This is just under two hours. I guess i will say first, it is a little humbling and honestly intimidating to follow president bush, but our job is to spend just 10 minutes talking about the collective and collaborative action that has brought us to today. A recap of where we have been relative to implement relative to employment, and what may lie ahead, challenges and opportunities both for our transitioning Service Members and their families, but also for the Employer Community that has been so supportive of this effort. Only because you expect it from me, do i have a grass with a bunch of data and things behind me, but im not going to talk to that and only use it as a way to suggest that we really have accomplished an awful lot over the last 57 years, in particular. Of the private sector and our partners in the Public Sector have made a Significant Impact on the vocational situation of veterans. We have learned a lot in the context of doing this work. Through the coalitions that we have mentioned and the president mentioned, when hundred thousand jobs mission, the coalition here, and i because the somedent did, list off employers who have made remarkable contributions, it gives me an out not to be able to mention any employers by name and therefore not get in trouble later on. That probably at no point in our history since world war ii has the private sector stepped up in such a meaningful way to support the vocational transition of our servicemembers. Collectively, as a community, we deserve an awful lot of credit for that. We have built tools, put them into action, and we will hear more about some of those today. To move this effort and agenda forward. When we put up data like i have here, it always begs the question and it has recently in the context of what is next for the community, is there an employment challenge . Is there an employment crisis relative to our nations veterans . Delicately,st, very so as not to offend because these questions do sometimes make for good dueling op ads. At the end of the day, i actually think the questions themselves are little bit of a red herring. The only answer that matters to questions like that are the ones that you get when you are standing in front of a veteran who has done everything that they need to do to position themselves for postservice employment. And they tell you whether or not they have been successful. Ultimately, that is the only answer that really matters. Tortureas i learned, this data to deck and a way that tells any story that we wanted to tell. Hopefully, part of what we are going to do, and as i transition we are going to a place where we are asking more nuanced and prospective questions. The pitfalls, one of the things that seem to get us in trouble a little bit as we focus on putting are inherently constrained resources to the first, best use, serving the vocational challenges of veterans is that we tend to paint this community with one single brush. We do not acknowledge the heterogeneity that exists across this community. I will give you an example of how you can frame that question may be a little differently relative to the amp the implement challenges that some cohorts of this community may or may not face. What you see on this graph are two lines, the dark line represents a longitudinal view all the way back to 2000. The employment gap between 2024,11 veterans, ages and their civilian counterparts. What you see on the light blue line is the employment gap veterans, ages11 34 and above, relative to their civilian counterparts. What i would suggest and i could build 25 of these, 30 of these as i slice and dice of the veteran community, but as i talked to really smart economists around the country about how we should be thinking about focusing our efforts moving forward. This idea of identifying and then acting on this idea of an employment gap relative to civilian demographic counterparts. Whether it is a function of ethnicity and gender or age skill, industry, etc. At the end of the day, the Value Proposition relative to volunteering for military service is one such that you are better off on the way out. Recruiting effort or initiative is based around that Value Proposition. Here, for example, is one group that it appears we are not delivering on that Value Proposition. There are lots of reasons to explain this and some are inherent in simply the are these people are. Highlight that persistently, over the course of the last 1012 years, there has been an employment gap between that particular population and their sibling counterparts. One, and im already over, arent i . I use this one because i wanted to share this chart. Is there cause for sustained action for us moving forward . There are the projection separations. These are dod numbers. Over the next five years, and look at the cohort that is going to be separating and the highest numbers. The idea here is that whether or not we have this discussion about, is there and implement challenge and crisis . What really matters most is that we are asking a different set of questions moving forward so that we can focus our resources to serve the need where the need is greatest. Heres a learned quick summary as a way to transition this. As we think about our research and the surveys of thought leaders that we have conducted, surveys of veterans, at the end of the day, really, the path forward is about institutionalizing the focus, more upstream of transition, on this idea of a collective and collaborative effort between the public and private sectors. This initiative and these coalitions and this work really got off the ground as a function of dealing with an immediate crisis, but as we talk and have conversations about the future of the military force, which secretary carter is having now his idea of a more Purposeful Partnership between the private sector becomes central to actually and acting enacting that vision. But we need better data. The reality is that we do not have great visibility into that upstream pipeline in such a way that it allows nonprofits and private sector employers to position resources appropriately to support that vocational transition. It is also important to acknowledge that both the labor market and the demographics represented by this population is changing pretty dramatically over time. The population of veterans, or servicemembers leaving the military and 2007 relative to today is an entirely different population. We have to build, therefore, Dynamic Models of intervention. Programs that can be adapted and evolved over time to serve that changing demographic. Also to be aligned with changing labor market demands. Ultimately, finally, my transition is to suggest that we have to start asking different questions. We have to start moving the level of analysis from a high level, national effort, where we are looking at veterans as a cohortson to drill into and set cohorts of the veteran population. Importantly, at the local and regional levels. Because, at the end of the day, one of the most powerful lessons that we have learned from all of the work that we have done with our partners at the bush center, is where it matters most is local. Our servicemembers are returning to their towns, villages, etc. Where the economies are local, the social networks are local, the support of services are local. If we do not start asking questions about how we can serve and said or a serve and support at the local level, i think we miss the opportunity to really institutionalize a focus on employment transition over the longterm. With that, i can transition to mark, to actually give him an opportunity to put that call to action that i just suggested to action. To demonstrate until that we have been building along with they have really been building it, and we have been helping them see what to build, that offers the opportunity to really andin a much deeper way powerful way, relative to understanding where to focus our resources. With that, mark. Mark thank you. I will do this quickly. That is my fault. Mark i will blaze right through this. The pension the president mentioned smart policy. Mike mentioned that things need to be at the community level. That is the problem that we began to work with suri cruise nine months ago as we began to aggregate the data and hone in two and dynamic model that we can evaluate at the local level. You can see theres lots of data here. The purpose here is to put the data to allow us to ask the probing questions to get at that regional construct. I can go through this later on. This is an aggregation of the data nationally, that can help us better help veteran unemployment down to the county level. It can help us look at the data by gender. By age. By disability status. By education. It allows us to capture all of the data sets, so now we can begin to ask the questions. How do we drill down and look at this information. We start to reorganize our policy, start to reallocate resources from a National Level down to a community level. Let me give you a quick example. Here, we look at two counties, 60 miles apart. In texas. One is a rural community. One is an urban community. You can see that in the rural community, much higher levels of unemployment. Much lower Median Income. 60 miles away, and an urban community, and harris county, you can see the Median Income is much higher. You can see the employment is much lower. That does not necessarily give us an answer, but when we talk about how do we allocate resources and programs, one might ask, is this an issue of transportation . 60 milesking sure that apart, how do we put together resources to get those folks in the Rural Communities to places where the jobs exist, just 50 miles away . And maybe a transportation issue, or maybe a training and skills issue. The president mentioned that you can train skills, of course you can. Could only leverage the skills and employment that is 60 miles apart . To give Employment Opportunities to those veterans. If we can do this nationally, now, at the county level, we control down and look at any one of the number of demographics here it begins to inform the conversation, it begins to allow us to feel that the discussion, and most important, it allows us to target resources and programs to where the greatest need is at the community level. One other piece of the model that we looked at was the highest industries. Youll see this chart really depicts the highest growth industries. In the upper righthand crowd corner, by growth on the x axis, and on the y axis the total number of jobs available. Right, see in the upper in the education and health services, one of the highest growth rates and has the most jobs, but has the smallest number of veterans. You can see in the lower left, and the federal space, has the greatest number of veterans, but it has the lowest growth rate. So how do we use data to help us target where we can best allocate resources and target are opportunities for veterans. These models allow us to ask questions and answer these and make informed decisions and get for policymakers, employers, and Community Leaders. We are really thrilled and excited to be doing this with syracuse. I will say that it will take a village and more information and certainly other partners. We welcomed us and we welcome other partnerships to make this work. Thank you much. [applause] i was in denial of how bad it really was. The outer shell of him came back , but everything on the inside was dead. It was like it was just least 22day, at veterans commit suicide. That is almost 8008 year. A new program could save their lives. This isnot broken. That is why youre in that chair. [indiscernible] family situation. Its not working for you. It was only a five day program, how can a person change in five days . The brotherhood has a lot to do with it. This is the last [indiscernible] they literally feel that they are going to die. Love you, brother. [indiscernible] how many men . Ow many would you guess somewhere between 80 and 90. We have a lot riding on this. My life is riding on this. [applause] thank you, and good morning. So, that clip might lead you to believe that i am going to share a sad story with you this morning. In fact, i will just tell you an honest story. Of veterans who struggle with ptsd and what opportunities lie on the other side of that. Us, i started working on this documentary and 2013. I had just left cnn fulltime to start a Media Company called starfish media group. My very first assignment back for cnn was to do a full length documentary on what happens to veterans and their Family Members when they return helm, but they are struggling with ptsd. We embedded, for five days, with say a warrior, which is a Small Organization based out of southern california, that believed that soldiers who were returning home needed tools to specifically heal with some of the issues that they were facing. Anger,ion, anxiety, loss. Issues that in the past might have been dealt with using prescription drugs. Or maybe nonprescription drugs, or alcohol. Were in fact, these tools meditation, understanding what other people were going through. Feeling a connection to other. Ervice members a brotherhood, if you will, of sorts. Undergoing challenging experiences. Rock climbing, therapy, meditation. All of these strategies that save a warrior utilized to 13ate connection between guys who had never met before, and yet in many ways, shared a very similar struggle. Many of them were frankly suicidal and they cannot figure out how to live in the world. You saw the man in the clip, africanamerican gentlemen, he jumped to the ropes course. He was speaker very openly with his wife these are crying telling them that if the courts did not work, he was going to kill himself. Me, theibed it for suicidal feeling, as being in a burning building. He said it is like a building is on fire, and you dont want to jump, you are you afraid to jump, but the fire is so intense that you feel like you have no other choice but to jump. So, in may of 2013, i spent five days embedded with save a warrior and several more days interviewing him and his emily and also another gentleman and his family. As you saw in the clip, those five days were very emotional and they were very intense. Sundays are very miserable and some were thrilling. Derek holmes was chosen to be in our documentary because he was exactly the kind of guy who hates to appear in documentaries like this. His disdain for the news media was very, very clear. He tell me that he did not trust that i would not screw up his story, and that he challenged me to run unedited what he said because the news media all must gets it wrong about veterans. And probably i cannot manage to get it right. He said, when these stories come on tv, none of us, many veterans, watch. They are all bs, but he did not use that word. We do not watch the source because they are not real. He challenged us to tell the real story and get it right, and so, we did. , felt we owed it to the 13 men and in this case it was meant, they also do female cohorts to follow what happened for good or for bad. For success or for failure, we would just tell their stories. In the end, the program was lifechanging. We went in with no preconceived notions. At the beginning, who is clearly an alcoholic, tricking several bottles of wine every single day, by the end, he had stopped drinking. He reengaged with his wife and his small children. He has been doing really well ever since. And garrett, his anger laid just below the surface also changed, and i learned much more about him. Not just his experiences in the work, which he spoke about, but also his goals and his hopes and his dreams for his life after the service. I learned that his dream was to be a photographer. With a little bit of shoving at times, i got to see some of his work, instead of questioning him, we got to see what he was shooting for us. I learned that he enjoyed, as i discovered with many people who suffer from ptsd, enjoy hiding behind a camera which made him feel a little bit more secure in conversation, but it also made him a wonderful hidden of human nature, which turns out to be a very good thing if you have any desire at all to be a photojournalist. His experience in the military, being ultraobservant, made him a great and very valuable storyteller. Answer a recorder. The fact that he had wrestled with some demons successfully made him a good listener. Empathetic, and sympathetic. All very good qualities and a journalist. And he had tremendous raw talents. I think because of his military training, the quality of excellence was held in to what he consistently delivered. He was always working on his craft, always seeking feedback, never ever saying no, and i will not talk about timeliness or showing organized etc. No surprise then, that my company, starfish media group, has hired him after the documentary to be our west coast photojournalist for the projects that we do. I almost hate to say it out loud as i feel like people in the audience are going to still him from me because he is that amazing. It is like giving away a good secret. The media, i think, often flames the issue of ptsd as kind of a curse. Like some kind of crazy, lets watch this explode sort of thing. And that is not the case. What i have learned in my reporting on the war comes home, the documentary, is that ptsd is real. It is not to be ignored, it is not to be diminished or trivialized, but it is manageable, and people do come out of the other side. Those people who come out of the other side, what they have to offer as employees, the more importantly, of course, as human. Eings, is incredibly valuable it makes all of us better. I am pleased to be part of the conversation today, because i think this is a crucial message that is often lost in our daily reporting about veterans. The contributions and the potential for contributions is huge. I also want to take a moment and introduce you to derek holmes who have asked to join me this morning. He is an excellent photojournalist, and entrepreneur the surface country very well, and now partners with me serving as well. And telling stories about veterans and others, because of his well honed an excellent eye. Much i think is due to its time to the military, so garrett if you could stand up so i can introduce you to the audience, i would be grateful. [applause] will have a chance to lead some of the discussions this afternoon, and im looking forward to continue to tackling this topic. Thank you very much. [applause] ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the u. S. Secretary of labor, thomas perez. [applause] sec. Perez good morning, it is an honor to be here. Thank you for honoring us with your presence, mrs. Bush. I had the privilege of spending time with president bush and it was an honor to be