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Wounded veterans form rich labor pool for government contractors
12/10/07; Vol. 22 No. 22
By David Hubler
http://www.washingtontechnology.com/print/22_22/31922-1.html
Beau Barnett was an Air Force contract specialist when his left thumb was torn off in a training accident. Although the thumb was surgically reattached, Barnett no longer has full use of the finger. Later, while stationed in Kirkuk, Iraq, he broke his foot and it never healed correctly.
Today Barnett is one of about 15 contract specialists hired by CACI International Inc. to work at the Missile Defense Agency in Huntsville, Ala. He oversees vehicle leasing, daily services contracts and other activities for the military agency.
Mayo Van Dyck was an Army satellite communications operator when he sustained a severe back injury in South Korea in 1998 and underwent surgery after reinjuring his back in Kosovo, Serbia. He then spent time at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in outpatient treatment, where he met a CACI recruiter last winter.
Van Dyck was hired in May under the company’s new Deploying Talent- Creating Careers program, designed to bring qualified disabled veterans into the company. He is now a CACI quality assurance engineer in Manassas, Va., testing the satellite communications systems being built by CACI clients to ensure they meet all proper specifications.
“We have been reaching out through a variety of channels to disabled veterans who are trying to restart their careers and looking for meaningful employment,” said Paul Cofoni, CACI president and chief executive officer.
“We’re giving them an opportunity to have a meaningful career, and they bring to us enormous experience by virtue of what they’ve been doing in warfighter-related areas for the last several years,” he said.
More than 20,000 wounded and disabled U.S. veterans have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan, and more will be coming home during the next several years. Cofoni views their employment prospects as a national problem. The company, however, views those veterans as a relatively untapped pool of potential employees, many of whom have information technology, intelligence and defense expertise in addition to high-level security clearances.
The more businesses can do to help, Cofoni said, the less likely it is that today’s service men and women will face the situation that occurred in the Vietnam war era, when many disabled veterans returned home suffering from social dislocation and were unable to find work.
CACI’s program – which officially began in July – has already exceeded expectations.
“We set a goal initially that we were going to hire 10 this fiscal year, and we’re already past that,” Cofoni said. “It’s good for us and it’s good for them, of course, and it’s good for the country.”
The program gives disabled veterans dignity and productive work, he said.
Larry Clifton, CACI’s personnel director, said the goal of Deploying Talent-Creating Careers is simply to provide meaningful jobs to talented veterans transitioning to civilian life “so they can take care of their families just like everybody else.” Clifton directs the program with the help of Jaime Whitaker, the company’s staffing and recruiting manager.
“Technically, I’m looking for anybody who’s got some IT skillset that we can use,” Whitaker said. “We’ve hired people into all different positions. We actually have a [disabled] recruiter that we’ve hired.”
CACI casts its recruiting net widely by participating in job fairs on military bases and hospitals and advertising on the Internet. “We go out and post our positions on special sites for returning veterans such as VetJobs and Early Eagle,” she said.
The outreach program extends across the country, with no limit on the number of disabled veterans CACI will hire. CACI has recruited at various military job fairs from San Diego to New Jersey. “There’s not one particular place where we’re finding these people,” Clifton said.
Van Dyck said he had a good impression of the company from his contacts with CACI employees when he was in the Army. That impression was reinforced when he met CACI recruiters at Walter Reed. “The recruiters had this great positive attitude. I didn’t feel like they were giving me any bull.”
CACI also works with the Paralyzed Veterans associations and the Armed Forces Foundation’s career counseling program at Fort Bragg, N.C., Whitaker said. The program advises disabled Special Forces soldiers whose injuries have forced them to leave the military.
“We’re now getting involved with their Real Lifelines program,” she added, which works with disabled veterans in medical facilities to help them write their résumés and advise them on how to write about their military career and skills in language that civilian placement officials can readily understand.
CACI evaluates all résumés against the positions available, Clifton said. Disabled veterans do not get special preference, although “we do try to incentivise the program a little bit to hire these people” through such programs as special employee bonuses for successful referrals of disabled veterans.
When the program was being organized, Clifton said, he thought the initial new hires would be placed in traditional support positions such as human resources and finance and accounting. “But I am happy to say that of those 11, 10 are in what we call billable positions on client sites. They’re right in with clients, which is a good thing for them also.”
“Once I got here, I realized it was the place to be,” Barnett said of his job in Huntsville. He added that accepting the CACI job offer “was one of the best things I ever did.”
Whitaker said the program has also had a positive effect on the company’s clients.
“We do a lot of work with DOD, so it makes sense for us to be bringing in candidates who are exceptionally qualified, who not only have a lot to offer our company but have a lot to offer our clients as well.”
Clifton credits Cofoni as the inspiration behind the program. “He got us all energized, and put together [the founding] committee, which he still chairs himself once a month.”
Deploying Talent-Creating Careers has taken on a life of its own, he said. “We just hired two more [disabled veterans] last week.” And a full-time recruiter will join CACI in January specifically to work with Whitaker on hiring more disabled veterans.
“We’re committed to make this a longterm program,” Clifton said.
Associate Editor David Hubler can be reached at dhubler@1105govinfo.com.