Transcripts For CSPAN2 Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20140421 :

CSPAN2 Key Capitol Hill Hearings April 21, 2014

The Number One Community partner as the va. The other group didnt even put the va on their list. And if you think that the va doesnt bring something to the table, youre mistaken. I just want to point out one other thing. We talk about nonprofits. Nonprofits are businesses. Were businesses. And you have to speak when youre talking to a community, this is how you get with em to work, you have to speak in terms of business. And thats where, what youre doing at the chamber of commerce, ross, is huge. Because it resonates. Emotions will only go so far. You know, the emotions and the commitment, emotional commitment to veterans is going to wane here in the next few years. But what we point out to community leaders, what we point out to colleges and universities, what we point out to businesses is the Economic Impact a veteran has on their community. You know, we look at a hundred veterans going to school in our local Community Brings 2. 8 million in federal funds that are unsolicited into the community. Why wouldnt you have a Veterans Program . And we sort of approach the colleges that way going, duh. Its good business. Why wouldnt you do this . Finish so its important to educate, its important to partner. But you have to look at it from a perspective that resonates within the community. And the community is led by business. Its led colleges and universities are businesses. And so you have to resonate that way. And, again, if we can figure out a way that those, that that troop leaving Camp Pendleton whos coming back to augusta, georgia, or coming back to the community were partnering with in tacoma or in the pant handle of panhandle of florida or in charleston, if we can figure out a way that that person knows they have a sponsor and a person to go touch in that commitment, those will start itll start to trickle across the country. Thanks. Thank you. I think you might have mentioned this, but just restate this. How do we tap into and capture the skills and abilities of the veterans . Yeah. So i think the way you have to do it is you have to know who the veteran is. You cant assess their skill and ability if you dont know who they are. So if they go home to the Rural Community and they hide out in their house, youll never know who they are if they dont come out. So in terms of skills, theres a lot of things that translate to skills. Every university has a different criteria. I like what we did in south carolina. There was a language requirement at the local college that you had to take two years of language. We had these guys coming out of a linguist school, they were speaking russian and farsi and pashtun, but they didnt offer those classes at the school, and the school said, sorry, you have to take one year two years of spanish. [laughter] and we said, wait a minute. Went back to the national level, to the state level of and how do we translate it, the state said well take dlas scoring. If the federal governments paying them to be linguist, i think thats good enough for us. Anyways thank you. Next question is for ken. Putting on your nonprofit hat, what would you like Nonprofit Ceos to know about the contributions veterans can make to their organization as employees, Board Members and volunteers . Jim stole my story. Nonprofits are businesses, and if theres one thing so i come out of the forprofit world, and if theres one thing that i think is missing in the i personally hate the word charity. I think its dangerous. You know, charity or maybe panhandlers and people that sit on the side of the street with a paper cup, thats charity. Nonprofits are businesses. And in the forprofit world, Companies Like Dell Computers cant build a computer without 20 or 30 other partners. In the nonprofit world, what we see a lot of times is this leadership that says ive got the this group of this group of donors, im to going to get protective of my resources, and im to not going to share em with you. Im not going to partner with you. And a lot of times the big difference in the nonprofit world and the forprofit world that we dont necessarily look at our employees as resources in the same way. And i think thats kind of whats missing. So i dont separate nonprofits from forprofit businesses. What i think ceos want are people with great attitudes. And people that want to work hard and people that dont mind getting up at 5 00 in the morning and when a proposals due at midnight, dont mind working at 11 00. Was theyve slept because theyve slept under tanks, under mraps, theyve slept in the mud, theyve carried bloody bodies. And its fairly easy at 11 00 at night to get another cup of coffee and write another proposal. Nobodys shooting at you. Thats what employers want, whether theres a forprofit or a nonprofit business. Thank you. Next question is for debbie. Why is Military Spouse employment important right now . Yeah. A couple different reasons. One, right now if you look at the statistics, about 27 of all separations from the military are involuntary separations. So folks who are in service right now who may have thought they were going to have a career in the military are going to find themselves as veterans, and they might find themselves as veterans unexpectedly. And so if they dont have a job and their spouse doesnt have a job, its going to be very hard for them to make a Successful Transition. So that spouse having employment or having opportunities for employment because they have education makes it a much more Successful Transition for the entire family. Overall in the military, only about 17 of military Service Members retire with a full, with a full pension. You either stay in for 20 years and get your full pension, but most people dont do that. So theyre leaving service, and they dont have a retirement comparable to what you would have in the civilian world where maybe youre invested youre vested in a Retirement Plan. If a Military Spouse is not working, that spouse doesnt have a Retirement Plan either. So the familys overall financial picture is impacted fairly drastically if the spouse doesnt have a job to piggyback on some of the things that ross was mentioning. Military spouses may have gaps in their employment, but often times theyre volunteering at pretty significant rates. And so during those periods of volunteering, theyre developing skills. A lot of times they dont put those skills on their resume, and so that impacts whether theyre hireable or not. My husband and i were talking about this last night. There are skills that Military Spouses have that they dont even realize that they have. If you have managed an overseas move, youve done logistics. [laughter] if youve broken your husbands tv during a deployment and you have to tell him, youve done pr. [laughter] and im kidding, im saying that jokingly, but there are skills that happen while, during the course of a military career that Military Spouses dont even realize that that theyve had. They may be managing very Large Organizations with diverse populations where theyre managing a budget doing a newsletter, you know, managing vips, dealing with security issues. Those are all skills that they can bring into the work force, and they dont even know to put them on their resumes. And so one of the things that we do with the chamber is try to tell spouses that they can do that, that its even an option, but also give them the confidence to go into an interview and say i do have these skills even though they werent paid. So thank you. Our last general question is for ross. As Budget Constraints spur the military to work more closely with the private sector regarding transition assistance, the messages we hear are are often directed towards employers and governmental agencies. Which responsibilities fall upon Service Member or family Military Spouse when checking for employment in a civilian workplace . So because i touched on it a bit in terms of the responsibilities that veterans and Military Spouses have, i kind of ill answer the question a little bit differently. I think as budgets are being constrained and as, obviously, you know, sequester is hitting this community and a lot more intensely than most other communities, i do see this. And i think to the point about kind of nonprofit mentality, this is a huge opportunity. I think that necessity is really proving to be the mother of invention here, and as budgets are being slashed and being slashed not always in the most sort of rational way, what were really seeing is extraordinary, extraordinary leaps and bounds in the public and private and Nonprofit Sector collaboration. And so ill give a quick example ask then a quick plug for something here in d. C. , and then ill wrap it up. About a month ago, month and a half ago at fort bliss, texas, we had this incredible coming together of va, of department of labor, of joining forces, the army and soldier for lifes office, the chamber, the greater el paso chamber, fort bliss installation command, Army Installation command generally, and what all that means is that all these folks who for years have had their own rice bowls and for years have jealously protected their budgets and their programs saying there is just no way that we can afford to keep on trying to do it that way. So what happened at fort bliss was a twoday summit where day one was focused on employers and giving employers all the education that they needed from all those resources both national and local working together, day two was a job fair for where the army mandated that every soldier who was 90 days out out of getting out and every soldier in a warrior transition unit had to go. So a lot of those soldiers, obviously, arent necessarily going to be getting jobs from a job fair, but they might walk up to an employer and come out with their head spinning around saying, okay, im definitely not ready, i need to get ready. And i think what was also great in addition to that was you had department of labor there, you had va with claims inspectors coming to really what is a community event, not just a job fair, and they registered 600 people for their career counseling benefits and ebenefits in one day which was 600 soldiers which was twice as many that had happened in all of el paso the year before. So youre seeing this sharing of resources, sharing of space, sharing of turf which i think as were facing these Budget Constraints is going to become more and more central. The plug id like to do is april 9th here in d. C. Were going to be having sort of the next step of that. The chamber, were being supported by capital one and the wizards, and the Verizon Center with all of the federal entities i just mentioned having a fullday job fair, career summit, Military Spouse networking session. Mrs. Bonnie amos going to be joining us as well. And that night at the wizards game giving away 4,000 tickets to veterans, military Service Members and their families. So its nice to give away tickets, its great, obviously, the implement piece employment piece is the key there, but would encourage you if youre a veteran, hiring our heroes. Org. Please come by. Its in d. C. , so, obviously, we are some of us veterans do live in d. C. And happily so. [laughter] this is actually coming pretty far out for me to be here in virginia. [laughter] so we really encourage you april 9th to come on down to the Verizon Center. Thank you. Thank you. Now for the fun part. Were going to open up the event to questions from the audience, and theres two mics on each side. Theres one mic on each side. If youll just stand and ask a question and try to make it succinct and to the point if thats possible because we want to get to as many people as we can. So first and help me with alternating from side to side here. Yes, maam. My name is tony forbes. Just recently retired, so good times right now. But just a general question for the panelists. So as my process in this transition, one of the things i learned as we Start Talking about Major Companies and corporations doing things for the military, ill just throw this out, theres an organization, microsoft. Microsoft has a program called the veterans academy. I think its very great. Just recently with my friends within microsoft ive learned that the bottom line which they focus on, and i respect that, but theyre saying, hey, this is not what were losing money. So how do we try to encourage these companies to keep programs of such going . I mean, i understand everything with the community aspect, but then when we have corporations actually doing something viable, doing something positive with the veterans academy, its a 1012 week program where Service Members take a test and see if they qualify or how they qualify within the i. T. Field. Wherever they fall in that spectrum, they start educating them, and then at the end of that program what microsoft has done is said, hey, we will interview you from microsoft, and then they also have partners in and around seattle tacoma area to get these veterans out there to interview to get a job within the i. T. Sector. So how do we encourage them to keep this going . And, again, i understand the issue about the bottom line, thats what it is. But i see it as an investment. And in time that these veterans, all the points that we made, theyll stay with the company and help it grow. So im just curious your thought s on that. Who would like to take that one . Id like to at least take it first. Tony, you know, the bottom line is whats important to every company, right . I mean, even in nonprofits at the end of the day youve got a budget that youve got to sustain. I will tell you hands down there isnt a ceo in this nation that doesnt want to have great employees who are trained and able to do what they do. And i think this goes back to the point i was making earlier is that it almost becomes, you know, when you separate all these veteran programs and, you know, we talk about this divide, it almost becomes this whole thing about we get this little veteran group over here thats losing us money. But go talk to microsoft about what its costing them to train the rest of the employees and should we integrate that . Those are maybe the pieces that dont need to you know, i do believe the cynical side of me believes very much that a lot of people im not saying microsoft is one of them by any means, because i know that program well. I do believe there are a lot of employers that do this, you know . Ive had employers call me saying i really want to get, hire an amputee. They want a poster child, right . To show that theyre doing something. Microsofts not in that case. But thats what weve got to be able to do is make sure that theres more integration, that veterans know the great employers to go to but that these programs arent necessarily strung out from differences. Because every ceo wants quality, trained employees with great attitudes. Thats a fact, you know . Nobody wants a butthead. [laughter] i wont use the other word. So thats kind of, you know, really i think what weve got to do, is teach these companies that these are citizens. These are just great people. And the great thing veterans bring especially in the i. T. World, i mean, some of our i. T. People that transition have more skills than, you know, anybody else around. Just my thoughts. Thank you. Before we go the next question, we want to keep this going, do you have a comment to make, debbie . I was going to say i think we need to publicize best practices and not just publicize it to ourselves, but to Business World at large. And im going single out usaa for a second because they do a great job institutionalizing these practices throughout the company from the highest levels to the lowest levels. And i think thats what makes some of these initiatives successful is that theyre embedded in the culture of the company, and we dont see enough of that. Thank you. Mic two, over there. Thank you. Good morning, and thank you very much for being here today and for your comments. Its been a wonderful panel. My names russ schneider, im with volunteers of america, were a National Nonprofit organization which provides services to veterans, but also were a housing developer. We talked a lot about employment, youve talked a lot about connecting the community on helping the veterans and their families who are returning and also in the communities. You really havent focused in on and what ive seen in this jurisdiction is the stock of Affordable Housingty minishing housing diminishing. And really the disparity between employment for veterans and where they can be employed and living in Affordable Housing. For example, in Fairfax County 10,000 homes have gone from affordable use to now market rate house anything the last five years. I live in howard county, maryland. The other day i was in a county council meeting, and they were talking about new development where it costs 2,000 for anybody to live in a onebedroom apartment. So my question to the panel is how in the community can we be resourceful to increase that Affordable Housing stock for veterans so its affordable . Theres a wonderful program, the ssvf programs a terrific program, but its not enough. So what might you provide us as far as guidance on incentives for developers . What are some things that are working, youve heard about working in parts of the cup . As a housing developer, were here to do that, to provide Housing Assistance to the veterans. Its just whats the formula that might work . If i can take that, so not even take it, but just sort of it depends where yo

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