The country is suffering. With national unemployment figures escalating to more than 9.5 percent, the financial repercussions have affected thousands in Colorado.

Military veterans, however, experience an unemployment rate almost twice that amount.

Recognizing the need for intervention, leaders from the Colorado Employer Support for the Guard and Reserve, Colorado Department of Labor and Employment, Colorado National Guard and the Veterans Employment and Training Service signed a memorandum of understanding in late spring of 2010 to collectively and cooperatively work to help Colorado veterans obtain jobs.

“A task force to carry out this mission has been formed and has been meeting for several months in strategizing how best to structure this effort,” Bill Belz, director of ombudsman for ESGR and a long-time director with the Department of Labor, reports.  Various other groups have joined the task force, including representatives of the Veterans Administration, the South Metro Denver Chamber of Commerce, the Office of Program Management, The Employer Partnership of the Armed Forces, Colorado Technical University, Return 2 Work, Inc., Homeland Security Careers, Inc., and Convergys Corp.

The program, while still in the design stage, will potentially provide upfront guidance, counseling and advice to veterans, stated retired Rear Adm. Dick Young, chairman of the Colorado Employer Support for the Guard and Reserve.  When the program launches, the veteran will register as a participant and attend three meetings in which the individuals will be given one-on-one help preparing them for their job search.  Experts in numerous occupation fields will present the latest information and projections on job opportunities in those fields, and job placement counselors will work either one-on-one or with small groups of veterans in providing advice counseling and information about employment in those specific fields.

The last part of the program brings in companies and entities that have or may have job openings.

“Later this year, we will be launching a coordinated effort to connect
Colorado employers that have job openings with National Guardsmen, Reservists
and veterans seeking employment," reports Patrick O’Flaherty, ESGR staff director.

The task force will start with one location.  After close observation and corrections making the program more effective, it will then be replicated in other locations throughout the state. 

“We hope in this way, we can make this program available to military veterans where they don’t have to travel long distances to take advantage of it, and yet at the same time, get a program where the bugs have been worked out and improved each time it is presented,” said Don Mares, finishing up his tour as executive director of the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment, and one of the key drivers of this effort.

Col. Ken Lull, the program’s key representative of the Colorado National Guard, wants Guardsmen to know that this program is aimed at and being structured for them in particular.  “We certainly want to make sure this program is aimed at all of our Guard personnel, as we have major unemployment concerns as well,” he stated.

What we hope to do, Young concluded, is to bring home the fact to Colorado employers that oftentimes your military veteran, your Guard and Reserve member, may well be the best, most trained prospect for a job opening. 

“I don’t want to run down those who have not served in our military. They are fine individuals as well.  I just want prospective employers to realize and appreciate all the training that military members have obtained while in the military service; that over 73 percent of all training that the Department of Defense, the largest training institution in the world, gives its members is directly attributable to civilian jobs, that they have already been screened, that they have gone through physical testing and training, as well as leadership training; they know what 24/7 means, they know about getting to their post on time, and besides, many bring their own health insurance coverage with them,”  Young added.