is rich and varied, with speakers coming from a number of different companies and non-profits. The sessions will explore a wide range of perspectives on how veterans and their spouses can navigate the world of civilian employment.

“Hiring and supporting spouses will be an important topic at the summit this year, " said Taylor. “We have an entire panel that will be dedicated to military spouse employment and helping organizations think differently about what they may see as gaps, whether that’s gaps on a resume or frequent job changes.”

The summit will also explore other ways to support military spouses. “For example, maybe there’s not a direct employment opportunity within their own organization. But have they thought about supplier diversity?” said Taylor. “Are they working with military-spouse-owned businesses, since we know that military spouses have a high rate of small business ownership?” A major goal is to help organizations “think a little bit differently about what the opportunities are and how they can be more involved.”

While the Veterans Institute event is intended for those who hire and support veterans, Disney offers many resources and programs for military servicemembers, veterans and spouses. Here are just a few to consider.

● Heroes Work Here - From this landing page, veterans and military spouses can view “videos and have PDFs and PowerPoint presentations and a lot of great resources…as they prepare to pursue opportunities, whether it be with the Walt Disney Company or with other employers of choice,” said Matt Andolina, Senior Recruiter, Walt Disney World Casting Services. Among the available resources are job openings, transition success stories, and information about career fairs, interviewing, personal branding and resume writing.

● Disney Military Fellowship program in Collaboration with the Department of Defense Skillbridge program- Kristy Hall, a Disney Company Executive Search Consultant and U.S. Navy veteran, participated in this program after serving for 22 years. “Through the Department of Defense, I was still a sailor, and I was able to come and experience the corporate world at Walt Disney World for 180 days,” said Hall. She landed a job with the company as a senior recruiter for Disney Cruise Line and eventually moved on to “join the executive recruitment team for Disney Parks, Experiences and Products, which is now supporting recruitment for all of our executives.”

● U.S. Chamber of Commerce Hiring Our Heroes Participant: Disney is a host company in the Corporate Fellowship Program, providing civilian work experiences that support transition from military service to civilian employment.

● Disney Heroes Supply Here: This program, introduced in 2015, promotes the support of veteran-owned businesses, including companies owned by disabled veterans.

● Military Discounts - The Disney’s Armed Forces Salute program offers discounted theme park, resort stay and cruise rates to active and retired service members and their families.

In its monthly employment estimates released Friday, officials from the Bureau of Labor Statistics said about 237,000 veterans were unable to find work last month. That’s roughly the same level as May and June, and down from around 350,000 one year ago.

July was the fifth consecutive month that the veterans unemployment level was under 3%, the longest such streak since at least the start of 2000. (Public BLS data on veterans only extends back to that mark).

From March to November 2000, the rate was below 3.0% eight out of nine consecutive months.

The positive news for veterans comes amid improvement in the overall American job market as well. The national unemployment rate fell from 3.6% in June to 3.5% in July as the economy added about 528,000 jobs last month.

In a statement, President Joe Biden hailed the jobs news as evidence the country is recovering from the still ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The national unemployment rate spiked to more than 14 percent in spring 2020 as companies were forced to shut down operations in an attempt to stop the virus’ spread.

“More people are working than at any point in American history,” Biden said. “That’s millions of families with the dignity and peace of mind that a paycheck provides … There’s more work to do, but today’s jobs report shows we are making significant progress for working families.”

Officials from the Republican National Committee noted that the positive unemployment numbers do not address rising inflation across the country, which they say presents a bigger challenge to American families.

The unemployment rate for veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan war era rose from 2.9% in June to 3.4% in July.

However, researchers have warned that smaller sampling sizes in the BLS research can lead to dramatic month-to-month swings in those figures. The number of young veterans out of work has remained around 130,000 since early 2021, according to the bureau’s estimates.

About 8.5 million veterans are in the U.S. workforce today. That’s about 45% of the nation’s veterans population. Individuals who have retired or are unable to work because of service injuries are not included in the monthly unemployment calculations.

“Our public schools are really at a crisis level seeing this massive number of vacancies,” Andrew Spar, Florida Education Association president, told ABC Action News. “In 2010, there were 8,000 graduates from Florida’s colleges and universities becoming teachers. That number was between 2,000 and 3,000 for the year that just ended. That’s a significant drop-off.”

Veterans will now receive a five-year voucher that allows them to teach in the classroom without typical accreditation or the necessary education requirements that other certified teachers must possess.

The move is part of an $8.6 million statewide initiative to provide careers and workforce training to veterans and their dependents.

“We owe the freedoms we enjoy as Americans to our military veterans, and I am focused on ensuring Florida is the best state in the nation for those who have served to find great jobs, start or grow businesses and support their families,” said Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in a statement. “Business is booming in Florida, and employers are looking for the leadership skills, training and teamwork military veterans bring to the workforce.”

The state’s Department of Education currently expects veteran candidates without degrees seeking teaching positions to have at least 60 college credits and a baseline 2.5 GPA. They need to pass the subject area examination for bachelor’s level subjects, as well.

In addition, their service needs to amount to 48 months in the military, with an honorable or medical discharge. If hired by a school, they are required to be supervised by a teaching mentor.

Teachers and local unions, on the other hand, feel this move will lower the standard of education for Florida schools.

“You can’t just throw a warm body in a classroom, that’s not the answer,” Barry Dubin, president of the Sarasota County Teachers Association, told the Herald Tribune.

While the shortage is dire, the decision to use veterans as a stop-gap measure has educators questioning the state’s criteria for teachers.

“There are many people who have gone through many hoops and hurdles to obtain a proper teaching certificate,” Carmen Ward, president of the Alachua County teachers union, said. “(Educators) are very dismayed that now someone with just a high school education can pass the test and can easily get a five-year temporary certificate.”

“It’s really great because you can tag all the dates,” Young said. “You can plan for a certain day. It’s amazing. That’s kind of how I plan for everything.”

Young has it pegged down to the day when his product — different varieties of microgreens — will be ready to harvest, package and sell, labeling efficiently stacked plastic palettes of seeds and soil at different stages of planting on tall racks outfitted with lights.

In the headquarters of his business, MicroBite Farms, Young — a transitioning veteran who served in the Marine Corps — grows over a dozen varieties of microgreens, green plants like broccoli and cilantro that are densely planted from seeds and harvested in under three weeks when they’ve grown their first set of leaves. They’re distinct from “sprouts,” which are grown in water.

“I lost so much weight when I started eating these,” Young said. “I got kind of fat when I got out of the Marines. There are just so many health benefits.”

Before becoming a vendor at the Harrisonburg Farmers Market on Tuesdays and Saturdays, and selling to CrossKeys Vineyards bistro and offering delivery and subscription for the tiny plants, Young — who has always had a green thumb — said he began growing microgreens as a hobby and for their superior nutrient content after having served in the military for four years.

“I just love doing this. It doesn’t feel like work to me. I love interacting with the customers at the market,” Young said. “The restaurant customers are all super friendly.”

These infant-versions of green plants also pack full-grown peppery, sweet and spicy flavors, depending on the plant. Young sells around a dozen varieties, including Red Acre cabbage, Daikon radish, sunflower, broccoli and salad mixes that combine varieties.

“I’ll eat [salads with microgreens] plain without any dressing because it’s just so full of flavor,” Young said. “You’re getting such a huge bang for your buck as far as nutrition.”

To grow them, he starts seeds in a palette of soil that’s weighed down with a concrete block. A subsequent “black out”” phase encourages the plants to develop longer stems. It’s a characteristic that attracted Leonel Velazquez, new executive chef of CrossKeys Vineyards, to partner with MicroBite as one of its first small local vendors.

“We like his product and we were excited to bring it on,” Velazquez said. “We use it for our dishes here at the bistro and for our events. They’re clean, they have good taste. I like to have micros with bigger stems and he does that.”

Young, who’s currently working toward a bachelor’s degree from Penn State University, said he started selling microgreens to restaurants around State College, Penn., but launched right around the pandemic and business was slow.

“I’ve always enjoyed the idea of being my own boss, but when you actually do it it’s really hard. I’m always learning and sometimes I feel like I have no idea what I’m doing,” Young said.

Young said being in the Marines — where it’s important to be on time and prepared — helped him develop the “self-management” he needed to run his own business full-time.

“I don’t think I could have done this before the Marines,” Young said. “You have to take care of yourself and stay fit and show up on time every day. That helps a lot with this. I don’t have days off. If I forget to water or something, the (plants) die.”

Hooked on efficiency, Young said one of the things he likes about this business is the ability to produce a lot of food without using any chemical fertilizers in a small, indoor space.

“That’s kind of the endgame for me is to control everything using the sun but not direct sunlight,” Young said. “Freshness is kind of hard to come by. Distributing on a larger scale but also maintaining quality is my longer-term goal.”

Young, who said he’s found his passion in growing microgreens, said he hopes to scale the business up a large degree. Young said his goal, which “sounds like a dream right now,” is to create a large solar-powered facility.

“At some point you just have to take a chance on something, whether it’s a career track or whatever it may be. And for me, this is it,” Young said.

“Compared to non-veterans, veterans have the combination of technical, operational and analytical background and experiences coupled with a high level of maturity, leadership and followership that most civilian college new grads do not possess,” said David Cross, a senior vice president at software company Oracle who served in the U.S. Navy and the Army Reserve.

In particular, veterans are well-suited for fast-moving or crisis situations that often occur in information technology (IT).

“With the rapid transformation to Cloud services and applications, veterans are uniquely skilled and experienced in how to operate, respond and lead in high spaced, tense and stressed environments, which can often encounter events requiring incident commander leadership and poise,” Cross said.

Chip-maker Intel has hired across from a variety of military specialties, from infantry and finance, to cybersecurity and pilots.

“Approximately 80 percent of our veterans are in our manufacturing, supply chain and operations, and technology development organizations, which are the core of Intel’s business,” said Gisele Bonitz, a retired Navy captain who is now Intel’s director of risk and controls for data centers and AI, and co-chair of Intel’s Veteran Leadership Council.

Veterans don’t have to restrict themselves to technology positions at technology companies. Even the most tech-driven company still needs employees in infrastructure, support and other roles to ensure that the company is operating efficiently.

“Most think about Intel for technical positions, where those coming from technical fields like damage control, electronics tech, communications, computers, cyber security are a great match,” said Chris Tobias, a former Air Force command and control officer who is now an Intel general manager for sales and marketing, and co-chair of the company’s veterans council. “However, we also have positions in contracting, supply, human resources, and construction where we’ve seen just about every military career field have success.”

Cross noted that veterans are often hired based on their “transferable skills,” and then trained for a specific position in a company. “For example, veterans at Oracle are brought on board as program managers, then transition to technical program managers in a short amount of time. Another example is a veteran who interned as a software developer, which is a specialty that the military is not readily known for producing, and was then offered a full-time role as a software engineer.”

Oracle is a member of DoD’s Skillbridge program, which sponsors private sector internships for veterans. Meta – the parent company of Facebook – runs a Veterans Engineering Program that offers a paid 12-month career development program for veterans and their spouses with a background in mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, computer science or supply chains.

“Veterans are not only users of technological advancements, but also consumers, which give them a unique perspective to business, and a global outlook to any organization,” said Wil Williamson, who manages Meta’s veteran recruiting program.

Big tech companies suggest veterans identify what commercial jobs they want prior to separation, and then obtain any necessary training and certification before they should leave the service. They should also tailor their resumes to the position that they’re applying for, including specifically linking their skills and experience to the job in question. For example, “you can say ‘I designed the IT infrastructure for a $1 billion command center delivered $5 million under budget and three months ahead of schedule, and being recognized as the Department of Defense’s most effective facility,’” Bonitz said. “Rather than just saying, ‘responsible for the IT design of a command center.’

“They should get comfortable with the interview process and explain, without acronyms, how their accomplishments in the military would support the role they are interested in,” Bonitz said.

Three years ago, Kreitzer founded the nonprofit Donor Outreach for Veterans, or DOVE. Her mission is to locate living kidney donors for higher risk patients.

“When we tap into the communities, and all contribute to this life-saving mission — we can solve the organ shortage,” said Kreitzer.

The nonprofit is a very targeted niche in the vast transplant community network and targets only those seeking living-donor kidneys and only veteran recipients.

“It’s gratifying to support a deserving and special group of men and women who have sacrificed all for their country,” said Kreitzer.

Kreitzer, who worked for 25 years in the highly specialized transplant field, says that veterans have a higher rate of renal failure and an even worse rate of transplant availability. Worse, the current demand for living donors exceeds the supply.

The wait for a kidney

As a result, many veterans experiencing kidney failure have a 5 to 8 year wait in front of them, and many won’t survive waiting for a deceased donor. Adding to that, the transplant rate for veterans at Veterans Affairs hospitals is significantly lower than the comparative transplant rates at non-VA hospitals.

A living-donor kidney transplant is when a kidney from a living donor is removed and placed into a recipient whose kidneys no longer function properly. Only one donated kidney is needed to replace two failed kidneys, which makes living donor kidney transplant an alternative to deceased donor kidney transplant, per the Mayo Clinic.

Also, living donor kidney transplant is the preferred treatment for kidney failure and has a higher success rate than deceased donor transplant.

DOVE: Donor Outreach for Veterans

The crux is finding the living donors willing to help save a veteran’s life, then connecting them to the individual veteran and to the hospital, VA, or otherwise sanctioned facility that is ready to perform the transplant. Kreitzer feels the pool of living kidney donors remaining untapped.

So far, DOVE has been a success. Kreitzer has conducted over 500 donor intakes since January 2020. Many donors never served in the military but either come from military families or want to give back to veterans. Kreitzer likes to personally talk to each applicant herself and is hands-on throughout the process.

“I took a leap of faith and left a 20-year career in a hospital setting to launch DOVE,” says Kreitzer.

Kreitzer’s background in the VA’s transplant orbit is what planted the idea. In 2015, while working as an administrator at the Bronx VA, Kreitzer helped launch the seventh VA kidney transplant program. It was then that she learned of the crisis facing veterans with renal failure.

“I was dismayed when I saw the Veterans Administration did not have robust living donor programs,” said Kreitzer.

Expanding care for veterans

The VA recently expanded its live donor care and support, ruling that effective July 1, 2022, eligible veterans living beyond their particular VA Transplant Center radius can now seek care outside the VA system.

The VA had previously acknowledged that the distance to a transplant center may adversely impact access to transplant services and transplant outcomes. The recent change hopes to address that concern.

Travel for the initial and lengthy diagnosis, transplant candidacy screening, approval, and the actual transplant surgery and recovery, require enormous funds and practical support.

From 2020 to 2022, six known VA transplant centers performed living-donor kidney transplants, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing.

Kreitzer says she is excited to work with the VA and veterans to assist in finding donors.

DOVE: living kidney donation for veterans

DOVE and Kreitzer act as the veterans’ advocate. The organization functions as a matchmaker between donor and recipient.

She acknowledges that the veteran and military community is vast and is hoping to galvanize this potential in seeking both donors and funding.

The ability to personalize the gift of a donation to benefit a veteran opens a new of pool of donors who otherwise might have never considered it, says Kreitzer.

The general public, military family members and the veteran community are all potential donors. With command permission, even active-duty military can participate. The living donor cut-off date is variable but generally caps around 70 years old.

Living donors save lives

“I, too, am planning to be a kidney donor,” said Kreitzer.

She’s completed her medical evaluation, and the surgery is scheduled for August. She says she is somewhat scared but is confidently relying on emotional support and advice from prior donors.

The recovery process from being a donor is approximately six weeks to get on your feet if your job or life is active or physical or two weeks for those at a desk job or remote workers, says Kreitzer.

“I never served, but this feels like a way I can give back to those who have,” said Kreitzer.

“Dad always told me the business was an opportunity for me, but I had to go out on my own first,” said Gentile. “He wanted me to go to college, have a job for five years where I’m continually growing into my roles and responsibilities, that sort of thing.”

Gentile took his dad’s advice to heart, attending college at the University of Alabama before enrolling in the Air Force, where he spent six years. In December 2021, he decided it was time to leave the Air Force and take over his father’s business as the owner of Jan-Pro Franchise Development of Huntsville.

Jan-Pro is a commercial cleaning company with 75 master franchisees and 4,500 unit franchisees. Gentile helps Jan-Pro certified business owners develop their franchises in the region.

Cleaning and disinfecting became a vital industry during the COVID-19 pandemic, when most of the offices and schools across the country shut down for lengthy periods of time to prevent the spread of the disease. Those that remained open during the pandemic as essential businesses or now are bringing workers back to offices have installed more intense cleaning and disinfecting programs at facilities of all kinds.

One of the most appealing aspects of the business for Gentile was Jan-Pro’s VetConnection program, touted as the first franchise commercial cleaning program designed around the needs of veterans. Jan-Pro announced VetConnection as a program that “puts veterans in business ownership roles designed specifically around veterans’ needs. This program puts veterans in business ownership roles where they can apply their leadership skills and other disciplines in a growing industry.”

Army veteran Jacques Lapointe founded Jan-Pro in 1991. Anthony’s father, Dominic Gentile, started his Jan-Pro Franchise Development of Huntsville business in 2005.

Anthony Gentile says that Lapointe set an example for future franchisees by showing that veterans can find success in the cleaning industry even if they don’t have previous experience.

“He really understood that veterans have a lot to offer in business,” Gentile said. “In my experience as a pilot, a lot of businesses would say, ‘You don’t have an MBA, so you may not be as valuable to us because we have to teach you some things,’ but Jan-Pro realized there are a lot of qualities that military members have that makes them valuable business owners, like work ethic and integrity.”

Gentile is using that same perspective to help veterans develop their own career path in the cleaning industry. As an Air Force veteran, he can offer fellow veterans who choose to enter the cleaning industry the perspective of one of their own who can serve as a mentor and offer support when it’s needed.

According to data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate for all veterans in America in June was 2.7%, holding steady at that level for the second consecutive month.

The number has been less than 3% for four consecutive months now, which administration officials have called a sign of improving hiring and job stability across America.

The figure translates to about 235,000 veterans across America unable to find stable employment last month. In June 2021, that number was roughly 437,000 veterans.

The national unemployment rate was 3.6% for the fourth consecutive month, and BLS officials said that an estimated 372,000 non-farm payroll positions were added to the economy in June.

In recent years, veterans have generally outpaced the rest of the workforce in terms of employment rates. But younger veterans — those who served in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars — have struggled slightly more than their peers, posting higher unemployment rates than older veterans already established in the civilian workforce.

The Iraq- and Afghanistan-era veterans unemployment rate for June was 2.9%, the first time that group has dropped below 3% since May 2019. The rate for that generation of veterans reached as high as 13% in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic in spring 2020.

Individuals who left the military after September 2001 make up the largest single group of veterans in the civilian workforce today, comprising about 45% of nearly 8.4 million veteran employees.

The unemployment rate for veterans of the first Gulf War-era in June was 1.5%, and the rate for those from the peacetime period from the Vietnam War to the early 1990s posted an unemployment rate of 2.7%.

Veterans from World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War (BLS groups all of those older generations together) had a 5.1% unemployment rate last month. Of the estimated 6.3 million veterans from those eras still living in America today, less than 15% are still active in the civilian workforce.

As a result, unemployment rates for that group are prone to significant swings each month due to sampling issues. The rate for that group in June 2021 was 6.1%.

BLS officials said that most employment indicators have returned roughly to the same levels as February 2020, which was just weeks before the pandemic began in America. The national unemployment rate was 3.5% that month.

However, the number of long-term unemployed individuals — those jobless for 27 weeks or more — is still about 215,000 higher than before the pandemic’s start.

The legislation is considered non-controversial but still could take months to wind through Congress because of other priorities and planned summer recesses. But supporters said the move is an important one for lawmakers to complete as soon as possible.

“This bill would simplify the reporting process for colleges and universities to make GI Bill paperwork requirements easier and more straightforward,” Rep. Mike Bost, R-Ill., and ranking member on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, said in a statement.

“This will allow schools to focus on ensuring student veterans get the education they have earned without additional red tape.”

Congressional staff did not have an estimate on how many veterans may be directly impacted by the legislation, but veterans advocates say the problems behind the proposals have been burdensome for numerous schools in recent months.

In 2021, Veterans Affairs officials updated a series of definitions and accounting methods surrounding the 85-15 rule, which requires that institutions of higher education receive at least 15% of their income from non-government sources.

Officials from Student Veterans of America said those changes forced significant reporting increases — “hundreds of hours of extra work” — as administrators combed through details for every field of study and degree program to ensure compliance.

“The potential, unintended consequences of the new requirements to limit student veterans’ access to quality institutions cannot be overstated,” said Lauren Augustine, vice president of government affairs for SVA.

The changes would simplify the rules, ensuring that schools — especially institutions with limited staff and few veteran enrollees — can verify eligibility without overwhelming administrative effort.

“The 85-15 rule is an important safeguard in protecting students and their educational benefits from predatory fraud and abuse,” said House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Mark Takano, D-Calif.

“However, for schools with a small student veteran population, this rule has unintended negative consequences that limit student veterans from participating in their programs.”

Both Takano and Bost are sponsoring the House bill. Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Jon Tester, D-Mont., and ranking member Jerry Moran, R-Kansas, have introduced companion legislation in their chamber.

Congress is currently on a two-week break for the Fourth of July holiday but is expected to return to Capitol Hill on July 11.

“Military veterans have that mindset that they want to serve, they want to help,” says Schramm, the campus executive officer for the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay’s satellite campuses in Sheboygan and Manitowoc. “And sometimes they have to be OK with us helping them, because they are in a new world for them.

“I find them very hard working, and they want to succeed, and this is another mission to them: Getting a college degree.”

The G.I. Bill, established in 1944, offers service members an opportunity for veterans to pursue higher education. According to a 2021 report, 650,000 veterans used military benefits for higher education. The study by The Postsecondary National Policy Institute showed that 75 percent of the student veterans enrolled as full-time students.

While the study shows that veterans are taking advantage of the benefits, they’re not always finding the move to higher education is a smooth transition. Finding a school that fits what a veteran wants to study and provides the proper infrastructure to help them with the process is essential for veterans to get the most out of their higher education.

“When they were in the military, there was a lot of certainty,” Schramm said. “They knew what they were going to do when they got up at 6 in the morning and knew when they went to bed at night. And now they’re in this different world where they need to ask a lot of questions.”

Schramm recently attended a U.S. Marine Corp. educator’s workshop where he was one of 45 educators from across the country with the goal of helping veterans obtain their academic goals. At the top of Schramm’s list of priorities for veterans is to find a school that has a veterans service coordinator whose sole mission is to help veterans through the process.

“They need somebody embedded in the student affairs area, who is academically advising the class selection, the financial aid areas, and someone who really understands our veterans’ backgrounds and what their military service might mean,” he said.

Veterans also need to consider the benefits campuses can offer, such as whether the college or university is considered veteran-friendly. Schramm points out that some of these designations are as simple as paying a fee, but others require meeting a set of criteria to earn the designation. Beyond the school’s designations, on-campus support extends to the kinds of groups on campus that are designed to provide support.

“Do they have a space like a veterans’ lounge where veterans can create a community?” Schramm said. “There’s the discipline of the military, and the whole training of the military, so it’s important that they can be around people that sound and feel a little bit like them.”

Perhaps the most important aspect of the process is choosing an educational path to take. This is where a coordinator can help steer veterans toward an academic path based on their experiences in the military and what field of study they want to pursue.

“Make sure there’s something at the college you want to study,” he said. “Don’t settle. Don’t say, ‘It’s close enough. Go after something you really want. Someone who has great military training can sometimes get credits for some of the time and training they received in the military.”

Schools will also often provide educational opportunities or training for spouses, another consideration for selecting a school.

During his career in education in Wisconsin, Schramm has found that veterans often emerge as leaders in the business field. He feels a strong responsibility to help those who have volunteered to serve their country.

“If we can help them break down the barriers and create some communities in the veteran community and introduce them to the rest of the campus world, I think that can go a long way.”

Instead, he purchased the company.

Last week, we asked Douglas about his debut business manual “Adapt or Die: How to Create Innovation, Solve People Puzzles, and Win in Business.” This week, we’re digging a little deeper to learn about his transition from military service to civilian employee to CEO.

Q: What is your military background?

A: I served in the Navy from 1993 to 1997 and was deployed on the USS Arthur W. Radford DD-968. During my time in the Navy, I was responsible for inventory management and financial reporting and built a min/max database for consumable products. I was awarded two Navy achievement medals for my accomplishments during my enlistment.

Q: What can you share about your transition from the military to civilian life? What challenges did you face?

A: I think I had two big challenges when I transitioned. Focusing on family and people instead of a mission or work. I had been so focused on working within the Navy and getting things done or achieving the next outcome that it was hard for me to do anything else. I still struggle with it today. My goals or missions in life can be such a big focus that I don’t take enough time to stop and enjoy those who mean so much.

The second big challenge was the lack of a good daily routine that is intentional. My days were chaos. I got up and ran hard each day but didn’t have a routine to plan the day or a wrap-up plan at the end of the day to plan the next. It was just get up, get going, work hard. As a result, I didn’t always end each day having achieved the most important tasks. It wasn’t until many years later that I learned the value of the most important tasks of the day.

Q: Did you feel well prepared for your career after serving?

A: My time in the Navy greatly prepared me for my career. Specifically, my time in the military taught me the value of teamwork, which I carry forward as a core value in my life and in my company. I also learned the impact that a leader has on their subordinates and the importance of good leadership, which is something I continue to grow in during my time as CEO.

Q: What challenges did you face when moving from employee to business owner?

A: I became a part of JMARK, designing, building, and maintaining its functional aspects as an entry-level engineer before purchasing the company in 2001. I had to make some hard decisions and downsize the company to only six people. Now, with over 110 employees, JMARK is a leader in its space. As JMARK’s CEO, I formulated processes that provided repeatable outcomes and a predictable revenue stream that placed JMARK on a growth trajectory that, up to this day, is revolutionizing the region’s engagement with technology.

Q: What advice can you offer someone who wants to follow your path, working as an employee after military service with an eye toward business ownership later?

A: Build relationships that will support you and believe in you and your objectives. The team I mentioned in the last question is key to success. None of us do it alone.

Remember that short-term sacrifices are necessary. I often had to pay talented people more than myself to ensure we had the right people around us. If you invest and believe in people, it will pay off. Some will burn you, but don’t let that tarnish your belief in people.

Forgive yourself and others for mistakes. Grace is key in learning as a team and making sure you ultimately win.

Build cash. Winter is always coming. I ran for years without much cash and was fortunate that we didn’t have really bad times. It would have destroyed us. Understand the cash requirements of the business and what it means to weather the storms. As you work on plans, learn to love the truth and don’t focus only on optimism of success.

One of my mentors taught me to build 3 plans:

• Best case scenario
• Most likely scenario
• Worst case scenario

That has been invaluable to helping us thrive.

Ask for money before you need it. When you are in trouble, things get rough, even desperate. Have a credit line, borrowing base, family/friend that you can turn to, etc. before you need to utilize it. Knowing that the money is there provides additional confidence so you can stay focused on not needing it. Don’t use it unless you must but make the arrangements so that you know what you are going to do should the need arise.

ABL (Always be learning). You must be a student now and forever. Build the time in your routines to learn about the trade, about business, about leadership, about tax management, etc.

Automate as much as possible. From accounting, processes, communications, etc. There are more tools available now than ever before. Do the research to figure out how to minimize the humans that you need to accomplish the outcomes to control costs and volatility. Sure, people will be the core to the business, but make it as easy as possible for them to be successful.

As soon as you can, surround yourself with a Board of Directors or advisors. People that are in the industry, know finance better, understand scale, governance, pay strategies, products, and customers. We pay our Board, but you can start with an advisory board that isn’t paid that doesn’t meet as often but will help you navigate the process.

Douglas began a civilian career as an entry-level engineer with JMARK Business Solutions.

Four years later, he purchased the company, then leading JMARK to many successes, including its place on Inc. Magazine’s 5000 Fastest-Growing Private Companies in America list. JMARK has made the list not just once but nine times.

With 25 years of business experience to share, Douglas released his debut manual “Adapt or Die: How to Create Innovation, Solve People Puzzles, and Win in Business” in May 2022. “Adapt or Die” aims to be more than a typical business book, exploring what Douglas calls the Algorithm of Success business system and sharing real-world insights, strategies, and solutions for succeeding in businesses of all sizes. Douglas will also host an Adapt or Die Masterclass in August 2022.

We asked Douglas about his book and requested advice for those considering business ownership after military service.

Q: Why did you write “Adapt or Die?”

A: When we are provided special things, I believe we have a responsibility to do something to pay that forward and help others. My life has been full of special people. It started at a young age with my family and amazing friends living in an amazing community. In college, I was fortunate to meet more exceptional people who showed me way too many ways to have fun but also taught me how to enjoy life. In the Navy, I again met exceptional people and was able to learn the impact of good (and bad) leadership. I was able to see transformation, suppression, anger, joy, and mostly, people rising to new levels and capabilities.

Since my time in the Navy, I’ve continued to be exposed to exceptional people within our organization, meeting my wife, and with our clients, and through some awesome board members. In addition to all of these amazing people, I have focused on staying a student in all things. This passion to learn, combined with the teachings of others, has helped me achieve some pretty special things with some very special people.

Maybe it is because my Mom was a teacher that helped people realize potential they didn’t know they had, or maybe it is because my Dad always focused on serving and making a difference in people’s lives, or maybe it is because in my heart I love to see people rise to new levels. Whatever the reasons, I decided to share as much as I can through this book and courses.

Q: Are people and relationships a major focus of your book?

A: The data tells us that most people are underutilized and underappreciated--so much so that most people just tolerate a job instead of enjoying a fulfilling career. Sure, culture and people are more of a focus now than in previous years, but focus doesn’t solve the problem. You must put a real system in place to maximize the outcomes for everyone involved. When alignment occurs between the customers of a business, the team within the business, and the business leaders/owners, awesome things occur.

“Adapt or Die” outlines a system that puts people at the center of the business through a set of principles I describe as the Algorithm of Success. The algorithm starts with leadership and then extends through product, strategy, growth, financial modeling, people, operations, and processes. These principles are the things that we have learned over 20+ years of failures and successes. I’m thrilled to share in hopes that others can accelerate through the challenges that we’ve been able to work through.

Q: What advice can you offer transitioning military service members interested in business ownership?

A: First, have a plan to do something you are passionate about. When we are in the military, we have responsibilities, objectives, standards, orders, and a strong sense of team to ensure we stay focused on the right things. As you transition, that will not exist initially, so it is important that you spend your time on work that is meaningful and keep you coming back for more. Before you transition, do your best to have skills that are valuable in the civilian space. Leadership is valuable for sure, and compassionate leadership even more so. However, having a trade, specific ability, skillset, or talent is necessary so that you can add to the value of a business or organization. Use the skills plus the leadership capabilities to maximize your impact.

If you are acquiring a business, have a team around you. There are many things that you’ll need to know to ensure you are set up for success. Certainly lawyers, banks, accountants, IT partners, insurance, etc. Those are a given in today’s world. Make sure you establish those relationships (be picky). Ask lots of questions and don’t be timid about it. Most business problems have already been solved by someone else, so don’t think you have to be the superhero. You also want to make sure you have a team around you day to day. Building a business is very hard. Surround yourself with people you enjoy being with, you can trust, and who are aligned to the outcomes you are focused on.

Q: You worked as an employee before becoming a business owner. Do you recommend transitioning from the military directly to business ownership?

A: I would say this depends on the experiences that you have had prior to a transition. There is so much to know about business to do it right. If you have been exposed to these things, then it might be right for you. If not, it is probably valuable to work in a business for a while to learn some of the foundations that you’ll need to build upon. Not to sound self-promoting, but this is why I wrote “Adapt or Die.” It has the Algorithm of Success, which shares what we had to figure out along the way. If you have a good appreciation for these things in your world, then you are ready. If you don’t, I’d spend the time to establish them.

Q: What traits developed in the military lend themselves to business ownership?

A: The first thing that I think of is discipline, which is important for a business owner in their own life. I would say another positive trait you gain in the military is persistence. Training and drilling and practicing until you get something right. They don’t just let you give up and move on if it’s hard.

The accompanying pitfall is thinking that either your business needs to be run in that manner or that every employee must have that same type of discipline or they cannot be successful or as effective.

Q: What are some other potential pitfalls?

A: The next pitfall would be a reliance on top-down leadership. That is necessary for the military, for soldiers (or sailors, in the Navy) to be trained and drilled and accustomed to following orders without question. In a combat zone, in the midst of battle, things have to be that way. But civilian life is not that. And effective business leadership needs to be collaborative and happen at every level. That is why I’ve worked to integrate a leader-leader philosophy into my company so that anyone on any level of the company has the authority and permission to speak to issues they see throughout any other level of the company.

Q: Besides your book, are there any resources you can recommend for those who want to start a business after the military?

A: Many! I would say “Abundance” by Peter Diamandis. It helped me to have the right mindset to stay optimistic. I would also say “7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” “Turn the Ship Around,” “Predictable Success,” “Scaling Up,” and “Traction” … But there are literally dozens.

Here’s a story: Probably one of the best lessons I learned was how to have a good leadership meeting. We were getting together once per week but not really making the progress that we needed to. The meetings were not organized, not focused on the right things. We would come and go and not feel energized or excited about what was next and what we had achieved.

We started with Verne Harnish’s “Scaling Up” (it was Rockefeller Habits) method for running the meetings, then migrated to the “Traction” methodology. Both are amazing and critical for bringing a good team together to focus on the right things at the right times. Having an agenda that time boxes the right items for the right times was a game-changer for us and keeping us focused. They both help you to identify the key numbers, key issues and strategic priorities that you need to have in alignment. Getting the team on the same page was the gift.

I would also say that understanding where we were as an organization by learning from Les McKeown in “Predictable Success” helped us to know where we were in our maturity so we could focus on the right things.

Q: What is the number one thing a person needs to know about starting a business after transitioning from military service?

A: I would go back to your team. Don’t go alone. The problems have already been solved. This includes those I spoke about before, but it also includes your family. Don’t try to protect them from the challenges in business. You need an ecosystem around you so that you can win. Starting a business is a family commitment. Share the challenges, the successes, the cash flow issues, the people issues. Don’t be lonely at the top. I have received more good advice from my wife than I can count.

When that tension piles up and new sources of stress keep coming (we’re looking at you, lingering pandemic and sky-high gas prices), it can be really valuable to have a few quick and easy strategies for slowing down and feeling calmer. Veterans aren’t the only people who have stress, of course. But their experiences in the military can lead to both short- and long-term stress management issues, even if they are not formally diagnosed with PTSD or anxiety from their time in the service.

Like Gerow, military spouse and yoga therapist Pamela Stokes Eggleston works with veterans and military caregivers, using yoga and breath work to release stress and tension. She’s seen many wounded warriors sleep better and improve their lives just by discovering the power of stretching and breathing well.

Eggleston and Gerow share some simple stretches and breathing exercises that you can do anywhere in as little as one or two minutes to manage stress. Moves like these “won’t necessarily take care of the deeper stuff,” Gerow says, but they “will give you temporary relief to get through a hard patch, to get you back to sleep or to calm your nerves.”

1. Focused breathing: Breathe in and out slowly, and choose one part of your breath to focus on. You can focus on just your inhales, really noticing each time air comes into your body through your nose. Or focus on just the exhales, paying attention to the feeling of air moving out of your body and allowing yourself to forget everything else for a moment. Whether you focus on inhales or exhales, or even on the brief pause between them, Eggleston says even 30 seconds of focused breathing can calm your body.

2. Longer exhales than inhales: If you’re awake at night with your mind racing, Gerow recommends breathing with a 1-to-2 ratio. Breathe in slowly counting to three, then breathe out counting to six. (To slow down even further, breathe in for four, then out for eight.) These longer exhales will lower your heart rate and can calm you down quickly, he says. A similar option many service members learn is “box breathing,” where you breathe in counting to four, hold your breath for four, breathe out for four, then hold again for four.

3. Joint-freeing movements: It can help your mind as well as your body to systematically move and stretch your wrists, hands and fingers, and then your ankles, feet and toes. Eggleston says these moves can be done anywhere; she recently used them on a cross-country flight.

4. Belly breathing. Eggleston and Gerow both suggest taking a moment to notice where in your body you are breathing. “A lot of veterans are chest breathers. They’re breathing up, and their clavicles are lifting,” Eggleston says. Gerow has seen the same thing: “We don’t think about shallow breathing, chest breathing, mouth breathing. But a lot of it happens for people that are stressed out.” Try taking a moment to breathe all the way down into your belly. Fill your belly with air, then draw in your diaphragm to exhale. This rhythmic movement of your diaphragm will stimulate your vagus nerve, slowly shifting you out of fight-or-flight mode into a calming, parasympathetic response.

Beyond their physical impact, these moves give your mind a brief break from whatever thoughts you might be stressing about. Taking that break, even for two minutes, can make things more manageable when you return to focusing on an issue.

“Even if you can’t move and you’re stuck in a car or something like that,” Eggleston says, “you can acquire these tiny bits of joy and release and levity.”

The Houston-based nonprofit NextOp hopes to change that. The goal is to see mid-level, E3-E7 transitioning service members and veterans with corresponding ranks, appropriately employed with time-in-service skills fully appreciated.

“Since 2015, we placed 2,930 candidates into new careers at more than 330 companies with average starting salaries above $55,300 within 37 days of starting our program,” said NextOp’s Executive Director Steph Drake, a retired Marine Corps captain and lieutenant colonel in the Marine Corps Reserve. “The 2021 average salary is $59,000.”

Armed with only a high school diploma, some veterans find it almost impossible to secure employment and salary commensurate with their military skill levels. But, by offering job counseling, resume services, interview skills, pre-separation internships, and job placement, NextOp acts as a bridge to convey valuable skills and time in service to find veterans the next “op.”

NextOp and SkillBridge

NextOp works closely with the Department of Defense SkillBridge internship program. SkillBridge is a program that places talented mid-level enlisted candidates into civilian internships across a broad spectrum of jobs and industries. Besides gaining civilian experience and broadening your employment outlook, the goal of NextOp working through SkillBridge is not only a job, but a career — a career that pays veterans what they are worth.

These career-minded internships are on the DoD’s dime and occur in the last six weeks to three months of a service contract. Both the program and internships are command approved.

“The DoD SkillBridge program is truly a phenomenal opportunity for both transitioning service members and companies to test each other out, much like a college internship,” said Drake.

But how does a twenty-something know how to locate a company seeking their skills or even more challenging, know of SkillBridge or how it works? That’s where NextOp comes in.

Job Placement

Drake says SkillBridge internships can be challenging to coordinate and arrange between an employer, a service member and a command, and NextOp smooths the way. The veteran-run nonprofit works with industry and corporate human resources departments, actively explaining and selling niche military skills and experience.

Composed of veterans who have successfully transitioned into the workforce, NextOp’s staff not only understands a service member’s military occupational specialty, or MOS, but translates military jargon, acronyms, and obscure training to civilian employers. The employer understands a veteran’s expertise and accomplishments before they arrive.

Current industries include oil and gas, energy, renewables, finance, health care, construction, logistics, and even hospital facilities maintenance. Making the match to the right person at the right company, and for the company — the right service member — can be daunting and time consuming, says Drake.

Paid internships and job placement

NextOp is nationwide, with offices in Houston, New Orleans, and Fayetteville, N.C. The North Carolina employment coordinator is strategically located to reach service members preparing to leave service from bases in and around eastern North Carolina. However, NextOp’s services are available no matter the service member’s location.

“We are always available to work with SkillBridge candidates throughout the year,” said Drake. “We work within their service timelines and within command approval.”

Similarly, she says that NextOp is always scouting for more companies to educate and coach regarding DoD SkillBridge opportunities and processes.

The NextOp Team

“We value coaching and mentorship and engage 1:1 with our candidates to enable the process from ‘what do I want to do when I get out’ to navigating corporate job offers, total compensation, and the first few months and years at their new company,” said Drake.

Candidates are each assigned a NextOp employment coordinator who assists candidates in finding industries and roles that fit. Career development and coaching occurs throughout each segment of the employment search process — even resume building. The thought is that candidates will be most successful now and in the future with a resume they’ve written themselves.

They do walk service members through step by step and line by line but don’t write candidates’ resumes. The plan is a candidate familiar and comfortable with their own resume throughout their career.

Coordinators make recommendations for roles that best fit the service member. They then instruct the service member on how to approach and succeed within the company’s needs and culture.

What’s most unique about NextOp is its laser focus on the talented, diverse E3-E7 candidate pool, says Drake.

Middle enlisted comprise about 80% of military and are an even more significant portion of transitioning personnel. Yet, in many cases, they don’t have college degrees, alumni connections, professional networks, or for-profit headhunting agencies designed to seek their demographic as officers and senior enlisted do.

Employment assistance is the lowest funded federal veteran service program — $300 million, equating to $17 per veteran annually. This leads to the current one-size-fits-all approach where a 22-year-old with a graduate equivalency degree will undergo the same transition training as a doctor, pilot, or astronaut.

Two important things he’s learned in seven years as a regional outreach manager and certified financial instructor with Navy Federal Credit Union are that no two veterans’ cases are the same, and no situation should be considered insurmountable.

“People transition out at different levels and different experience levels, and just different experiences, period,” said Stackhouse, who served 30 years before retiring as a colonel from the Marine Corps. “I think that’s important to keep in mind.”

A sailor with 25 years of service on her resume and a soldier who enlisted fresh out of high school and only served his initial commitment are two very different transition situations.

“A vast majority (of military personnel) are very young when they enlist,” Stackhouse said. “They’re still relatively young (when they separate) and looking for something and go, ‘Wow, where do I go? What kind of profession should I pursue?’

“In transitioning, you have to know your identity, know where you’re going to go, and what you’re going to do. You also have to learn how you are going to manage your finances because it’s different (than a career military person),” who can rely on TRICARE and guaranteed dental care, Stackhouse said.

Some veterans who struggle to find their financial footing after retiring from the service don’t realize that many of the money situations they will face were taken care of while they were serving.

“While they’re in the military, their leaders all continually kind of take care of them,” Stackhouse said. “The military is vested in them being financially secure. They don’t want to deploy a unit with a bunch of people who are worried about their finances and can’t pay bills and things.

“And then once you’re out, you get that slap in the face and say, ‘Wait a minute. I have to do this all on my own?’ ”

When laying out a financial plan for veterans who are leaving the military, Stackhouse emphasizes three important facets of the transition:

• Avoid abusing credit: “Don’t buy a Dodge Charger for your first car. I’ve found a lot of people have credit card debt, so they go and get another credit card, and just get another credit card. … Advertising works, and I think they’re young and the concept of paying off credit is huge, and the ones who are able to manage it do it very, very well. But if you do not manage that, it can compound and compound and it gets to be unsustainable.”
• No situation is too desperate: Sometimes Stackhouse needs to use a little bit of TLC to ensure that his clients can overcome desperate situations. “There is no situation that’s too bad financially,” he said. “In other words, I tell them, it may take a little longer, but once we sit down and get you on a plan to financial freedom, we can do it. There’s a plan out there.”
• Help (often free) is available: Stackhouse often finds that some veterans feel alone and don’t understand that there are organizations such as his and other veteran groups available to help with any financial questions after leaving the military. “One of the frustrations of this job is that so many of them don’t know that [help] exists,” Stackhouse said. “It’s rewarding once they realize it does exist, but to find out they’ve been operating without that for so long, it’s frustrating.”

“We have to elevate the conversation related to veteran business ownership in this country in a way where those interested become networked,” said Michael Haynie, executive director of the Syracuse University Institute for Veterans and Military Families, during a House Small Business Committee hearing.

“We need something akin to a health care network, where we can manage the coordination and the navigation of veteran-owned businesses through [available] resources,” Haynie added. “It starts at the local community level, extends to the state level, and then available increased federal resources, primarily from the Small Business Administration.”

The hearing comes as federal officials have reported an uptick in new business launches in the wake of massive layoffs and furloughs during the American coronavirus pandemic.

In April, SBA administrator Isabella Casillas Guzman said that business applications have risen more than 30% from pre-pandemic levels, with 5.4 million new ones filed in 2021 alone.

Past research has shown that veterans make up an outsized portion of that entrepreneur workforce. Veterans are 45% more likely to be self-employed than non-veterans, and roughly one-in-ten veterans own their own firm, according to SBA.

But Haynie and other advocates told lawmakers that those links between the military and small business ownership don’t always lead to smooth transitions for veteran start-ups.

“While I speak highly of many of the SBA programs, I also know that there are many veteran-owned businesses unable to access these resources because of their location,” said Laurie Sayles, CEO of her own consulting company and chairwoman of the Women Veterans Business Coalition.

“For example, I know the Veterans Business Outreach Center plays an integral role in supporting veteran-owned small businesses throughout their journey,” she added. “However, I did not utilize that because there was not one in Maryland. I’m glad to say now that our state will be adding one soon.”

According to research from Syracuse’s IVMF, 42% of veteran entrepreneurs cited a lack of initial capital as the top barrier in pursuing their business goals. Another 46% said they had difficulty understanding and using resources in their communities designed to help them start a business.

Committee members said they are looking for ways to improve the scope and public knowledge of those kinds of available federal programs.

House lawmakers last fall passed legislation to make permanent the federal Boots to Business Program, which offers transitioning troops training on business ownership issues. The Senate has not yet acted on that proposal.

Witnesses during Wednesday’s hearing praised those federal support services as critical. But Haynie noted that government support for businesses has limits and that broader community support is also needed to make sure new start-ups grow and thrive.

“The next horizon is to open up the supply chains of private sector companies, particularly Fortune 500 companies, to veteran businesses,” Haynie said.

“We often look at government contracting as the objective for veteran-owned businesses. But the reality is, if you look at the supply chains of this country’s largest private-sector businesses, they represent a remarkable opportunity to grow and catalyze veteran-owned business in this country,” Haynie added.

SBA estimates there are about 2.4 million veteran-owned firms in America today.

Now, with most campuses returned to normal operations and those authorities expired, a group of lawmakers wants to grant similar powers to VA leadership in cases of similar future emergencies.

Last week, Reps. Mike Levin, D-Calif., and Nancy Mace, R-S.C., introduced the Student Veteran Emergency Relief Act to take immediate action to protect students’ benefits in cases where the White House declares a national emergency, without having to wait for Congress to act.

“The pandemic exposed the gaps in GI Bill benefits that exist when emergencies cause veterans’ educational programs to be cut short, canceled, or moved online,” Levin said in a statement.

“While we were able to pass several bipartisan bills to protect veterans’ GI Bill benefits during the pandemic, it’s critical that we reauthorize those protections and extend them to any other national emergency.”

The main issue is how VA education benefits are paid out to students who attend college classes remotely, rather than in-person.

Students using the Post-9/11 GI Bill — the most popular veterans education benefit — receive money for tuition as well as a monthly housing stipend. Individuals enrolled in traditional in-person classes receive the full financial benefit, while students in online-only classes are granted just half of that housing stipend.

The difference between half of a housing stipend and the full payout can range from a few hundred dollars to nearly $2,000, since the payouts depend on the location of the student and school.

When the coronavirus pandemic forced colleges to shift courses from physical classrooms to internet meeting rooms in spring 2020, nearly all students were reclassified as online-only, triggering a reduction in their housing benefits.

Congress passed legislation giving the VA secretary emergency powers to ignore the change, and keep awarding full benefits to those students. VA officials said nearly 60,000 students would have faced significant financial impact without the moves.

Lawmakers extended that authority several times over the last few years, as education institutions grappled with how and when to bring students back to campus.

In February, as the two-year anniversary of the coronavirus pandemic in America approached, VA officials said they would not push for another renewal of the emergency powers, since most institutions had resolved their outstanding pandemic issues. The authorities officially expired on June 1.

Along with the housing stipend problem, the emergency powers granted by Congress allowed several other moves designed to protect students. This included continuation of work-study programs even while they were shifted to remote locations and additional protections for students forced to withdraw from courses due to health issues.

Lawmakers said that type of flexibility should be available to VA leaders for future emergencies, whatever they may be.

“GI Bill benefits should be more easily accessible, not less, to those that served,” Mace said in a statement. “One of the few benefits of the Covid pandemic was that it showed us where changes need to be made to the program, to make it easier for our veterans to access the money they are entitled to.”

The proposal has already drawn support from Student Veterans of America, which said lawmakers should act on those lessons learned now instead of amid a crisis.

“This bill includes critical, forward-thinking, and common-sense policies that we already know work,” said Lauren Augustine, vice president of government affairs for SVA. “The next emergency is not a matter of if, it is simply a matter of when.”

The previous emergency authorities measures received broad, bipartisan support on Capitol Hill. House officials have not said when this measure might be brought up for a full chamber vote.

The employment statistic hasn’t been under that mark for three months since late 2019, a few months before the coronavirus pandemic disrupted the American economy and set veterans (and other workers) unemployment to historically high levels.

In May 2020, just a few weeks after the coronavirus pandemic started in America, the veterans unemployment rate was at 9%. Since then, the number of veterans struggling to find work has dropped by about 550,000 individuals.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 2.7% of veterans looking for steady employment last month were unable to secure jobs, down from 2.9% in April. The figure translates to just under 250,000 veterans across the United States receiving joblessness benefits.

Among post-9/11 veterans, the figure was slightly higher — 3.2% — but still significantly below the 3.6% unemployment rate for the nation as a whole.

May was the fourth consecutive month that the post-9/11 unemployment number was less than 3.5%. The last time that happened was early 2019.

About 8.5 million veterans are participating in the American workforce today. Of that group, about 3.8 million served during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars era, the largest of any single generation of veterans.

Roughly 900,000 veterans who served in the Vietnam War or earlier eras are still employed full time, according to federal estimates.

On Thursday, ahead of the official release of the unemployment estimates, President Joe Biden issued a statement based on initial economic indicators that “despite the global challenges we face, America is on the move.”

He called for lawmakers to invest in workers and emerging technologies, including items like electric vehicles.

“Historically, VA mortgage loans were appealing and competitive to sellers,” the group wrote in a letter to VA Secretary Denis McDonough on Thursday. “Unfortunately, the current housing market and the rise in cash and conventional loans with waived contingencies can leave veterans unable to compete with other buyers. … It is imperative that veterans receive a competitive loan that provides them the opportunity to purchase a home.”

According to statistics from the National Association of Realtors, the median sales price of a home in America as of February 2022 was up 15% from the year before.

Lawmakers — led by Rep. Guy Reschenthaler, R-Pa., a Navy veteran — said they are concerned the VA home loan benefit has not kept up with the demands of home buyers and sellers and risks forcing eligible individuals into abandoning the benefit to secure a home purchase.

“VA borrowers are less successful than borrowers using conventional loan products, with 11% of VA borrowers changing loan products during their housing search, compared to only 1% of conventional borrowers who change financing methods,” the lawmakers wrote.

In fiscal 2021, department officials guaranteed more than 1.44 million loans valued at roughly $447 billion, a record high and up 15 percent from the previous year.

In a VA home loan, the federal government does not provide any money to the homebuyer but does agree to back the loan against the possibility of default. That allows veterans to put no money down on their home purchase and avoid some other associated home-buying fees.

But it does require special qualifying and appraisal rules, which can slow down completion of a home purchase.

In testimony before the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee in December, VA officials said the average wait time for a department appraisal is about 15 business days. For non-VA loans, that process is usually around two days.

Witnesses said the department is looking for ways to streamline the process, but not at the risk of defaulting on more loans or putting veterans in substandard housing.

The lawmakers who wrote to McDonough this week are asking VA officials to look at improvements to lessen the burden on buyers and sellers involved in the program, and also for ways to “improve the public perception of the VA mortgage loan program.”

Outside groups said real estate agents looking for quick and easy sales may often ignore VA home loans because of the extra work involved in the process.

In March, the National Association of Realtors and VA released a video series for home buyers, sellers and real estate agents designed to dispel myths around the program and explain how the process differs from conventional loans.

“A large part of what makes us unique is that our identity as a VFW post is closely tied to New Orleans culture,” says retired Marine and VFW Post 8973 Commander Christopher Cox.

What also makes the post unique is its youth; this energy makes the post one of the National VFW’s most active. Membership has quickly grown from a handful of mostly Vietnam era members to 318 men and women, nearly all of them Desert Storm and Post-9/11 veterans.

The post was created by WWII and Korean War veterans decades ago, but its mission of transitioning and veteran support remains unchanged. It’s how they go about it that is noteworthy. Laid-back is one way to describe the New Orleans post. For instance, a lack of deployment while in service may not make you a de facto “veteran of a foreign war” but you’re still welcome to join NOLA VFW.

There are no garrison caps, few uniforms, and many of the old fogey ceremonies and rules have been dispensed with. Instead, members wear NOLA VFW ballcaps, t-shirts, and usually cargo shorts. The post is purposely modern and progressive in a way that only New Orleanians can be — without the fuss.

An excerpt from a recent email to NOLA VFW members and friends:

“If you’re new to getting a little dirty doing good works, I can say with absolute certainty it’ll improve your attitude, give you some positive memories, and bring back that feeling of serving a purpose greater than yourself that we all remember. If you want to help out, send me your t-shirt size before the sun goes down tomorrow.”

Relaxing rules which might turn off younger veterans has created an open and cohesive membership willing to support each other and engage in community service. Members can be found loading trucks and delivering food and medical supplies after a storm or other disaster. This is another area where youth and strength come into play. When NOLA VFW operates the recovery trucks to disperse supplies, it looks like a small battalion has arrived.

One young former Marine who lives nearby says he was curious when he saw members engaged in what looked like military precision disaster relief. He approached the group, joined in to unload trucks, and is now a member. His partner is also a regular.

Cox says he recognizes that veterans living in other areas of the city are unaware of the once small post and they may be unaware the city even has a VFW. To this end, the post is expanding its outreach miles past its boundaries. Cox’s goal is that all the city’s veterans understand that NOLA VFW is their resource. If they require transitioning assistance and support, members are ready to help them access VA health care, benefits, and other services earned while in service. This includes building ramps for the disabled and house repairs.

In early May, the post was all the way across town in the city’s economically challenged Ninth Ward. After enlisting assistance from a network of local non-profits and businesses, NOLA VFW spent the day on neighborhood cleanup and repainting a historic veteran-owned corner store pivotal to area. Afterwards, they helped serve meals — and enjoyed a BBQ with residents.

The post also hosts job fairs, networking events, resume seminars, and PTSD outreach assistance. This month, the post hosted a conference between the VA, the Louisiana Department of Veterans Affairs, and other community leaders strengthening the post’s network of veteran specific initiatives, including employment outreach through a veterans’ employment program.

“We’ve had informal success simply by introducing transitioning service members to opportunities made available simply by networking,” says Cox. “One member who recently used his GI Bill and VA vocational rehabilitation to earn his Tulane law degree was hired at a local law firm that way. Another member was hired as an armorer at a local gun shop.”

So popular is NOLA VFW that young Marines and sailors from Marine Forces Reserve and Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base New Orleans have shown up to join or participate in activities. Active duty service members who want to join or volunteer on community service projects or join a crawfish boil are free to walk through the door anytime. It’s a given that the post welcomes LGBTQ. They also welcome veteran’s spouses and partners.

The post hosts ‘First Friday for Women Warriors’ a monthly open house for all women veterans or female family members and partners of veterans.

NOLA VFW membership also includes marching full force in camo kilts and helping pull the keg during the city’s St. Patrick’s Day and Mardi Gras parades. However, this year, they’ve upped the ante. The post is marching in its first Gay Pride Parade through the historic French Quarter — glitter kilts optional. But as members and most of New Orleans military and veterans already participate in Red Dress Run, Santa bar crawls, and a host of other local events, it feels organic.

“Our membership and leadership foster an environment that belongs to veterans of every gender, race, orientation, religion, and age,” said Cox. “Keeping the doors open and answering calls when veterans need help or information is a large part of what makes a successful post. We’re doing that.”

Cox encourages all veterans to come to NOLA VFW during its weekly open house on Thursday nights — membership and hats not required.

WASHINGTON ― New tools being used where a Marine’s billets, units and career future are molded will help the service plan out a kind of “just-in-time” personnel delivery model and open a level of career control that Marines have never seen.

Leaders such as Lt. Gen. David Ottignon, deputy commandant for Manpower and Reserve Affairs, referenced the Corps’ use of predictive analytics to help time when a Marine crosses the yellow footprints to when that Marine will be joining a unit the service needs to build a year or more later and ready for deployment.

Ottignon spoke alongside Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps Troy Black, Sgt. Maj. Ronda Kirby, senior enlisted for manpower management and Tyler Zagarski, head of the recently formed Talent Management Strategy Group here Thursday at the 2022 Modern Day Marine exposition.

While the Corps has extended parental leave and reduced permanent change of station moves already, those quality of life initiatives are balanced, as always, with one primary goal: creating a lethal fighting force through recruiting, retaining and training talented Marines, Ottignon said.

Since that initiative launched in 2021, the Corps has kept 40,000 Marines at station past the 36-month mark, Ottignon said.

That was unheard of in past Marine Corps practices, which sought to move talented Marines around the Corps as quickly as possible. That effort aimed to both broaden the individual Marine’s understanding and also share his or her talent with other units.

And Black noted that the reenlistment model needs reexamining.

“The second we promote a Marine, they’re retainable,” Black said. “Otherwise, why would we promote them?”

It’s at that point, Black said, that the Corps needs to offer the Marine a chance to extend or reenlist. That’s opposed to promoting a Marine and then waiting a year or more to when they reach their end of enlistment period to look at reenlisting.

Shifts like that are efforts to push the Corps to find better ways to retain rather than recruit and replace.

Talent Management 2030, released in 2021, and the recently released 2022 update to Force Design 2030 emphasize that pivot.

One of the “directed actions” that the top Marine expects from his talent management staff is to “further incentivize retaining our most talented Marines,” according to the force design update.

“And the era that we’re in right now is being able to really catch up with the desire, with what commandants, sergeants major, leaders across the Marine Corps have wanted to try to do for decades, is now match a system that now actually understands talent and get a little closer to what the whole charter for Manpower and Reserve Affairs is,” Black said.

That translates to delivering the “right Marine at the right place at the right time,” he said.

Another example that’s been a simple matter of putting out options to Marines to choose has yielded benefits in an often rough job to fill: that of Marine recruiter.

The “recruit the recruiter” program already has seen enlisted Marines opt to reenlist early and hand-select their recruiting station so they can chart out the next eight years, knowing where they’re going and for how long.

Kirby noted that program had great success and increased garnered the Corps 800 recruiters signing up for the duty one to two years ahead of reporting to recruiting school.

The volunteer gets to pick their recruiting station. No surprise, Texas filled up fast. But if the opening isn’t there yet, then the recruiter continues in their fleet job until the spot opens.

Then, as already is the case, recruiters come off duty with their pick of duty stations when they return to the fleet.

That means a Marine could stay on station one to two years more where they are, select where they’ll spend their three years recruiting and then pick the duty station where they return to for the next three years.

And the talent management balance hits officers as well.

While far from at a final decision, there could be a future for commissioned officers to choose a staff track and still get promoted without having had command experience.

That’s in the conversation currently, Zagarski said.

“How can we, within a new system, find alternate paths to success?” Zagarski said.

The strategy group director served three decades as a Marine officer, retiring as a colonel having spent part of his career in manpower.

His group is taking a longer, big picture approach to the Corps’ strategy that might mean ways for Marines to shift to the reserves for a while and return to active duty and maintain promotions.

They’re looking at specialty career tracks that allow officers to become program officers or staff officers and still have a career instead of getting the boot if certain command milestones aren’t met.

That old brick building with the flags you remember as a child, filled with old guys in hats, is now your new clubhouse, where you can meet up, laugh, shoot the breeze and share war stories with your peers. Not just that crazy night in Kabul, but the victory over finally extracting every penny from your personal GI Bill. Better yet, it’s a place where you get to stand up and share your personal experience and hard-won knowledge with other members and help a fellow veteran.

The older generation still attends — sadly, in much smaller numbers — but the new face of the VFW looks like you. Diversity is respected, women are gaining in the ranks, and LGBT events are the new normal. The word is modernization; Yoga Sunday might be calendared next to a USA JOBS CV assistance seminar, while members participate in mud runs, charity building projects, and neighborhood street parties.

But what you may not know is that the VFW has been supporting the pre-discharge transitioning process since 2001. The organization also provides educational and employment assistance and strongly supports veterans’ mental health initiatives in combating PTSD.

VFW Transition Services

The VFW was created to provide necessary services to veterans. Those services begin before you even leave the ranks. The VFW’s Pre-Discharge program is a cooperative initiative with the Pentagon and the Department of Veterans Affairs. The program ensures that both separating and retiring active-duty military personnel receive the necessary assistance to obtain their VA entitlements and benefits before they’re discharged.

VFW Pre-Discharge representatives guide military personnel through the VA claims process and can assist with preparing and submitting forms and evidence to the VA before separation from active duty. They can also answer questions about VA benefits and entitlements. Their Pre-Discharge offices are located on or near major military installations across the country.

Educational Grants and Scholarships

The VFW also supports members and veterans in furthering their education. They provide educational assistance through various scholarship awards and grant initiatives. For example, the organization is currently teamed up with the Student Veterans of America and Sport Clips “Help a Veteran” to provide educational assistance to E-5s and below. Those who qualify can be awarded a grant of 5k a semester.

They also offer the smaller VFW’s Student Veteran Support Grant, which offers between $500 and 1k a year for qualified veterans currently enrolled at an institution of higher learning.

Legislative fellowships are available for exemplary current students interested in advancing the cause of veterans on Washington DC’s Capitol Hill during the Spring term.

PTSD/Mental Health Assistance

The VFW works to help veterans suffering from depression and stress related to their time in service and beyond. VFW leadership says it is committed to helping change the narrative and stigma surrounding mental health and PTSD in America.

The VFW currently works to raise awareness, foster community engagement, improve research, and provide intervention for those affected by invisible injuries and emotional stress. They work closely with several national organizations that tackle mental health issues: Give an Hour –The Campaign to Change Direction, One Mind, PatientsLikeMe, and the Elizabeth Dole Foundation to combat the critical problem of PTSD and veteran suicide.

Diversity and Equality

The old boys club is a thing of the past. The number of women veterans in the organization has increased by over 10% since July 2021 and is still climbing.

“Women members now stand at approximately 35,000,” said Randi K. Law, Director of Communications, VFW National Headquarters.

Along with female members and leadership, many posts support, host, participate in, or sponsor LGBTQ events throughout the year. Additionally, many post members and elected leaders are open members of the LGBTQ community. A Denver post elected the VFW’s first openly gay commander way back in 2016. Other posts plan to support gay veterans by participating in events during Gay Pride month.

The Social Aspect

Members make of the VFW what they choose — attending meetings casually, taking advantage of the transitioning services, or just making new friends who understand their background and stressors. If you’re lucky, there’s still a WWII, Korean, or Vietnam Vet member to mentor you or trade stories over a BBQ.

What makes the organization unique is that VFW members face the same hurdles you’re trying to clear after leaving service. The VFW would like you to consider the organization as a built-in social network – both on a national level and on a very local and personal level.

After separation, your friends have retired to the four corners, but there’s probably an established Post nearby – a room or network of veterans waiting to meet you. You can also use your local Post to help find a job or offer a job to veterans if it’s your company hiring. All Posts are different, but they have networks attached to more networks, all with the same aim, to keep you going.

Some cities have several Posts; some have only one that services an entire community. If you find an older Post with few members, you can recruit your friends to join, run for office, and modernize the place as you go. The national office is ready to support you in bringing the place up to speed if needed. If you’re fortunate, your local might also be a Post that hosts pizza night with a kegger on the first Friday night of the month.

Some ended up as roommates, some worked together. They were all in the same battalion and connected on a deep level — getting matching tattoos and starting a texting group chat that has continued for years (and evolved into their girlfriends having a similar texting chat).

When it came time for them to leave the Marines, they all had the same plan for their next step: Enroll at Arizona State University, earn a college degree and keep the friendship and camaraderie going for as long as possible.

“I hope at the end of the day that we all end up living on the same street, our kids all playing together,” said Edward Brady, 28. “For our mental health, I think we all need to be within an hour or two of each other.”

Brady, who graduates in the fall and plans to pursue a career in Homeland Security, was mostly joking, but he and the others all know the bond they have — and the support it has provided — is rare and should be not only appreciated, but maintained.

Veterans often struggle with mental health issues, for a myriad of reasons. But loneliness, isolation and a loss of purpose when transitioning out of military and into civilian life plays a big role.

According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the number of veterans getting mental health treatment grew 90% from 2006-2019. And veterans are 1.5 times more likely to die by suicide than the general population.

Devon Cristales, 28, said he and his friends (Brandon Tellez, Daniel Melendez, Devin McCord, Brady, Grant Bushman, Jacob Moore, Nicholas Burns and Ryan McCloskey) know they made a major difference in helping each other transition out of the Marines — providing the support and encouragement needed to not only survive but thrive.

“We don’t really want to be apart,” said Cristales, who graduated ASU with a degree in Business Management and minor in Real Estate this spring. “We have a bond. It’s been almost 10 years.”

Jerry Gonzales, a senior media relations officer at ASU and a veteran himself, met the men through the Pat Tillman Veteran’s Center at ASU. He recognized their amazing friendship, noting that when those in the military transition into civilian life, they can often be left adrift, struggling to make connections and find meaningful careers and relationships.

But he said this group is a remarkable success and shows the power of the relationships formed in the military.

“It’s a real sense of connection that they have,” said Gonzales. “And it’s a great way to transition out of the military, to do it with a group of friends who understand you and are at the same stage of life.”

Each of the men went through the transition program offered by the Marines, dubbed the Transition Readiness Program, or TRP. While it helped them, each of the men say at some point they were cut off from the military — and it was up to them to forge ahead with friendships and support.

Cristales, who plans to move to Dallas this summer to pursue a job with Vanguard, said that while he and some of his friends took part in the transition program offered by the Marines, it was really ASU’s veteran center that helped them the most.

“I didn’t know a thing about the GI Bill when I left the Marines,” he said. “But at ASU, they help you figure it all out. And then I had my friends, we were all going through it together, and we were all able to support each other and stay on each other to get stuff done.”

Melendez, who is 28 and planning for a career in the Peace Corps after he graduates in the fall, said one key component of their friendship is how they keep each other accountable — in school and in life.

“We all work to help each other to become successful, in whatever that looks like,” he said. “Life in the military for us was so regimented. And civilian life is more free-range. We have helped each other keep our eye on the prize. We are helping each other continue to grow as people.”

Officials from the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday said the veterans unemployment rate for last month was 2.9%, up slightly from 2.6% in March. It’s the first time that figure has stayed below 3% for two months in a row since early 2019, before the pandemic caused business closures and unemployment spikes across the country.

For the country as a whole, the economy added about 428,000 jobs in April, but the unemployment rate stayed at 3.6% for the second consecutive month.

In a statement following the BLS report, President Joe Biden called the news proof that the country is experiencing “the strongest job creation economy in modern times.”

One year ago, in April 2021, the jobless rate for veterans was 5.2% and the national rate was 6.1%.

Unemployment among veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan war era rose slightly, from 3.0% in March to 3.4% in April. That group makes up the largest generation of veterans in the U.S. labor force today, with about 3.8 million workers.

About half of the estimated 260,000 veterans looking for work last month belong to that younger group. One year ago, that figure was roughly 480,000 veterans looking for full-time employment.

Veterans unemployment has been a particular focus of the White House and Congress in recent years, with research showing that making a successful transition to civilian life can ease a host of potential stressors for military families.

A separate BLS report last month found that nearly one in four veterans (23%) was employed in local, state or federal government jobs in 2021.

Manufacturing, business service jobs, education and health services were the largest other industries for veterans to find work, making up about one-third of all veterans jobs last year.

A new report released by the watchdog found that about 2,500 students were underpaid more than $624,000 during the 2020-2021 school year because of mistakes that could be fixed by upgrading the VA’s record system to accept automated updates regarding when institutions are in session.

“Overall, these errors occurred because VBA adjusts students’ education benefits using a manual process that is prone to errors,” the report states. “The students are receiving less housing support than they are entitled to and not enough days are being deducted from their benefit entitlement.

“These errors could significantly affect the students’ educational opportunities unless VBA takes steps to correct them.”

The problem affects a small portion of the overall GI Bill benefits program. In fiscal 2020, the department paid nearly 658,000 students about $10.1 billion in education stipends.

However, the inspector general said the errors often cost students a month or more of housing stipends, creating the opportunity for significant financial harm for individuals reliant on that money for basic living expenses.

At issue is how Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits are computed for individuals attending classes at schools with non-standard terms.

While most college terms run roughly from August to December and January to May, other institutions may offer shorter terms with breaks in between, complicating how to calculate their days in session.

Those shorter sessions often mean fewer credit hours in a given term for students. But unless administrators and VA officials properly note the irregular schedule, that lighter load of classes can lead to individuals being classified as part-time students, resulting in a decrease in the benefits they are eligible to receive.

The inspector general blamed the shortfalls on both incomplete reporting from schools and poor records keeping by VA.

To correct the first issue, officials called for better education of school officials on their responsibilities to report breaks between terms and ensure that irregular class schedules are being recorded properly.

On the VA side, however, the report calls for “development of the new automated system fields for vacation breaks to eliminate the need for manual processing” and limit basic mistakes that can halt students’ benefits.

Officials from the Veterans Benefits Administration said work is underway on that fix. Unfortunately, it won’t be complete until September 2023. Other improvements to address the problem will be implemented by the end of this summer.

The full report is available on the inspector general’s web site.