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37-761 PDF 2007

S. HRG. 110–150

OVERSIGHT HEARING ON DOL/DOD/VA

COLLABORATION AND COOPERATION TO MEET

THE EMPLOYMENT NEEDS OF RETURNING

SERVICEMEMBERS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON VETERANS’ AFFAIRS 

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

JUNE 13, 2007

Printed for the use of the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/senate 

(II)

COMMITTEE ON VETERANS’ AFFAIRS 

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii, Chairman 

JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV, West Virginia 

PATTY MURRAY, Washington 

BARACK OBAMA, Illinois 

BERNARD SANDERS, (I) Vermont 

SHERROD BROWN, Ohio 

JIM WEBB, Virginia 

JON TESTER, Montana 

LARRY E. CRAIG, Idaho, Ranking Member 

ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania 

RICHARD M. BURR, North Carolina 

JOHNNY ISAKSON, Georgia 

LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina 

KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON, Texas 

JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada 

WILLIAM E. BREW, Staff Director 

LUPE WISSEL, Republican Staff Director 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

JUNE 13, 2007

SENATORS 

Page 

Akaka, Hon. Daniel K., Chairman, U.S. Senator from Hawaii ........................... 1

Craig, Hon. Larry E., Ranking Member, U.S. Senator from Idaho ..................... 2

Murray, Hon. Patty, U.S. Senator from Washington ........................................... 3

Tester, Hon. John, U.S. Senator from Montana .................................................... 5

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 5

Brown, Hon. Sherrod, U.S. Senator from Ohio ..................................................... 26

Isakson, Hon. Johnny, U.S. Senator from Georgia ............................................... 52

Webb, Hon. Jim, U.S. Senator from Virginia ........................................................ 54

WITNESSES 

Ciccolella, Hon. Charles S., Assistant Secretary, Veterans’ Employment and 

Training Service, Department of Labor ............................................................. 6

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 8

Dominguez, Hon. Michael L., Principal Deputy Under Secretary for Personnel 

and Readiness, Department of Defense ............................................................. 12

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 13

Caden, Judith A., Director, Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment Service, Veterans Benefits Administration, Department of Veterans Affairs ........ 18

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 19

Warren, William O., Executive Director, DirectEmployers Association ............. 29

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 32

Bradley, Shaun, Co-CEO, Bradley-Morris, Inc. .................................................... 39

Morris, Sandra, Co-CEO, Bradley-Morris, Inc. ..................................................... 40

Prepared statement of Shaun Bradley and Sandra Morris .......................... 41

Recommendations for the Improvement of TurboTAP/DOD Transportal/

Defense Knowledge Online (DKO) Portal ................................................... 42

Addenda ..................................................................................................... 43

McGee, Corey, OEF/OIF Veteran ........................................................................... 58

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 60

Rizer, Monique, Spouse of an Army Reservist ...................................................... 61

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 63

Recommendations for the Improvement of TurboTAP Web Site .................. 66

Osterberg, Don, Vice President, Schneider National, Inc., Green Bay,

Wisconsin .............................................................................................................. 67

APPENDIX 

National Military Family Association, prepared statement ................................. 73

(1)

OVERSIGHT HEARING ON DOL/DOD/VA

COLLABORATION AND COOPERATION TO 

MEET THE EMPLOYMENT NEEDS OF

RETURNING SERVICEMEMBERS 

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 13, 2007

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON VETERANS’ AFFAIRS, Washington, DC. 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:32 a.m., in room 

562, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Daniel K. Akaka, Chairman of the Committee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Akaka, Murray, Brown, Tester, Webb, Craig, 

and Isakson. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF DANIEL K. AKAKA, CHAIRMAN,

U.S. SENATOR FROM HAWAII 

Chairman AKAKA. The hearing will come to order. I want to say 

aloha and welcome to another one of the Committee’s seamless 

transition hearings. This morning, we will focus on the employment 

issues facing veterans, members of the Guard and Reserve, and 

their families as they seek to move from a military to a civilian 

workforce. 

Making these transitions is never easy, but for younger veterans, 

it can be particularly difficult. For members of the National Guard 

and Reserves, the return to a prior job may be challenging for a 

variety of reasons. For family members, the uncertainty of multiple 

and extended deployments poses different kinds of problems. Finally, the obstacles facing those who are disabled while on duty can 

sometimes seem overwhelming and perhaps even insurmountable. 

The needs of these individuals deserve our utmost attention and

resources. 

We will address a variety of issues this morning from a wide 

range of witnesses, and I think you know now we have three panels. Our starting point will be the recommendations of the Task 

Force Report to the President on the Returning Global War on Terror Heroes. But I want to stress this, that it will not stop here. Indeed, this is something that deeply concerns me, that the Task 

Force only looked at what could be done within the constraints of 

current law and did not make any review of recommendations as 

to what might be needed in terms of improvements or additions to 

existing statutes. This is a major shortcoming, in my opinion, with 

regard to the entire report. 

2

There is a lot on the agenda today that we will need to move 

through in a timely fashion, so I ask that our witnesses adhere to 

the 5-minute rule for your oral presentation. Your full statements, 

of course, will be made a part of the Committee’s record. So again, 

welcome and I look forward to hearing from each of you

this morning.

Chairman AKAKA. At this point in time, I would like to call on 

the Senator from Idaho, Senator Craig, our Ranking Member. Senator Craig? 

STATEMENT OF HON. LARRY E. CRAIG, RANKING MEMBER,

U.S. SENATOR FROM IDAHO 

Senator CRAIG. Well, good morning, Mr. Chairman, and good 

morning to all assembled. Danny, again, thank you for calling this 

hearing to discuss employment needs of our returning 

servicemembers. 

I think it goes without saying that during a time of war, it is essential that we as a Nation help our warriors smoothly return to 

civilian life. For many, finding a job is a critical aspect of their 

transition. Not only is it important for their long-term financial 

stability, but meaningful work can have a beneficial impact on both 

the physical and the mental health of that warrior. It is also important for our Nation’s economy, the vitality of the civilian labor market, to benefit from the higher-trained, skilled, and motivated individuals that make up the character of that returning veteran. Perhaps more importantly, we as a grateful Nation owe it to those who 

have served and sacrificed to provide them with the resources and 

assistance they may need to enter again civilian life. 

When the private and public sectors work together to fulfill this 

obligation, we can help ensure the continued viability of an all-volunteer force. It really works both ways. 

But meeting the diverse employment needs of all who wear the 

uniform involves many complex issues. There are recovering servicemen and women who had their military careers cut short by devastating injuries and who are trying to find their niche in the civilian job market. We have members of the Guard and Reserve who 

are returning from war and want to be reinstated at their civilian 

jobs. And we have young veterans who have completed their terms 

of service and are looking to start a civilian career for the first time 

in their lives. 

Today, we will hear about a wide range of programs and services 

involving both the private and public sector aimed at helping veterans succeed in the civilian job market. Given the sheer number 

of entities and programs involved, it is clear that the Nation as a 

whole has made it a priority to ensure that returning servicemen 

and women will have a successful transition into the civilian workforce. 

In fact, veterans overall are continuing to experience lower unemployment rates than non-veterans, and even young veterans who 

have struggled in recent years have seen phenomenal improvements in their employment outcomes. The unemployment rate of 

the 20- to 24-year-old veteran dropped just less than 6 percent during the first quarter of this year. 

3

I am sure everyone here is as pleased as I am about these signs 

of progress. However, I think it is incumbent upon this Committee 

to continue monitoring whether Federal programs are effectively 

serving veterans’ employment needs. 

To that end, I called a hearing last year to examine two employment programs administered by the Department of Labor: the Disabled Veterans’ Outreach Program and the Local Veterans’ Employment Representative Program. Based on what I heard, Senator 

Akaka and I asked the Government Accountability Office to examine whether the current performance accountability system accurately reflects how well these programs are serving veterans. Last 

month, GAO issued a report finding that, after many years of trying to improve data and performance measures, there is simply no 

way to determine whether these programs are effective in helping 

veterans find jobs or whether other factors are responsible for veterans’ job outcomes. 

Although I hope these programs contribute to the success we 

have seen in recent months, I believe we must find a way to track 

how well these programs are serving veterans so we can quickly 

identify any gaps in existing services and continually seek ways to 

further improve veterans’ employment outcomes. 

As we move forward, I hope this Committee and Congress will 

do our part in helping returning servicemembers in their transition 

to civilian life by taking steps to ensure that these and other programs are capable of providing them with the most effective employment services, not just today, but for many years to come. And 

I hope that employers across the Nation will do their part by making it a priority to recruit our Nation’s heroes and let them put 

their valuable skills and traits to work in contributing to the economy of this great Nation. 

Mr. Chairman, the work this Committee has done and is continuing to do, the oversight, the kind of positive effort to make sure 

that we have the facts, and know if programs need to be adjusted 

and changed, is absolutely the right course and I thank you for 

doing it. 

Chairman AKAKA. Thank you very much, Senator Craig, for your 

statement. 

Senator Murray from the State of Washington. 

STATEMENT OF HON. PATTY MURRAY

U.S. SENATOR FROM WASHINGTON 

Senator MURRAY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I 

want to thank you and Ranking Member Craig for holding this 

really important hearing on the employment benefits provided to 

our men and women in uniform as they transition from military to 

civilian life. 

And I want to start by saying that as Chairwoman of the Employment and Workplace Safety Subcommittee, I am really glad 

that we are holding this hearing today. I have worked to explore 

this topic in my own subcommittee and I have spoken with a lot 

of the men and women who are facing employment challenges 

when they return home, and those hearings and those conversations have really helped me to get some ideas of some of our most 

critical needs. 

4

First of all, civilian and veteran organizations need to work together to reach out to returning soldiers. We have a lot of trained 

professionals that are willing and able to help our returning 

servicemembers, but they face some real barriers in accessing information about those soldiers directly and we have got to think creatively how we can connect those providers with the soldiers that 

they are trying to help. 

We also need to provide job information and resources at a better 

time. We all know that soldiers, when they return home immediately and are demobilizing, it is not a great time to be talking 

to them about anything except their families. We have got to find 

a better way to find a good time to talk to them about the critical 

employment issues that they are facing. 

Third, we need to address the challenges that a lot of our small 

business owners face in trying to hire our veterans. Because we 

have unpredictable tours of duty, small business owners are telling 

me that they bear a very high cost of turnover and training when 

soldiers deploy. Tax credits or something similar to help them cover 

those costs would help them to do the right thing and employ soldiers and veterans. 

Fourth, I think we need to ensure that the skills that 

servicemembers are learning in the field are transferrable to the 

jobs that they are trying to get when they return home. Too many 

soldiers I talk to tell me that the language of the skills they have 

while they are serving are different than the language of the skills 

when they come home and they have a hard time connecting those 

two and we need to focus on that. 

And finally, I think we need to strengthen our training and education support, because often returning servicemembers need salary and benefits during a transitional time period every year or so 

as they pursue training and the credits that they receive for training need to be transferrable and recognizable. 

In my home State of Washington, I am proud to say that we 

have been moving very proactively toward addressing and meeting 

some of these needs. Our Employer Security Commissioner has 

worked tirelessly to promote the Hire-A-Vet Challenge, and that is 

an initiative that encourages businesses to hire returning National 

Guard and Reserve members. And last year, our State legislature 

created a Veterans Innovation Program Board to work with Washington’s Department of Veterans Affairs in meeting specific needs 

of returning Reservists and National Guard members. 

I have said many times to employers, our returning veterans 

have the skills that they are looking for. They are loyal. They have 

character. They show up on time. And they are very good workers. 

I think what we need to do is make sure that all of our agencies 

are working to give them the support they need, whether it is assistance in basic job skills or access to information or support for 

businesses who want to hire them. I think it is imperative that this 

Committee look at these issues and ask, what are we doing to 

make sure that we have put in place the right policies and procedures and resources to make sure those returning veterans get the 

promises that we have all given them to care for them when they 

return home. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

5

Chairman AKAKA. Thank you very much, Senator Murray. 

Now, Senator Tester from Montana. 

STATEMENT OF HON. JON TESTER,

U.S. SENATOR FROM MONTANA 

Senator TESTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is a very important hearing. I have got a markup in Homeland Security, so I am 

going to have to leave early and I apologize ahead of time for that. 

I would ask unanimous consent my entire statement be put into 

the record. 

Chairman AKAKA. Without objection. 

Senator TESTER. I do have a few comments I want to make. I 

would hope that each of the panelists would address what is being 

done and what can be done for the veterans as they come home for 

job opportunities. I think that when it comes to this particular war 

that we are in, the repeated deployments as it applies to Guardsmen and Reservists put some interesting issues on the table that 

are not typically there and I think that it is critically important 

that we serve all our veterans, but I think that is a segment that 

may have some special needs. 

As far as the homeless veterans issue, what is being done to try 

to bring those folks back in, I know it is getting to be a more significant part of our population, unfortunately, and I think that if 

we can do whatever we can do starting when they are in the active 

military to when they go out of the active military and become a 

civilian, it is important that we deal with those folks in a way that 

meets their needs. 

And then finally, I would hope that at least one of you would talk 

about, if not all, the follow-up and—let me start off with how you 

get the information out to the veterans on what is available out 

there for workforce training and then the follow-up of that to see 

if it is having the kinds of impacts that we need that are acceptable 

for our veterans’ population. 

So with that, Mr. Chairman, once again, I want to thank you 

very much for holding this hearing and I want to thank the panelists for being here. I will appreciate probably reading about your 

perspective, so thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Senator Tester follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. JON TESTER, U.S. SENATOR FROM MONTANA

Mr. Chairman, this is a very important hearing. Thank you for putting this together today. 

The veterans’ employment and training programs have so much promise, but we 

do not help ourselves if we allow the good intentions of these programs to be undone 

by not adequately preparing for the number of veterans who are using them. 

As I understand it, the President’s budget for FY 2008 would have:

• Put a freeze on funding for the National Veterans’ Training Institute, which 

provides specialized training and professional skills development to federal and 

state veterans’ service providers’ staff; 

• Increase by less than 1 percent the Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program, 

which provides grants to operate employment programs to reach out to homeless 

veterans and help them become employed; 

• And cut funding for the Veterans Workforce Investment Program, which provides competitive grants for training programs and employment opportunities for 

veterans in high-skill occupations.

I know that funding is tight all over. Believe me, one of the reasons I came to 

Congress is to get after some of the wasteful spending that goes on around here. 

6

But we’re talking about our veterans. There’s a moral responsibility there, I think, 

to make sure that after someone serves our nation that they have the chance to get 

the training they need to make a life for themselves in the civilian world. 

And I have to tell you, this is especially critical in rural areas where we need 

every possible resource to create jobs and maintain a highly skilled workforce. And 

folks who have served in the United States military have good skills. We just need 

to make sure that civilian employers understand that, and our folks leaving the 

service know how to talk about those skills in a way that’s attractive to prospective 

employers. 

I also hope we’ll hear a little about what kinds of follow-up the VA and the Labor 

Department do when it comes to getting the word out on these training programs. 

This is especially important for the National Guard folks. 

We all know that when a soldier or a Marine comes back from deployment they 

won’t be giving full attention to someone talking about their benefits. The soldier’s 

mind is on his family—as it should be, quite frankly. 

But as we’ve seen with mental health issues and with disability benefits, that can 

really complicate things down the road. So I’d like to know what you all are doing 

to follow up with folks after they hear about their job training opportunities when 

they first get home. 

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses, and I thank you all for being here 

today.

Chairman AKAKA. Thank you very much, Senator Tester. 

We will start with representatives of the three Departments most 

involved in the employment, and that is the Departments of Labor, 

Veterans Affairs, and Defense. While each agency has a different 

focus, they share a common responsibility to help veterans transition from military service to civilian employment. 

Representing the Department of Labor is Assistant Secretary of 

Labor for Veterans’ Employment and Training Service, the Honorable Charles S. Ciccolella. From the Department of Defense, we 

welcome the Honorable Michael L. Dominguez, the Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness. Finally, joining us from the Department of Veterans Affairs is Judith 

Caden, the Director of Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment. 

Again, welcome to all of you. Your prepared remarks will, of 

course, appear in the record in full, so we look forward to your 

statement, Mr. Ciccolella. 

STATEMENT OF HON. CHARLES S. CICCOLELLA, ASSISTANT 

SECRETARY, VETERANS’ EMPLOYMENT AND TRAINING 

SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF LABOR 

Mr. CICCOLELLA. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Senator Craig, 

Senator Murray, Senator Tester. Thank you for the opportunity to 

testify on the collaboration among the Departments, particularly 

the Department of Defense, the Department of Labor, the Department of Veterans Affairs, to provide services to our returning 

servicemembers from both active duty and the National Guard and 

the Reserve. 

Our Department, the Department of Labor, is fully engaged in 

assisting our servicemembers as they return. We operate in very 

close partnership with the DOD and VA in particular. We do this 

by protecting their employment rights when they are deployed and 

ensuring they get their jobs back in conjunction with the Department of Defense, their ESGR organization, the Department of Justice, and the Special Counsel’s Office. We do it by assisting their 

transition through the Transition Assistance Program, the employment workshop that we facilitate in conjunction with DOD and VA, 

7

and we do it by working very closely with all of the agencies to improve employment services and outcomes in the workforce system. 

Mr. Chairman, my testimony details the extent of cooperation 

and collaboration, particularly as regards the President’s Task 

Force on Returning Global War on Terror Heroes. What I would 

like to do in just a couple moments is to highlight our recent and 

standing initiatives among the three agencies. 

The Department of Defense is now leading a joint effort to promote and increase participation in TAP, and that is the TAP Employment Workshop that is facilitated by the Department of Labor. 

We now have a participation rate goal of 85 percent. We are only 

getting about 65 to 70 percent right now. We have already seen a 

large increase in the number of servicemembers who are attending 

the Transition Assistance Program Employment Workshop in the 

last several years. 

DOL, DOD, and VA have stepped up their efforts to extend transition assistance to the National Guard and Reserve, both by attending active duty TAP sessions when we can get them in there 

if they need that, or in the case of the Labor Department, we do 

many regular TAP programs for active duty transitioning 

servicemembers in many States. I think Secretary Dominguez will 

talk about the TurboTAP initiative, and that is also an excellent 

way to reach out to the Guard and the Reserve. 

The Department of Labor is also leading another joint effort 

through the TAP Steering Committee, which is a joint committee, 

to significantly improve the quality of instruction and the content 

of the TAP Workshops. Senator Murray, you talked about the 

translation of skills, and that is so important, that we teach 

servicemembers how to translate their skills, their education, and 

their training onto their resumes so employers can understand it. 

It is also important they do mock interviews and it is important 

they do job searches on their State Workforce Job Board. 

We are working more closely with DOD and DOJ and America’s 

employers to protect our servicemembers’ employment and reemployment rights while they are on military duty and to educate employers on their obligations. We work very closely with the Department of Defense and the Office of Special Counsel, in particular, 

on ensuring Federal employers understand and abide by USERRA, 

the law that protects our servicemembers. We believe we do a very 

good job on USERRA, including these Federal sector cases, and we 

also think all these cases should remain under the jurisdiction, at 

least the investigative part, under the Department of Labor. 

We have strengthened our already close relationship with the 

Department of Veterans Affairs and their vocational rehabilitation 

and employment program by stationing more veteran employment 

representatives from the workforce system in their vocational rehabilitation offices. 

We are conducting more veteran job fairs through the 

HireVetsFirst campaign. Over 120 this year and 52 in one week in 

November are planned. Those job fairs are really important because they bring together the veteran, the employer, the workforce 

system, and the media and it really raises awareness of the value 

that veterans bring to the workforce. So that is also very, very important. 

8

We are helping veterans better understand their financial and 

educational benefits and we are working with the Department of 

Defense to expand their ‘‘Operation Warfighter’’ program. That is 

the Federal intern program, wherein the servicemembers are 

recuperating, and as part of their therapy, they go to a Federal 

agency if they want to and it is like a ‘‘test drive.’’ The Federal 

agency can sort of evaluate them. Over 50 of them have been hired 

so far and about 250 of them have participated in that program. 

We provide face-to-face employment assistance to the most severely wounded and injured through our REALifelines program. 

We work very closely with the VA and the vocational rehabilitation 

folks and with the Department of Defense and the individual military services on that. 

And finally, we continue to emphasize the needs of our youngest 

veterans because they do experience, as Senator Craig said, higher 

unemployment rates. We think we have a better fix on that, but 

we have got to watch it very, very carefully. The numbers are 

down, but they are not where they should be. But the key there 

is for more young servicemembers to attend the Transition Employment Workshops so they are better prepared and so they have a 

plan when they come out of the military. 

That concludes the highlights that I wanted to cover in my testimony, in my opening statement, Senator. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Ciccolella follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. CHARLES S. CICCOLELLA, ASSISTANT SECRETARY, 

VETERANS’ EMPLOYMENT AND TRAINING SERVICE, DEPARTMENT OF LABOR

Chairman Akaka, Ranking Member Craig and distinguished Members of the Committee: 

Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss transition 

and employment issues of returning veterans, servicemembers, reservists, and members of the National Guard. 

The state of employment for our returning veterans is strong. Our economy continues to grow and it continues to produce new job opportunities. Employers are 

looking for quality workers, and the servicemembers who are leaving the military 

today bring the technical and leadership skills employers need. 

The Department of Labor (DOL) is working in close partnership with the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to enhance 

employment opportunities for our separating military members by better preparing 

them for the civilian workforce as they transition, by protecting their employment 

rights while they serve, and by providing employment assistance to our veterans 

whenever it is requested or needed. 

I am pleased to be a member of today’s panel because the efforts of DOD, the VA, 

and DOL in the area of employment are complementary and supportive. We participate on many joint committees, including the recent Presidential Task Force on Returning Global War on Terror Heroes (Task Force), in an effort to constantly review 

and improve services for veterans and help make their transition to employment as 

seamless as possible. 

My testimony today discusses three major areas. 

First, you asked that I address the cooperation and collaboration on employment 

issues by DOL, DOD and VA, particularly in the context of the important employment-related recommendations of the Task Force. Since the Task Force focused to 

a large degree on improving transition services, I will elaborate on how DOL is implementing the recommendations by expanding or enhancing initiatives that directly 

assist the smooth transition of servicemembers, including members of the National 

Guard and Reserve and wounded and injured military members. 

Second, I will discuss the ongoing collaborative efforts underway for the past several years to help servicemembers who need help the most—those who are wounded 

and injured, including those who are disabled as a result of military service—and 

our continuing efforts to reduce unemployment among young veterans. 

9

Finally, I will discuss the Department’s extensive efforts to reach out to employers 

to help them find and hire veterans. 

COLLABORATION BETWEEN DOL, DOD AND THE VA; AND DOL’S ROLE IN TASK FORCE

RECOMMENDATIONS

First, I would like to discuss the extensive cooperation and collaboration between 

our departments. As the Committee has recognized, the most recent example of our 

collaboration with VA and DOD is on the Task Force. Chaired by Secretary Nicholson, both Secretary Gates and Secretary Chao were members of the Task Force. The 

Task Force report contains important recommendations that are already in progress 

and it illustrates the high level of coordination and collaboration that goes on among 

DOL, VA, and DOD, as well as with other Federal departments and agencies. 

DOL was tasked with the lead on four of the report’s recommendations. Those are 

to integrate our HireVetsFirst Campaign into career fairs; train active duty, Guard 

and Reserve members regarding their rights under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA); develop a financial aid education 

module; and develop a wounded veterans intern program. I would like to describe 

our efforts in each of these areas.

• Integrate the HireVetsFirst campaign into career fairs: DOL’s Veterans’ Employment and Training Service (VETS) works through the nationwide system of 

One-Stop Career Centers to ensure that veterans receive priority employment services, including the specialized services of dedicated veteran employment specialists. 

We are working with One-Stop Career Centers in every state to integrate the 

HireVetsFirst campaign into over 120 private and public sector veteran job fairs, 

and to expand the number of employers actively involved in veteran recruitment. 

We will soon announce simultaneous job fairs that will be held this November in 

every state to highlight the value veterans bring to the workforce and to offer unprecedented opportunities for employers to find and hire veterans and 

servicemembers who are transitioning to the civilian workforce. 

• Train Active Duty, Guard and Reserve on USERRA rights: To improve 

servicemembers’ understanding of their reemployment rights at entry to, during, 

and exiting from military service, DOL has stepped up its efforts to ensure that National Guard and Reserve members are briefed on their Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) rights, both during mobilization and 

during their demobilization once they return. In 2006, we rolled out an aggressive 

training regimen on the new USERRA regulations and over 400,000 servicemembers 

and employers have been briefed to date. 

We collaborate closely with the DOD National Committee on Employer Support 

of the Guard and Reserve (ESGR) to develop better understanding and application 

of the law in order to improve the USERRA training, technical assistance, and dispute resolution services that are provided to servicemembers. DOL has developed 

a comprehensive pocket guide and interactive programs on USERRA for use by 

servicemembers, veterans, employers, ESGR caseworkers and mediators as well as 

by our own USERRA investigators. We have improved training for our USERRA investigators and VETS has established a corps of senior USERRA investigators as 

part of its efforts to better advise servicemembers of their USERRA rights, and to 

insure prompt and accurate handling of USERRA cases. 

• Develop a Financial Aid Education Module for the Transition Assistance Program (TAP): DOL, DOD and the Department of Education have formed a work 

group to develop a training module in the Transition Assistance Program and the 

Disabled Transition Assistance Programs (DTAP) that will better inform 

transitioning servicemembers of available financial aid benefits. Since only a limited 

number of servicemembers take advantage of the education benefits that are available to them, this module will educate them on the wide range of financial aid and 

other benefits to support enhancing their education and skills, and improving their 

marketability to employers. 

• Develop an Intern Program for Wounded Veterans: Many severely wounded and 

injured servicemembers have little or no civilian employment experience. The internship program will build on DOD’s Operation Warfighter (OWF), in which DOD 

and DOL have worked very closely since its launch two years ago at the Military 

Severely Injured Center (MSIC) in Arlington, Virginia. OWF places active duty 

wounded and injured servicemembers in unpaid Federal employment opportunities 

that meet both the agency’s needs and the needs and interests of the OWF participant. Like OWF, the expanded internship program will provide valuable work experience to injured Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) servicemembers while they are 

in medical hold status and transitioning out of military service. 

10

DOL has a full-time employee based at the MSIC who leads our role in OWF. We 

work directly with Federal agencies to develop intern opportunities for interested 

servicemembers, and hold regular meetings for potential OWF participants at Walter Reed Army Medical Center where Federal agencies discuss their internship opportunities. We then work closely to match wounded or injured servicemembers with 

appropriate internships. To date, over 200 servicemembers have participated in 

OWF, and over 50 have gone on to be hired into permanent Federal jobs.

In addition to leading these important initiatives recommended by the Task Force, 

DOL plays a pivotal role in several other Task Force recommendations.

• Increase participation in TAP. One of our goals has been to increase the participation rate of active duty, National Guard, and Reserve members in Transition Assistance and Disabled Transition Assistance Programs (TAP/DTAP) to 85 percent, 

and we have been working with DOD officials to accomplish this goal. Under DOD’s 

lead, DOL and VA are working with the military at all installations to market TAP 

and encourage greater participation so that every servicemember that might need 

to find post-separation employment attends this important transition activity. Active 

duty servicemember participation in TAP employment workshops has risen by 50 

percent since 2002 and will continue to increase under these joint efforts. 

To smooth the return of activated National Guard and Reserve troops, in FY 2005 

DOL began offering TAP Employment Workshops to members of the Reserve and 

National Guard returning from active duty. Recognizing the special needs of these 

returning units and their members, we developed a TAP instructional program specifically tailored for them. VETS State Directors coordinate closely with state workforce agencies to ensure veteran employment staff or contract facilitators are available to provide TAP employment workshops for the Guard and Reserve. The State 

Directors work directly with officials of the State Adjutant General offices and local 

Reserve Unit Commanders to stress the importance of TAP and to schedule the 

workshops. Spouses are also encouraged to attend. 

Finally, DOL has assisted DOD with the development of ‘‘TurboTAP,’’ which DOD 

will discuss during this hearing. This innovative, online resource will dramatically 

enhance transition. 

In addition to increasing participation in the TAP employment workshop, DOL is 

working with DOD to improve the quality of the workshop. The improved TAP 

workshops will include resume development so that servicemembers leave TAP with 

a draft resume; ‘‘mock’’ interviews so they gain experience in job interviews; and job 

search sessions so participants have conducted a personal job search on their state 

workforce system job board. 

Further, DOL has issued over 300,000 Keys to Career Success cards, which provide transitioning servicemembers with information on how to locate the One-Stop 

Career Center in their hometown, and we will continue to provide the cards in the 

TAP resource packets. • Improve opportunities for Licenses and Certifications. DOL is also supporting 

the DOD in implementing the Task Force recommendation to improve civilian workforce credentialing and certification to better relate a servicemember’s military experience to civilian employment opportunities. 

ONGOING PROGRAMS FOR SERVICEMEMBERS AND VETERANS

WHO NEED HELP THE MOST

Now I would like to take this opportunity to share the ongoing collaborative programs that target servicemembers who need help the most, and to smooth the transition of our youngest veterans.

• Providing Employment Assistance for Wounded and Injured Servicemembers 

and their Families: DOL initiated the Recovery and Employment Assistance Lifelines (REALifelines) program in November 2004 to provide face-to-face, personalized 

assistance to seriously wounded and injured servicemembers and their spouses so 

they are better prepared and trained for rewarding careers in the civilian sector. 

Dedicated REALifelines professionals work closely with DOD, the military services, 

and the VA at major military medical treatment facilities. They meet personally 

with wounded or injured servicemembers who will be transitioning into the civilian 

workforce. 

Over 2,200 servicemembers, spouses or veterans have received employment assistance since the beginning of the program. We are now exploring ideas for onsite 

training at medical treatment facilities. For example, at Balboa Naval Medical Center, Cisco Systems has agreed to establish a Technical Training Academy that will 

certify participants for careers in information technology. 

Last September, we hosted the first National Summit on Recovery, Rehabilitation 

and Employment for Wounded & Injured Servicemembers in Alabama under the 

11

REALifelines banner. The summit fostered collaboration and highlighted successful 

efforts to assure the successful return and reintegration of returning wounded and 

injured servicemembers and their families. • Assisting VA’s Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment (VR&E) Program: 

DOL and VA have long maintained a close working relationship in the VR&E Program. To ensure a seamless transition between the VA’s VR&E program and civilian employment, DOL-funded veterans employment specialists are outstationed as 

needed at VR&E offices. These specialists provide labor market information to 

VR&E participants as they select training programs. The veteran employment specialists assist VA employment counselors and are present as participants complete 

the program in order to assist in job placement. Currently, 72 veteran employment 

specialists are outstationed at 36 VA Regional Offices and 36 outbased facilities. 

DOL and VA strengthened our partnership through a Memorandum of Agreement 

(MOA) in 2005. Under the new MOA, joint working groups meet and report on ways 

to increase collaboration, to improve data collection and reporting, and, in general, 

to improve employment opportunities for disabled veterans. VA also uses the DOLfunded National Veterans Training Institute to develop training courses for VR&E 

staff. 

• Ensuring the Smooth Transition of Young Veterans: This committee has expressed concern about the unemployment rates of 20–24-year-old veterans. There 

are a number of reasons the unemployment rate of young veterans is usually higher 

than that of their non-veteran counterparts. First, unlike their civilian counterparts 

in the Current Population Survey (CPS), which is conducted by the Census Bureau 

for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, all young veterans have recently undergone a significant labor market transition. Moving from military to civilian employment is a 

big transition for these young people. They are generally first term enlistees who 

are getting out of the military and entering the civilian job market for the first time, 

or are going to school and waiting for a new semester to begin. Some take a welldeserved break after military service. Some use unemployment compensation while 

trying to land the right job. 

Any young veteran who is unemployed is a serious concern to DOL, as we are 

researching this subject to better understand the path young veterans take as they 

transition from military to civilian occupations. We are also collaborating with VA 

and DOD on similar research efforts. We are working to increase servicemember 

participation in TAP, to make the TAP employment workshop more meaningful to 

them, and to encourage these young servicemembers to use the services of their 

local One-Stop Career Centers. 

• Participation on Joint Committees and Task Forces: In addition to the programs 

mentioned above, DOL is an active participant on numerous DOD and VA committees, including the following: 

DOD Special Working Group on Transition to Civilian Employment 

DOD ESGR Freedom Awards National Selection Board 

DOD/DOL Task Force on Licensing and Certification 

VA Advisory Committee on Homeless Veterans (ex-officio) 

VA Advisory Committee on Rehabilitation (ex-officio) 

VA Advisory Committee on Women Veterans (ex-officio) 

VA Advisory Committee on Education (ex-officio) 

VA Advisory Committee on OIF/OEF (observer) 

SUPPORT FROM AMERICA’S EMPLOYERS

Finally, I want to take a moment to discuss two important outreach activities we 

believe are helping veterans find good jobs and employers find veterans. 

HireVetsFirst Campaign: The HireVetsFirst Campaign was established under the 

President’s National Hire Veterans Committee in 2004 to reach out to employers to 

help them find and hire veterans. The Campaign centers on helping employers develop veteran hiring strategies, use One-Stop Career Centers to find veterans, and 

participate in activities such as the many veteran job fairs. States and Governors 

also sponsor HireVetsFirst activities focused on hiring veterans in their states. We 

are particularly proud that 48 of 52 Governors have issued proclamations (highlighting or emphasizing) veterans’ employment to their respective business communities.

• Advisory Committee on Veterans’ Employment, Training, and Employer Outreach (ACVETEO): This newly formed Committee is responsible for assisting with 

outreach, assessing the employment and training needs of veterans and their integration into the workforce and determining the extent to which DOL programs and 

activities are meeting these needs. The Committee includes representatives of veterans service organizations, business, employment, labor, state workforce agencies, 

12

the National Governors Association, rehabilitation agencies and ex-officio members 

from Federal agencies. VA and DOD serve as Ex Officio members. The Committee 

is looking at ways to improve transition, outreach to business, and services to special veteran populations. The first meeting of the ACVETEO, held on May 15th, 

2007, was attended by Secretary Chao and Secretary Nicholson. 

Thank you again for the opportunity to appear today before the Committee. This 

concludes my remarks, and I would be happy to respond to any questions.

Chairman AKAKA. Thank you very much, Mr. Ciccolella. 

Mr. Dominguez, please proceed with your statement. 

STATEMENT OF MICHAEL L. DOMINGUEZ, PRINCIPAL DEPUTY 

UNDER SECRETARY FOR PERSONNEL AND READINESS,

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE 

Mr. DOMINGUEZ. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. Chairman, distinguished Members of the Committee, thank 

you for the opportunity to be here today to discuss issues relating 

to the transition and employment of our separating 

servicemembers and demobilizing members of the National Guard 

and Reserve. 

I would like to begin my testimony by recognizing the cooperation and collaboration of our partners at the Department of Labor 

and the Department of Veterans Affairs. The support we receive 

from them ensures our servicemen and women have every opportunity to find employment upon completion of their service to the 

Nation. The continued interest and support of this Committee is 

also vital to our efforts and I thank you for your involvement, sir. 

Returning to private life after serving in the military is a very 

complex undertaking. Our DOD, DOL, DVA Transition Assistance 

Program provides servicemembers and their families with the 

skills, tools, and the knowledge necessary to design individual reentry plans. 

Stimulated in large measure by the unique needs of our large 

numbers of demobilizing Guardsmen and Reserves, we collaborated 

with our many partners and designed a dynamic web-based system 

to augment the delivery of transition assistance and related information. We are calling this online system TurboTAP. TurboTAP 

will provide active duty, National Guard, and Reserve personnel 

access to employment information, allow them to build a resume 

online, do a job search, to contact their local DOL career One-Stop 

Career Center for employment assistance, and many other functions. Also, each servicemember will be able to create a lifelong account in TurboTAP. TurboTAP was launched on June 9 of this year 

and we demonstrated the program yesterday for the Committee 

staff. 

We at the DOD, in collaboration with our Federal agency partners, veterans service organizations, State and local governments, 

and industry are working on several other initiatives to benefit 

transitioning servicemembers. We are studying the rate and causes 

of unemployment among younger veterans. As called for by the Defense Authorization Act of 2007, we established a Special Working 

Group on Transition to Civilian Employment of National Guard 

and Reserve members returning from mobilized status. My colleague, Secretary Hall, leads that effort. 

We continue operating our Military Severely Injured Center and 

partner with DOL on REALifelines. We have begun a series of HirVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:27 Sep 27, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00016 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\RD41451\DOCS\37761.TXT SENVETS PsN: ROWENA
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ing Heroes career fairs focused on Federal civil service employment 

for severely wounded servicemembers. 

We are increasing attendance at TAP, VA benefits, and employment workshops. We have developed and deployed tools to assist 

servicemembers in gaining civilian credentials from their military 

schooling. We have established joint DOD–DVA teams to completely revamp the way we support our wounded warriors and we 

continue to improve DOD–VA integration under the auspices of the 

Joint Executive Council. 

Mr. Chairman, while we have accomplished much, much remains 

to be done. We are blessed, however, with energetic, enthusiastic 

partners. Working together and with your support, I am confident 

we can deliver world class transition assistance to the men and 

women who volunteered to serve this Nation in the Armed Forces. 

Thank you, sir. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Dominguez follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL L. DOMINGUEZ, PRINCIPAL DEPUTY UNDER

SECRETARY FOR PERSONNEL AND READINESS, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

Mr. Chairman and distinguished Members of the Committee, thank you for the 

opportunity to discuss issues relating to employment of our returning veterans, 

Servicemembers, and members of the National Guard and Reserves. I’d like to recognize the cooperation and collaboration among the Department of Defense (DOD), 

the Department of Labor (DOL), the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the 

Department of Homeland Security (DHS). 

We require a great deal from our Armed Forces and I want to affirm the Department’s commitment to all our Servicemembers—Active, National Guard and Reserves and their families. 

Returning to private life after serving in the military is a very complex undertaking. To assist them in doing so, we must empower Servicemembers with the tools 

and information they need to fashion individual solutions to the challenges they will 

face as they return to civilian life. DOD, along with DOL and the VA, has worked 

to provide them with a variety of tools, including the Transition Assistance Program 

(TAP). 

Let me begin with some general comments regarding the cooperation and collaboration among DOD, DOL and VA. 

I am impressed by the dedication and willingness of our Federal partners to provide an assortment of highly desirable transition services. The cooperation and support we receive from DOL and VA is outstanding. You can be truly proud of the 

manner in which DOD, DOL, and VA, have continued to enthusiastically support 

our men and women in uniform. Obviously, the sustained interest and support of 

this Committee is also vital to our efforts. 

While the three departments have been working together in earnest for well over 

a decade, the many professionals within the departments are bringing DOD, DOL, 

and VA closer together at a pace greater than at anytime before. Examples of our 

collaborative efforts include the Transition Assistance Program (TAP) Steering Committee and the Secretary of Labor’s Advisory Committee on Employment, Training, 

and Employer Outreach. DOD and VA also partner extensively though the VA/DOD 

Joint Executive Council (JEC), the Benefits Executive Council (BEC), and the 

Health Executive Council (HEC), Veterans Employment, Training, and Employer 

Outreach (ACVETEO). 

Whether separating, retiring or being released from active duty as a member of 

the National Guard or Reserves, the transitory Servicemember’s most immediate 

goal is finding a job, changing careers, and improving his/her economic quality of 

life. DOD believes that none of our efforts are more important than creating an uninterrupted continuum of opportunities at every level, as our Service personnel and 

their families transition from military service to veteran status. This includes helping them reach and achieve their employment potential and aspirations to their full 

capability. 

The rest of my statement today will touch on the many activities under way that 

reflect the shared commitment to delivering transition assistance, employment assistance, and benefits information. 

14

TRANSITION ASSISTANCE PROGRAM

Since its inception in 1990, the goal of the Transition Assistance Program (TAP) 

has been to provide Servicemembers and their families the skills, tools, knowledge, 

and self-confidence necessary for a successful reentry into the Nation’s civilian work 

force. We deliver TAP through a collaborative effort involving DOL, the Military 

Services, VA, DHS, the Department of Education (ED), the Small Business Administration (SBA), the National Veterans Business Development Corporation, and other 

Federal, state, local and nonprofit organizations. The Veterans Service and Military 

Service Organizations provide outstanding support to TAP and to our 

Servicemembers and their families at both the national and local levels. The goal 

is to help prepare them to move into the job market. 

There is much concern about how we can better serve the National Guard and 

Reserve Components coming from Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF)/Operation 

Iraqi Freedom (OIF). So with that high priority, let me tell you first about the new 

technological breakthrough that will change how the National Guard and Reserve 

members transition out of the military, in addition to serving as a valuable tool for 

the Active Component Servicemembers as well. 

TURBOTAP

When TAP was originally developed in 1990, we did not design it with the needs 

of the National Guard and Reserves in mind. Their mission has changed dramatically since 9/11 and the requirements, with respect to TAP, warrant a fresh look. 

To better meet the needs of the Guard and Reserves, DOD, with the cooperation 

and collaboration of the Military Services, National Guard Bureau (NGB), DOL, VA, 

ED, SBA, and the National Veterans Business Development Corporation, has designed a dynamic, automated web-based system for delivery of transition assistance 

and related information. This portal architecture will be the backbone of the updated DOD TAP process for National Guard and Reserve Servicemembers. Each Reservist and Guardsman will be able to create a lifelong account to which he/she or 

his/her spouse can refer, at any time during his/her life. Usability, flexibility, adaptability, and individual customization are the keys to successful implementation of 

this new technology-enabled process. The goal for this system is to increase 

Servicemember participation and satisfaction. 

We are excited by the possibilities for TurboTAP. National Guard and Reserve 

personnel will be able to access employment information, build a resume online, do 

a job search, contact their local One-Stop Career Center for employment assistance, 

and the list goes on. TurboTAP allows an individual to develop and print out his 

or her own individual transition plan. 

Some of the features of TurboTAP are:

• A comprehensive Transition Guide for the Guard and Reserves as well as a 

comprehensive Preseparation Guide for Active Component Servicemembers. These 

guides provide information on benefits and services available to transitioning 

Servicemembers as well as contact points for further assistance; 

• Lifelong account for National Guard, Reserves and Active Component 

Servicemembers which allows them to use the system indefinitely; 

• A personal profile that can be updated anytime; 

• A customized Individual Transition Plan; 

• Transition information that can be accessed anytime, anywhere; 

• An Employment Hub containing job searches, resume builder and military occupational translator using the O*NET to convert to civilian occupational skills; 

• Direct e-mail access to any DOL One-Stop Career Center; 

• A VA Benefits Hub providing information on VA benefits, services and programs; and 

• ‘‘Helpful checklists’’ to remind Servicemembers about key things they should do 

before separating or being released from active duty.

TurboTAP allows Servicemembers, veterans, retirees, and demobilizing members 

of the Reserve Components to locate and find the nearest DOL One-Stop Career 

Center, VA Regional Office, VA Vet Center, VA Medical Center, and military installation to where they live. These facilities with their highly trained and dedicated 

staffs, stand ready to help our deserving men and women who have served this Nation with honor. 

TurboTAP will better meet the needs of the National Guard, Reserves and Active 

Component Servicemembers and their families because it gives them the tools to 

connect and access the information to meet their needs when they are ready—

present or future. We have high expectations for this being a 21st century approach 

to delivering individualized information and benefits to Servicemembers and famiVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:27 Sep 27, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00018 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\RD41451\DOCS\37761.TXT SENVETS PsN: ROWENA
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lies. With the expected success, we further plan to make transition an online transaction much like banking and bill paying have become. The success and accountability of transition will be managed online versus a form being hand carried to a 

personnel file. As we move down this road, we will solicit your approval and legislative support. 

TurboTAP was launched on June 9th. The site can be accessed at http://

www.TurboTAP.org.

Components of Transition Assistance Program 

The four components of TAP emphasize preparation for employment rather than 

job placement itself. 

Preseparation Counseling is the first component of TAP. This counseling is mandatory for separating and retiring Servicemembers and all eligible demobilizing 

members of the National Guard and Reserves. The Military Services are responsible 

for providing Preseparation Counseling. During the 2–21⁄2-hour Preseparation Counseling session of TAP, Active Component Servicemembers are introduced to information about employment opportunities and how to go about finding a job. Also during 

this phase of TAP, Active Component Servicemembers, looking for a job post-military, are encouraged to attend a DOL TAP Employment Workshop. 

During the Preseparation Counseling phase of TAP for the National Guard and 

Reserves, similar information is provided geared to their needs. However, instead 

of encouraging them to attend a DOL Employment Workshop, they receive a Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) Briefing. 

USERRA Briefings are scheduled at installation demobilization sites in coordination 

with the demobilization commander; therefore, based on availability of staff, the 

briefing may be conducted by a qualified and trained DOL representative, a representative from the Employer Support of the Guard and Reserves or another qualified and trained individual, such as a member of the Judge Advocate General Corps 

or Solicitor General’s staff. National Guard and Reserve personnel are also informed, during the Preseparation Counseling session, about the services available 

to them at the DOL One-Stop Career Centers. Members looking for jobs or a career 

change are encouraged to visit and register with the One-Stop Career Center nearest their residence, once they return home. 

Why does the Department emphasize a USERRA Briefing for our National Guard 

and Reserve personnel? The overwhelming majority of those activated have jobs 

when they are activated; therefore, they have jobs to which they will return. This 

is supported by the 2006 Status of Forces Survey conducted by the Defense Manpower Data Center (DMDC) which shows that 78 percent of National Guard and Reserve members, who were activated in the 24 months preceding the survey, were 

employed prior to activation. We plan to address meeting their needs once home by 

leveraging technology. 

While at the demobilization station, they get information about their eligibility to 

receive employment assistance and other transition services up to 180 days after demobilization from any of the Military Services Transition Office and DOL One-Stop 

Career Center. 

In addition to the DOL Employment Workshops, the Military Services provide a 

vast array of additional employment seminars and one-on-one counseling to 

Servicemembers. This extensive assistance covers: resume and cover letter writing; 

information about electronic job banks and Internet access to automated employment tools (resume writer, cover letter and job assistance tutorials); tools on salary 

negotiation; location of job fairs; details about Federal employment workshops and 

seminars; opportunities for post military employment networking; relocation assistance; information about government partnerships for employment and training; benefits for members who are involuntarily separated; employer panels; and information about Veterans benefits (including disability benefits). 

The second component of TAP is the DOL TAP Employment Workshop. Attendance is voluntary on the part of Active Component Servicemembers and their 

spouses, with the exception of the Marine Corps which has made attending the DOL 

Employment Workshop mandatory. The DOL Employment Workshops are 21⁄2 days 

in length. The curriculum, facilitators, workshop materials, data collection and analysis related to the employment workshops are the responsibility of DOL. During the 

21⁄2-day workshop, Active Component Servicemembers receive information on labor 

market conditions, assessing individual skills and competencies, how to write effective resumes and cover letters, proper interviewing techniques, and the best methods of searching for jobs. They also learn how to use electronic employment data 

banks. Finally, they get information addressing the special employment needs of 

those separating with a disability. 

16

The third component of TAP is the VA Benefits Briefing. This, too, is voluntary 

for Active Component Servicemembers and is 4 hours in length. The 4-hour briefing 

addresses education and training; health care; home loans; life insurance; vocational 

rehabilitation and employment (VR&E); disability benefits; burial benefits; and dependents’ and survivors’ benefits. 

Demobilizing National Guard and Reserve Servicemembers receive a one-hour VA 

briefing which also includes information on Disabled Transition Assistance Program 

(DTAP). Although not mandatory, if a VA Benefits Briefing is on the demobilization 

schedule, all members of that unit receive the briefing. The materials, information, 

counselors, and all data collection and analysis related to the VA Benefits Briefings 

are the responsibility of the VA. 

The fourth and final component of TAP is DTAP. Attendance at the Disabled 

Transition Assistance Program is voluntary for Active Component Servicemembers 

and is a separate two-hour briefing. DTAP is for Servicemembers and veterans who 

have, or suspect they have a service-connected disability or an injury or illness that 

was aggravated by service. During the two hour DTAP briefing, VA addresses Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment, sometimes referred to as Chapter 31. DTAP 

addresses the five tracks to employment: re-employment; rapid access to employment; employment through long term services; independent living services; and self 

employment. DTAP also addresses other services such as medical, dental, optical, 

mental health treatment, special adapted housing, Vet Centers, vocational/educational counseling and special hiring authorities for Federal employment. VA provides all materials and information, counselors, data collection and any analysis related to DTAP. 

Finally, we cannot overlook the many options for Federal employment such as: 

Veterans Recruitment Appointment (VRA), Veterans Employment Opportunities Act 

(VEOA), Appointment of 30 percent or More Disabled Veterans, Federal Career Intern Program (FCIP), Small Business Administration and the National Veterans 

Business Development Corporation Programs for those who want to start their own 

business or franchise. 

I now want to share with you some ongoing initiatives in DOD as they relate to 

post-military employment for our Servicemembers. 

OTHER INITIATIVES UNDERWAY

Special Working Group on Transition to Civilian Employment of National Guard 

and Reserves 

A more recent initiative is the establishment of a 2-year Special Working Group 

on Transition to Civilian Employment of National Guard and Reserve Members Returning from Mobilized Status in direct or indirect Support of Operation Iraqi Freedom or Operation Enduring Freedom, as specified in Section 676 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007. 

The working group will identify and assess the needs of CONUS and OCONUS 

military members with regard to returning to civilian occupations or school, the preand post-deployment delivery of these services, and the effect of the severity of 

wounds or injuries upon their return to the civilian workforce. We look forward to 

accessing this valuable information and utilizing it to the benefit of transitioning 

Servicemembers. 

Support for Severely Injured 

As you are aware, DOD and VA established task forces to review how wounded 

Servicemembers are served and how to better collaborate to meet the needs of the 

members and their families. However, today, the Joint Seamless Transition Program, established by VA, in coordination with the Military Services, also facilitates 

a more timely receipt of benefits for severely injured Servicemembers. Veteran Benefits Administration (VBA) counselors visit all severely injured patients and inform 

them of the full range of VA services, including readjustment programs, employment 

programs, and information on educational and housing benefits. 

Seamless Transition helps these personnel touch base with vocational rehabilitation and employment services, and assists in putting them in contact with other employment resources available through DOL, the Military Services, the Joint Seamless Transition Office, DOD and the Military Services severely injured and wounded 

programs. All of these are available to help Servicemembers and their families connect with the employment assistance they need. 

To expand employment assistance to our severely injured and wounded, the Office 

of the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense, Civilian Personnel Management Service, 

has undertaken a broad outreach program called ‘‘Hiring Heroes Career Fairs’’ to 

assist severely injured Servicemembers and their families in finding employment opVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:27 Sep 27, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00020 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\RD41451\DOCS\37761.TXT SENVETS PsN: ROWENA
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portunities in the DOD, other Federal agencies, and the private sector. Outreach efforts to Servicemembers and veterans are conducted by working across government 

and the private sector to ensure information offered through their educational and 

training programs is available to the Servicemembers at the career fairs. 

Career fairs that support the Department’s ‘‘Hiring Heroes’’ program have been 

offered at the following locations: Walter Reed Army Medical Center, DC; Fort Sam 

Houston, TX; Womack Army Medical Center, Fort Bragg, NC; Eisenhower Army 

Medical Center, Fort Gordon, GA; and Walson Army Medical Center, Fort Dix, NJ. 

Three career fairs have been conducted in partnership with the Coalition to Salute 

America’s Heroes, a non-profit organization. Over 2,000 Servicemembers and their 

family members have attended these career fairs and several more are planned well 

into the future. 

Corporate America has responded to the call; many Fortune 500 companies and 

small businesses are recruiting injured and wounded veterans for their skills, experience, maturity, and work ethic. Many of these companies are creating special programs geared specifically toward finding employment in their respective companies 

for these veterans and their family members. 

Task Force Recommendations on Returning Global War on Terror Heroes 

Now, I’d like to turn your attention to the recommendations contained in the recent report of the President’s Task Force on Returning Global War on Terror Heroes 

that relate to employment. Of the 25 overall recommendations, DOD is the lead 

agency on two that are related to employment:

• The first recommendation, O–1, calls for us to ‘‘Increase Attendance at TAP and 

DTAP Sessions.’’ This recommendation calls for DOD to increase attendance at TAP 

and DTAP sessions to 85 percent of those separating Servicemembers and demobilizing National Guard and Reserves Forces. To meet this challenge, a Departmental 

Memorandum is being prepared that will go to the Secretariats of each Military Department informing them of the Department’s 85 percent attendance goal. Due to 

the complexities and uniqueness of the National Guard and Reserves, how they mobilize and demobilize, this is the area where we plan to leverage TurboTAP technology to help us achieve this goal. We want at least 85 percent of all demobilizing 

National Guard and Reserves as well as Active Component Servicemembers, to establish a TurboTAP account and use the system as intended. 

• The second recommendation is O–4, ‘‘Improve Civilian Workforce Credentialing 

and Certification.’’ During the Preseparation Counseling phase of TAP, 

Servicemembers (National Guard, Reserves and Active Component) learn where and 

how to access information relating to licensure, certification and apprenticeship. The 

Army, after doing extensive research, conducting gap analysis, and following a comprehensive review of the credentialing process, created ‘‘Credentialing Opportunities 

On-Line (COOL)’’ or Army COOL. This robust web site helps soldiers find civilian 

credentialing programs related to their military occupational specialty. It helps 

them understand what it takes to obtain a credential and it helps them identify resources available to pay credential fees. The Navy followed the Army with Navy 

COOL. DOD is working with the Air Force and Marine Corps and hopes that they 

will soon join their sister Services with a COOL web site. 

• I have already addressed the fact that, during the Preseparation Counseling 

phase of TAP, information about the DOL One-Stop Career Center web site is provided to Active and Reserve Component personnel. One of the tools on this web site 

is the Credentials Center, which a Servicemember can use to locate State-specific 

occupational licensing requirements, find agency contact information, information on 

industry-recognized certifications as well as the associated workforce education and 

examinations that test or enhance knowledge, experience or skills in an occupation 

or profession. DOD and DOL established a ‘‘Credentialing Working Group,’’ that is 

charged with developing appropriate goals, objectives, and outcomes that will help 

remove credentialing barriers that some veterans and transitioning Servicemembers 

face today. 

CONCLUSION

Mr. Chairman, as I stated earlier in my remarks, the collaboration and partnership between DOL, VA, SBA, the VSOs and MSOs and others is outstanding. The 

collaborative structures we have in place (JEC, BEC, HEC, TAP Steering Committee, Advisory Committee on Veterans Employment and Training and Employer 

Outreach, and the Joint VA Seamless Transition Office) provide multiple forums for 

our continued dialogue on these crucial issues. The Report to the President on ‘‘Returning Global War on Terror Heroes’’ provides us another opportunity to communicate, strategize and work together. 

18

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my statement. On behalf of the men and women 

in the military today and their families, I thank you and the Members of the Senate 

Committee on Veterans’ Affairs for your steadfast support during these demanding 

times.

Chairman AKAKA. Thank you very much, Mr. Dominguez. 

Now we will hear from Ms. Caden. 

STATEMENT OF JUDITH A. CADEN, DIRECTOR, VOCATIONAL 

REHABILITATION AND EMPLOYMENT SERVICE, VETERANS 

BENEFITS ADMINISTRATION, DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS 

AFFAIRS 

Ms. CADEN. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to be 

here today to discuss these very important issues. 

I will first mention the recommendation that came out of the 

President’s Task Force on Returning Global War on Terror Heroes. 

For the VR&E program, there was one recommendation, that we 

authorize an immediate extension of from 12 to 18 months of an 

individualized extended evaluation plan for those returning 

servicemembers whose disabilities or injuries are so great they 

need more time to really decide on next steps, and we can assess 

whether employment is a feasible goal for them, and that change 

has been implemented. 

VR&E and the Department of Labor’s Veterans’ Employment and 

Training Service, or VETS, continue to work in partnership to provide comprehensive employment services to veterans with serviceconnected disabilities. In October of 2005, we signed a revised 

Memorandum of Agreement to expand and solidify our cooperation 

and our ability to work together, and the implementation has been 

made easier, as Mr. Ciccolella mentioned, with the co-location of 72 

Disabled Veterans Outreach Program Specialists, or DVOPS, at 36 

of our regional offices and 36 of our out-based sites. So at these offices, those DVOP Specialists work hand-in-hand with our VR&E 

staff together to efficiently and effectively deliver employment services, and both groups work with the same tools, including the 

VR&E Job Resource Labs and our new online employment tool, 

VetSuccess.gov.

VR&E Service and the Department of Defense collaborate in 

many ways, and we absolutely recognize the importance of 

partnering with DOD. They are the main component of our early 

intervention and outreach efforts to assist in the transition of seriously injured servicemembers. 

An example of this effort is a Memorandum of Understanding we 

entered into with the U.S. Army Materiel Command in support of 

their Always a Soldier Initiative, and that is focused on providing 

newly discharged servicemembers with another employment tool to 

come into AMC. And, in fact, since the beginning of FY 2006, that 

has helped towards the Department of Army’s hiring over 372 veterans that have participated in the VR&E program. 

More recently, we signed an MOU with the Naval Air Warfare 

Center Aircraft Division, or NAWCAD, again to provide another 

employment tool, and this is a little bit more innovative because 

while they are in the VR&E program, NAWCAD will also work 

with veterans to provide paid work experience, provide on-the-job 

19

training opportunities, and to provide the participants with a program mentor. 

We work with DOD as far as working with their other organizations, like Department of the Navy Safe Harbor, Department of the 

Army Wounded Warriors program, and others. 

DTAP is part of the TAP program, and DTAP, the Disabled 

Transition Assistance Program, is really my piece of TAP for 

VR&E. It explains the VR&E program. In FY 2006, we conducted 

823 DTAP briefings attended by 15,500 participants. We are expanding that effort. So far this year, we have had almost 1,500 

briefings for nearly 29,000 participants. We also have provided a 

DTAP CD, mainly for members of the Guard and Reserve who 

maybe can’t attend one of these sessions. They can have a CD as 

soon as they get home, take it home, and watch it. They can also 

access it from our web site. 

We have expanded our outreach efforts to OIF and OEF 

servicemembers and veterans, including the Coming Home to Work 

program, which is carried out at eight of the primary military 

treatment facilities. We partner with DOD and with DOL in this 

effort and, to date, there have been 442 participants in that program. 

There are many other efforts that are outlined in my full statement, but I appreciate the opportunity to be here today. Thank 

you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Caden follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JUDITH A. CADEN, DIRECTOR OF VOCATIONAL REHABILITATION AND EMPLOYMENT SERVICE, VETERANS BENEFITS ADMINISTRATION,

DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS

Mr. Chairman and distinguished Members of the Committee, I am pleased to be 

here today to discuss the progress made by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) 

in improving the delivery of employment services and benefits to our Nation’s veterans. 

We are working in close partnership with the Department of Defense (DOD) and 

the Department of Labor (DOL) to leverage every opportunity to improve the transition of our separating servicemembers from military to civilian life. We have expanded and cemented our relationships, allowing us to work smarter and better in 

our separate but related missions. Our reinforced partnerships now cut across a 

range of difficult issues and have reduced many of the problems encountered by previous generations of veterans. 

I am pleased to provide an overview of the actions the Vocational Rehabilitation 

and Employment Service has taken in response to the recommendations of the 

President’s Task Force on Returning Global War on Terror Heroes, and the innovative partnerships, programs, and initiatives we have implemented together with 

DOD and DOL to improve coordination among our three systems as we deliver our 

programs, services, and benefits. 

TASK FORCE ON RETURNING GLOBAL WAR

ON TERROR HEROES RECOMMENDATIONS

On March 6, 2007, President Bush established the Task Force on Returning Global War on Terror Heroes. The purpose of the Task Force was to improve the delivery 

of Federal services and benefits to Global War on Terror (GWOT) servicemembers 

and veterans. The Task Force report includes 25 recommendations that focus on enhancing the delivery of services and information to GWOT servicemembers and veterans within existing authority and resource levels. The report outlined one recommendation specifically directed toward the Vocational Rehabilitation & Employment (VR&E) Program. 

The Task Force recommended that the VR&E Service authorize the immediate extension, to 18 months, for an Individualized Extended Evaluation Plan (IEEP) for 

those OIF/OEF participants whose severity of injuries warrant additional time to 

20

determine feasibility of achieving an employment goal. During this extended evaluation, VA will continue to provide independent living services to these severely injured servicemembers and veterans. 

Current law does not allow the provision of a program of solely independent living 

services to a servicemember through the VR&E Program. However, independent living services may be provided to either a veteran or a servicemember with a serious 

employment handicap under an extended evaluation plan or as part of a plan of 

services leading to an employment goal. When the feasibility of achieving a vocational goal cannot be readily determined for an individual with a serious employment handicap, an IEEP is developed. Various services to evaluate an individual’s 

feasibility of achieving a vocational goal can be provided under an IEEP, including 

independent living services. 

Many individuals returning from the GWOT with very serious injuries require extensive medical treatment and a prolonged transition to civilian life. Those individuals who are so severely disabled that a decision cannot yet be made about whether 

an employment goal is currently feasible may need an extended evaluation of more 

than 12 months. A requirement for a formal request for an extension at the end of 

the 12-month period could potentially cause an interruption in needed services if 

there is any delay in preparing, evaluating, or approving the request. An extension 

of the IEEP at the time the plan is developed will avoid interruption and allow sustained access to specialized assessments and any necessary independent living services. 

In response to this recommendation, VR&E Service authorized VR&E Officers at 

our 57 regional offices (ROs) to approve the extension of an IEEP at the time a plan 

is developed for those GWOT participants whose severity of injuries warrant additional time to determine feasibility of achieving a vocational goal. In such cases, an 

initial IEEP may be developed for a period of up to 18 months. Extensions for additional periods of an IEEP, including independent living services, may also be authorized prior to completion of the initial 18 months. 

PARTNERSHIP WITH THE DEPARTMENT OF LABOR’S VETERANS’ EMPLOYMENT

AND TRAINING SERVICE

VR&E and DOL’s Veterans’ Employment and Training Service (VETS) continue 

to work in partnership to provide comprehensive employment services to veterans 

with service-connected disabilities. 

In October 2005, VR&E and VETS signed a revised memorandum of agreement 

(MOA) that expands and solidifies our cooperation in case management, employment services, communication, reporting, oversight and monitoring, and accountability. These activities are all necessary to assist veterans to successfully achieve 

their rehabilitation goals. Associated with the MOA, guidelines and parameters for 

three workgroups have been established to develop and implement the following 

critical activities:

• Establish effective performance measures for assessing the results of partnership activities; 

• Design a joint training curriculum for use at the National Veterans’ Training 

Institute (NVTI); and 

• Develop a methodology for joint data collection, analysis, and reporting.

Our goal of achieving excellence in the delivery of employment services requires 

that we establish and maintain close working relationships with our VETS partners. 

Implementation of the MOA with VETS has been made easier with the co-location 

of 72 Disabled Veterans Outreach Program (DVOP) specialists at 36 VA regional offices and 36 outbased facilities. At these offices, DVOP specialists and VR&E staff 

work together to efficiently and effectively deliver employment services. Both groups 

have access to the same resources and online technologies such as the VR&E job 

resource labs and VetSuccess.gov.

As a result of the national MOA, 38 regional offices have established formalized 

memoranda of understanding (MOUs) with VETS partners at the local level within 

their state. VR&E’s Employment Coordinators partner with DVOP specialists and 

Local Veterans Employment Representative (LVER) staff. As partners, they assess 

the feasibility of employment services, recommend an appropriate vocational rehabilitation plan with the goal of suitable employment or independent living, and deliver job-readiness skills training and job-placement services. 

I believe we have successfully established effective partnerships with VETS, and 

that disabled veterans are benefiting from our success through the availability and 

delivery of more comprehensive employment services. My staff and I meet with our 

VETS counterparts on an ongoing basis. We have developed the Five Track Employment Model so that, from a service-delivery point of view, consultation and assistVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:27 Sep 27, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00024 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\RD41451\DOCS\37761.TXT SENVETS PsN: ROWENA
21

ance from local DVOP specialists, LVER staff and VETS Federal staff are detailed 

and emphasized in each employment track. 

From our standpoint, the VR&E/VETS partnership is strong and continues to gain 

momentum through our ongoing communications and joint participation in training 

activities and development of effective employment policies. 

PARTNERSHIP WITH THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE (DOD)

VR&E Service and the Department of Defense (DOD) collaborate in many ways. 

We recognize the importance of partnering with DOD, as they are a main component of our early intervention and outreach efforts to assist in the transition of seriously injured servicemembers. 

U.S. Army Materiel Command 

In June 2005, VR&E signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with U.S. 

Army Materiel Command (AMC) in support of its ‘‘Always a Soldier’’ initiative. This 

initiative is focused on providing continued support to veterans beyond their active 

duty service by ensuring that they have access to both challenging and rewarding 

career opportunities. Furthermore, it underscores AMC’s commitment to working 

with VA to link disabled veterans seeking employment with AMC offices across the 

Nation. VR&E and AMC offer veterans with disabilities opportunities for employment, career advancement, job mobility, family economic well-being, and greater financial security. Through this MOU, VR&E and AMC have agreed to:

• Support AMC initiative by making ‘‘Always a Soldier’’ program information 

available to veterans with service-connected disabilities through the local VR&E 

staff at each RO across the Nation, as appropriate; 

• Encourage AMC human resource managers and VR&E employment staff to organize local activities for the ‘‘Always a Soldier’’ program; and 

• Construct new lines of communication to inform veterans with disabilities about 

employment opportunities with AMC.

As a result of this MOU, AMC has contributed to the Department of the Army’s 

commitment to hiring veterans with disabilities. Since the beginning of FY 2006, the 

Department of the Army has hired 372 veterans from the VR&E program. 

Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division 

In March 2007, the VR&E Service signed an MOU with Naval Air Warfare Center 

Aircraft Division (NAWCAD) to advance, improve, and expand employment opportunities for veterans with disabilities. This MOU established a partnership between 

both agencies and provides the framework to bring veterans with disabilities into 

the civilian workforce through the NAWCAD Disabled Veterans Cooperative Education Program (DVCEP). Through DVCEP, NAWCAD and VR&E will assist qualified veterans in taking advantage of VA educational and vocational rehabilitation 

benefits while attending accredited college courses, leading to employment opportunities with NAWCAD. Beyond standard VR&E program services, NAWCAD has 

agreed to:

• Promote DVCEP to VA’s 57 regional offices; 

• Provide paid work experience to full and/or part-time college students; 

• Provide on-the-job training opportunities; 

• Provide participants with a program mentor; 

• Work with program candidates to create an Individual Development Plan; 

• Upon successful completion of the education program, consider program participants for permanent hire; 

• Use Student Career Experience Program (SCEP) as a mechanism to provide tuition assistance to program participants, where appropriate; and 

• Use SCEP appointing authority to non-competitively convert eligible program 

participants to permanent positions after satisfactory performance and completion 

of all academic requirements, subject to funding limitations and needs of the organization.

VR&E Service and Program staffs are officially kicking-off this partnership today. 

They are touring the NAWCAD facility in Patuxent River, MD with the goal of formalizing relationships, practices, and referral processes. Once the program is up 

and running, we plan to expand DVCEP to seven additional locations across the 

country. 

VR&E and DOD Working Partnerships 

Integral to the success of employment services within VR&E are the combined efforts of DOD entities by which we link together, through mutual service delivery 

offerings, to provide necessary vocational rehabilitation services to servicemembers 

22

and veterans with disabilities, and their families. There are many working partnerships of an informal nature that support successful vocational rehabilitation and 

employment programs. VR&E, in conjunction with DOD, consults, advises, and coordinates employment services for servicemembers and veterans. We also provide 

VR&E training for DOD staff members. VR&E works closely with the following 

DOD organizations to coordinate the provision of priority services to the most severely injured servicemembers.

• Department of the Navy ‘‘SAFE HARBOR’’ program. 

• Department of the Army ‘‘Wounded Warriors Program.’’

• USMC’s ‘‘Wounded Warrior Regiment (formerly ‘‘Marines for Life’’). 

• Department of the Air Force ‘‘Palace HART.’’

• DOD’s Military Severely Injured Center.

COMBINED PARTNERSHIP WITH THE DEPARTMENT OF LABOR VETERANS’ EMPLOYMENT

AND TRAINING SERVICE (DOL–VETS) AND DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE (DOD)

VR&E Service & VR&E field staff, DOL–VETS, and DOD cooperate to provide 

Disabled Transition Assistance Program (DTAP) services to separating 

servicemembers. Through this relationship, the agencies partner to ensure that the 

transition from active duty to veteran status is seamless for servicemembers. 

The proportion of separating, deactivating, and retiring servicemembers who participate in VA benefits and TAP/DTAP briefings prior to separation, deactivation, 

or retirement was 53 percent in FY 2006. 

Disabled Transition Assistance Program (DTAP) 

In FY 2006, VA conducted 823 DTAP briefings attended by 15,500 participants. 

We are significantly expanding our program, as evidenced by the nearly 1,500 DTAP 

briefings we have already provided this fiscal year for nearly 29,000 participants. 

DTAP briefings are not mandatory in all military services. However, VR&E, in 

cooperation with DOD and DOL, strongly encourages servicemembers who are separating with a service-connected disability to attend the DTAP briefing. VR&E Service has also worked through the TAP Steering Committee to suggest that DTAP become mandatory for servicemembers being medically separated or servicemembers 

who believe they are separating with a service-connected disability. 

Coming Home to Work (CHTW) Program 

VR&E Service has partnered with DOD and DOL to expand its outreach to Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom (OIF/OEF) servicemembers 

and veterans through early intervention and seamless transition initiatives, to include the Coming Home to Work (CHTW) program. CHTW provides valuable civilian job skills, exposure to employment opportunities, and work experience to 

servicemembers facing medical separation from the military and uncertain futures. 

Participants work with VR&E, DOD, and DOL staff to obtain work experience in 

a Government facility that supports their career goals. 

VR&E coordinates the Coming Home to Work (CHTW) initiative for 

servicemembers pending medical separation from active duty at eight primary military treatment facilities: Walter Reed Army Medical Center, National Naval Medical Center Bethesda, Naval Medical Center Balboa (San Diego), Brooke Army Medical Center (San Antonio), Eisenhower Army Medical Center (Fort Gordon), Evans 

Army Community Hospital (Fort Carson), Darnall Army Community Hospital (Fort 

Hood), and Madigan Army Medical Center (Fort Lewis). 

To date, there have been 442 participants in the program with the following results:

• 23 in active work-experience programs. 

• 201 receiving early intervention services. 

• 182 transferred from MTF to local RO for continued VR&E services. 

• 26 returned to active duty. 

• 10 direct hires. 

CLOSING

Mr. Chairman, I believe our efforts and progress underscore our dedication to removing barriers to the employment of veterans with disabilities through cooperative 

partnerships with the Department of Defense and the Department of Labor. We are 

better coordinating our overlapping infrastructure and services, and we continually 

seek additional opportunities for partnership. Our Departments are singularly committed to the men and women we all serve. They are our highest priority. 

23

Our greatest challenge, and our greatest opportunity, is to build and deploy employment services that meet the needs of veterans, servicemembers, and their families for today and tomorrow. We will continue to persevere toward that goal. 

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my statement. I thank you and Members of this 

Committee for your outstanding and continued support of our servicemembers, veterans, and their families. I greatly appreciate being here today and look forward to 

answering any questions you or other Members of the Committee may have.

Chairman AKAKA. Thank you very much, Ms. Caden. 

I was glad to hear Mr. Dominguez mention about speaking to 

DOL and collaborating and cooperating. This is what we are trying 

to bring about. So I have a question for each of you. 

The first question is for DOD, Mr. Dominguez. In the case of severely injured or wounded servicemembers, it seems to me that 

there are a myriad number of programs that could be used to address their needs. First, I would like to ask DOD how you decide 

whether to refer an individual to VA’s Coming Home to Work or 

to DOL’s REALifelines program. And once that linkage is made, is 

there any system in place to track the individual’s progress? 

Mr. DOMINGUEZ. Sir, I will take a stab at that. I think the referral actually happens by the fact that REALifelines also puts Department of Labor people in the hospital. So it is conversations between the Department of Labor people, veterans’ benefits counselors there, and then the staff at the military treatment facilities 

that refer, if you will, people to REALifelines. Once they are into 

those programs, it is our two sister agencies that are actually delivering the services in terms of vocational rehabilitation and training 

and assistance in connecting with employers. I hope that answered 

your question, sir. 

Chairman AKAKA. Yes. The other part to that was whether you 

have any system in place to track the individuals’ progress. 

Mr. DOMINGUEZ. I will have to get back to you on

that, sir, because I don’t know if we do——

Chairman AKAKA. That is fine. 

Mr. DOMINGUEZ. Assistant Secretary Ciccolella may know that, 

sir. 

Chairman AKAKA. Well——

Mr. DOMINGUEZ. Pass the buck. 

Chairman AKAKA. Thank you, Mr. Dominguez. 

This question is for VA. In terms of the VA, could you describe 

briefly how your Coming Home to Work program differs from 

DOL’s REALifelines. 

Ms. CADEN. Sure. I think there are similarities, which I don’t 

necessarily think is a bad thing. I think we are both providing as 

many services as we can. We are a bit more focused, I believe, and 

I will let Chick talk about REALifelines. 

In the Coming Home to Work program, we have the counselors 

at these eight military treatment facilities. We work with the DOD 

staff to identify those soon-to-be veterans that are in a medical 

hold and are ready to maybe get some work experience, and so we 

will work to get them into a non-paid work experience. We work 

with them to do that. They will do that while they are at the treatment facility. And then we work to transition them when they go 

back to their home to become a full-blown member of the Vocational Rehabilitation Program. It could be that that work experience turns into a permanent job or it helps them decide what kind 

24

of training they might need for the future and get a job at their 

home base. 

I do think we are similar, but we might work with different veterans at different points in their program. 

Chairman AKAKA. From DOL’s perspective, how does your 

REALifeline program interface with the VA’s vocational rehabilitation program? When you are dealing with an individual who is in 

need of vocational rehabilitation for a serious employment handicap, how does that individual get referred for appropriate assistance without falling through the cracks? 

Mr. CICCOLELLA. I think Judy and Mike both touched on this. 

First of all, I would tell you, Senator, that it can’t be just the VA’s 

program or the DOD program, the doctors at the medical treatment 

facilities or the services or just Department of Labor. It has got to 

be all three of those agencies working closely together. 

The REALifelines program we started out at Walter Reed to 

work with individuals once they are stabilized, focuses on identifying, you know, what they may want to do once they leave the 

military. Now, we don’t do that alone at Walter Reed. We work 

right next door to the Department of Veterans Affairs. So if the individual would like to pursue education or an apprenticeship or 

training that VR&E, the Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment Program, offers, whether we see them or whether they see 

them, they will get to the vocational rehabilitation representative, 

and the vocational rehabilitation representatives, again, are right 

there at Walter Reed. They are also right down there together at 

San Antonio at Brooke Army Medical Center. They are at Tripler 

Army Medical Center and they are at Madigan Army Medical Center. So they work together. At Madigan, for example, the agencies 

are all represented and work on one committee called a REACH 

Committee. 

So, for this population of severely wounded and injured, some of 

them will be ready to go to work right away. Some of them want 

to go back to the service. Some of them are pending their evaluation boards. But they all want to do something good in life. That 

is why they came in the military. 

So whatever their requirements or their needs are, the 

REALifelines program is there to assist them. We can hook them 

up with the DVOP or the LVER in the workforce system. The military is there. The military services are there if they want to go 

back in the service, and we are seeing more and more, particularly 

amputees, go back in the service. The Army, in particular, is taking 

more of them back. If they desire to pursue education, then the vocational rehabilitation folks are right there. 

The key to this whole thing is that these agencies work together, 

and that is exactly what is happening at the medical treatment

facilities. 

Chairman AKAKA. Thank you very much. I guess, again, you 

have reemphasized the need for cooperation and collaboration in 

these programs, that all of you do work together on this and the 

importance of that. 

Moving to the next question, and I am directing this to Mr. 

Dominguez and the rest of you can speak about it. My understanding is that the TurboTAP online resource has been launched 

25

and that staff had an opportunity to see a demonstration of it yesterday. I am glad to see this site up and running. The information 

provided us is undeniably helpful for transitioning servicemembers 

and their families. The question is, how are you getting the information out that the site even exists? 

Mr. DOMINGUEZ. Sir, thanks for that question. The preseparation counseling for every member leaving the Armed Forces 

is mandatory. Pre-separation counseling for people demobilizing 

out of the Guard and Reserve is mandatory. And it is in that preseparation counseling session, which is the first part of the Transition Assistance Program, that the—what that really does is give 

them a little bit of everything, to tell them what is out there for 

them and where to go to get help and encourage them to use the 

tools and access the opportunities available to them. So the first 

answer is in the pre-separation counseling. 

The second answer is we met yesterday—my staff and I met yesterday—or, no, it was Monday—with the Deputy Chiefs of Staff for 

Personnel in the military services to demonstrate for them the program, to let them know, OK, it is ready. They have known we have 

been building it. We have been collaborating with them on building 

it. But the purpose of the session was to ask them what are they 

going to do to market this capability. What is it that they will do 

within their services to ensure that commanders are talking about 

it, that personnel people are talking about it. 

And so I have a memo now being drafted to ask them to designate people to a team my Deputy for Military Community and 

Family Policy will head to develop the marketing campaign for 

TurboTAP that will involve that chain of command. 

Chairman AKAKA. What I am referring to is that we are looking 

at information dealing with benefits available, health care, family 

relocation, career building, job searches, and all of this designed to 

help transition these servicemembers. Also, even thinking about 

the younger set that is now returning who are possibly more advanced with technology and the information age, so you can treat 

them a little differently in sending out information to them. 

And so I am glad to hear that you are moving on this, you have 

been meeting on this. I just want to ask Mr. Ciccolella whether he 

has any comments about this and what stage have you had in this 

development and how are you doing. 

Mr. CICCOLELLA. Thanks, Senator. I think Secretary Dominguez 

covered it very well. I would only add to what he said that 

TurboTAP will also be marketed to servicemembers through the 

mobilization and the demobilization briefings. It will be marketed 

at the employment workshops. It will be marketed through our outreach efforts and the veteran employment representatives in the 

workforce system and, of course, through our national campaign 

that all the agencies participate in the job fairs and other activities 

of the Hire Veterans First campaign. 

The collaboration that has been, I think unprecedented between, 

or I should say among the Department of Defense, the military 

services, the individual military services, and the VA has been phenomenal. And two of the folks, Gary Woods and Ron Horn, sitting 

right back here, and their developers, they are the folks that developed this TurboTAP system and they developed it step by step 

26

right along with our input. So I think for that reason, it is probably 

one of the best things that has come along to help our transitioning 

servicemembers and it is going to help a lot of Guardsmen and Reservists, but it is also going to help active duty servicemembers, 

even those who have gone through the employment workshop, because they can go back to it and sign up and create a profile and 

get services that way. It is an awfully good system. 

Chairman AKAKA. Thank you. Thank you for your response. 

Before I call for final comments by Ms. Caden, I would like to 

call on Senator Brown for any opening statement that you may 

have. 

Senator BROWN. I only have a question. I can ask the question 

or defer to the Chair until he is ready. 

Chairman AKAKA. Well, fine. Then let me just finish and then I 

will——

Senator BROWN. OK. Then I will ask quick. 

Chairman AKAKA. Ms. Caden, will you, again coming back to 

that last question——

Ms. CADEN. Sure. 

Chairman AKAKA [continuing].—will you respond with whatever 

you are doing with this. 

Ms. CADEN. Right. Well, like the others, we have been very involved and there is a TAP steering committee working on this. 

What we would plan to do is add TurboTAP links to our 

VetSuccess.gov, which we market to veterans as a place to go learn 

not only about our program, but other programs that are out there 

for them. We do it as part of our DTAP briefings also, emphasizing 

that this is another place to go to for information to make sure 

they have everything. 

One of the most important things is to let our field counselors 

know that this is now out there, and we have started to do that. 

We will reemphasize it. So as they are talking to veterans or soonto-be veterans, whether they are first meeting them in a military 

hospital or a VA hospital or once they are home, to let them know 

this is another resource. But I think it is great. 

Chairman AKAKA. Thank you very much. 

Senator Brown? 

STATEMENT OF HON. SHERROD BROWN,

U.S. SENATOR FROM OHIO 

Senator BROWN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

One question for Mr. Ciccolella, if I could. During the week after 

Memorial Day when we were back in our States, I did a series of 

roundtables with veterans around Ohio, veterans’ service officers 

with veterans, specifically the Iraq War, then a broader group of 

veterans from all the way back to World War II and since, and did 

five or six of these around Ohio and listened to 20 or 25 veterans 

just talk about the VA and talk about the challenges that they face, 

especially in health care. 

Two young men in Canton, Ohio, a city in Northeast Ohio in a 

county of about a third of a million people, were Iraqi War veterans 

and I was particularly about the conversation I had with them. 

They are part of an organization with which I am sure you are familiar, Helmets to Hardhats program. Talk through, if you would, 

27

how—or let me back up for a moment. They both came from families, the father of one of them was a union organizer, the other one 

I believe is his mother or father was a union member. So they 

came out of a union tradition which might have led them more to 

this program or gotten them the information about it that other returning soldiers and Marines or sailors might not have gotten. 

Talk through with me, if you would, how we make sure that 

those sort of third-party programs, if you will, that are not sponsored by the VA, how we make those available, make people knowledgeable about them and get young men and women into those 

very important programs, jobs, what have you. 

Mr. CICCOLELLA. Sure. Thank you, Senator. Well, you mentioned 

the Helmets to Hardhats Program. It is really a good program. It 

is under new management now, and the management that is operating it now is very good. 

I will tell you one way that we are able to make sure that 

servicemembers who are leaving the military who are inclined toward the building trades and construction trades, how they hook 

up with Helmets to Hardhats, and that is at the Transition Assistance Program conferences that train the TAP facilitators who facilitate the Department of Labor Employment Workshop, because Helmets to Hardhats is often there and they set up a booth. And also, 

they work very closely with the TAP facilitators when the workshops are actually going on. 

In Ohio, you have a number of people who are inclined in that 

direction and you have very good programs. Your Governor has terrific programs for your veterans, some of the best in the Nation. 

Governor Strickland has a terrific program called ‘‘Promises Kept.’’ 

In the conferences that go on with veteran employment representatives, the VA is always there. The Helmets to Hardhats frequently 

are there at those same conferences. You have a program up there 

in Ohio, a Transition Assistance Program for veterans and spouses, 

not just the folks that are coming out, and not just the folks that 

are in the Guard and Reserve who are redeploying. So the word 

gets out that way. 

Ohio has some of the best programs for taking care of veterans, 

including the Guard and Reserve, because you have a program 

called Serving Warriors at Transition. It is called SWAT program. 

And the veteran employment representatives and frequently the 

VA representatives will go out to the mobilization and demobilization events. When they talk about employment, they talk about 

things like Helmets to Hardhats and other programs that are available so they can hook them up there. 

So it is a very proactive effort on the part of Helmets to Hardhats and the other folks, and it is also the employment system and 

the Department of Veterans Affairs and the State workforce system 

and the State Directors of Veterans Affairs working together to 

make sure that the word gets out about this, and it is working. 

Senator BROWN. Thank you for that, and thank you for your acknowledgment about my State. I appreciate that. 

I hear over and over that when Guard and Reserve return from 

Iraq, that one of the reasons we don’t know initially about some of 

their illnesses, particularly PTSD and all that come, particularly 

any kind of psychological damage or illness from which they suffer, 

28

that these young men, particularly Guard and Reserve, just want 

to get home. They don’t want to do screenings. They just want to 

get home. 

Are we in these employment opportunities that are out there, 

like Helmets to Hardhats, if we are not reaching them on that first 

screening, on that first go-around when they want to get on with 

their lives thinking that their job will be just like it was and their 

spouse will be just like he or she was and their kids will be good 

and everything will be the same when so often they aren’t, are people falling through the cracks with employment opportunities? 

Are you finding a way if you don’t get them—maybe this is for 

you, Ms. Caden, or maybe for you, Mr. Dominguez—if we are not 

getting them right from the start, are we getting them a month 

later or three months later through these conferences or other 

ways? What guarantees are there that we are not missing out on 

these opportunities that are there for them in many cases? 

Ms. CADEN. Let me start real quickly. One thing that we have 

tried to do anytime we make a contact with a soon-to-be veteran 

or a new veteran, either from the National Guard or Reserve or 

from the regular service (often that first contact is when they first 

come home or when they are first in a hospital) is offer the vocational rehabilitation program to them, tell them about it, and tell 

them about the different employers like the Helmets to Hardhats. 

We have built links for all of these employers on the VetSuccess.gov

web site, which we hope all veterans use, so that it is right there 

also. They can link to, say, Helmets to Hardhats, learn about them. 

They can even send an application to them at that point. So we 

build those links. 

But what we are trying to do now is, if we meet them and their 

first wish is to get home and see what is going on in their lives, 

we will do follow-ups. We are doing quarterly, six-month, yearly 

follow-ups to again remind the severely disabled of the vocational 

rehabilitation program, that it is there for them, and maybe this 

is now the better point to come in and access that. 

Senator BROWN. Mr. Dominguez? 

Mr. DOMINGUEZ. I wanted to make a couple points on that. The 

first is that as part of our routine data exchanges now with Veterans Affairs, we provide information on all demobilizing Guard 

and Reserves, so automated data feeds to the VA so they know who 

is coming. 

The second thing is that when Guard and Reserve units come 

home, we deploy counselors, so there is a big family assistance effort, a transition effort pushed out in cooperation with the Adjutants General for the Guard and the commanders of the Reserve 

forces for the Reserves. But we put people out there to do the counseling and the assistance to them in terms of reintegration back 

into the civil society. So even if they don’t get it at the demobilization station, it is available to them while they are in the early 

stages of their transition home. 

And then with regard to people who may be suffering from 

PTSD, everyone does pre-deployment health assessments, so they 

complete a form that tells about the kinds of things they are experiencing, post-deployment health assessments, and then six months 

after they get back we connect with them again to do a post-deployVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:27 Sep 27, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00032 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\RD41451\DOCS\37761.TXT SENVETS PsN: ROWENA
29

ment health reassessment. So if anybody is manifesting symptoms 

of PTSD or any kinds of problems, there is an opportunity for them 

to tell us so we can get to them. 

There is also available to them Military OneSource. At any time, 

they can go to that and access a counselor and that counselor will 

appear in their neighborhood, you know, 30 minutes from their 

home, for them to talk to in a private and confidential way outside 

the chain of command. So that is available to all those people coming back. 

Senator BROWN [presiding]. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Now that I am the Chairman—sorry about that——

[Laughter.] 

Senator BROWN. I am just finding out how it works around here. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator BROWN. Thank you very much to all three of you for 

joining us. I really appreciate your candor and your help and your 

public service. Thanks for joining us. 

I call the second panel. We will hear from two groups from the 

private sector working in different ways to match veterans with appropriate jobs and to maximize their opportunities of getting the 

right job—if the second panel would come forward. 

Two of you, I understand, are husband and wife. I am guessing 

it is you two, right? 

Mr. BRADLEY. We work with each other——

Senator BROWN. Oh, I thought you were. I am sorry. 

Thank you. From the DirectEmployers Association, we welcome 

their Executive Director, Bill Warren. Representing Bradley-Morris, Inc., are the company’s co-founders, not related except at work, 

Shaun Bradley and Sandy Morris, and my understanding is Mr. 

Warren will begin with five minutes. Mr. Bradley and Ms. Morris 

will split their five minutes however you want. 

I have to leave right around the time your testimony concludes. 

Either Senator Akaka or Senator Murray will be here to preside or 

we will recess until one of them comes back, so I apologize for that. 

Mr. Warren, I would love to hear your testimony. 

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM WARREN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

DIRECTEMPLOYERS ASSOCIATION, INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA 

Mr. WARREN. Thank you. Chairman Akaka, Ranking Member 

Craig, and distinguished Members of the Committee, thank you for 

the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss transition 

employment issues affecting our Nation’s veterans. 

DirectEmployers Association is a nonprofit association of over 

270 leading U.S. employers. Through the Association, we have developed and managed an employer-funded national employment 

system on the Internet. Our member companies include an impressive group of industry leaders, such as Anheuser-Busch, Boeing, 

Cisco, Coca-Cola, General Electric, General Dynamics, Lockheed 

Martin, Harris Corporation, Northrop Grumman, Proctor and Gamble, Union Pacific, Xerox, and, of course, many others. As you see, 

these are primarily Fortune 500 companies and most are Federal 

contractors. 

Twenty-seven DirectEmployers Association member companies 

were ranked in the 2006 Top 50 Military-Friendly Employers by 

30

G.I. Jobs magazine. This ranking is based on assets dedicated to 

military hiring, policies for Reserve and Guard called to active 

duty, the percentage of new hires who are veterans, and internal 

military and veterans recruiting programs. 

Today, I would like to outline what the private sector is willing 

to do to reach our Nation’s transitioning veterans. Bottom line, 

America’s leading employers are willing to fund and manage a national labor exchange, including an online job distribution and employment program for veterans to enable all employers in our country to reach the veterans. 

Our association has been working on the development of an employer-funded online national labor exchange to replace America’s 

Job Bank since its phase-out was announced by the U.S. Department of Labor early last year. Our members need to reach and connect with our Nation’s veterans. The need to reach them ranks 

equally with their need for an efficient labor market and their decision-making to actually fund a national labor exchange. This need 

was driven by Federal contractors’ statutory obligation to give veterans preference in hiring, the labor shortage facing our Nation, 

and, of course, their sense of social responsibility. Employers realized that today’s veterans have a lot of technical training and possess outstanding leadership skills. 

DirectEmployers Association, to do this, to develop this national 

employment system, has entered into an agreement with the National Association of State Workforce Agencies, NASWA, to provide 

the Job Central National Labor Exchange services to replace the 

functionality previously provided the State workforce agencies by 

America’s Job Bank. This program includes a wide range of services, from job listing uploads and downloads to full-scale site management and a free national labor exchange for all employers and 

all job seekers and all industries. Again, this is a free service to 

all employers and all job seekers. Our alliance with NASWA gives 

us direct access to the States’ One-Stop Career Centers, local veterans’ employment representatives, and disabled veterans’ outreach 

program representatives in each State. 

We are extremely fortunate to be working with workforce experts 

like Dr. Richard Hobbie and Mr. Bob Simonall at NASWA, who 

provide us wise counsel on State-level workforce and veterans 

issues. We are particularly pleased to have their assistance in helping us contact, or helping us connect with the veterans’ community 

at all levels, the State, national, and again, all levels. 

Through our association with NASWA, we have a unique opportunity to work side-by-side with these individuals as well as others 

at the local level who work every day to help veterans gain employment and maximize their employment opportunities. Our goal is 

clearly stated. Our member employers want to work with NASWA, 

the States, veterans, veterans’ organizations, and local employment 

representatives in a true partnership. 

A critical component of Job Central National Labor Exchange is 

VetCentral. VetCentral is a program to deliver Federal contractors’ 

jobs to all veterans, including those currently in transition back to 

civilian life. Some of our recent discussions with government officials have centered around providing additional support for severely injured, wounded and injured servicemembers returning to 

31

civilian life after rehabilitation. We also plan additional support 

and services for military spouses. 

The goal of VetCentral is not compliance but the active facilitation of veterans’ hiring. We believe the spirit of the Jobs for Veterans Act is best met when the right employer and the right veteran find each other right away. We have offered the DOD, VA, 

DOL, and others to help create and manage a veterans only resume bank that would help with the process of making these job 

matches quickly. There needs to be one place where any employer 

can find qualified veterans. 

To design and help develop the VetCentral program, 

DirectEmployers has partnered with XPAND Corporation and contracted for the consulting services of two key former U.S. Department of Labor Employment and Training Administration Managers, Mr. David Morman and Mr. James Vollman. XPAND Corporation, Mr. Morman, and Mr. Vollman all have extensive experience in working with various government agencies and veterans’ 

organizations in the design, development, and implementation of 

online workforce systems and E-Tools. 

XPAND Corporation is a pioneer in advanced technologies and 

has tremendous experience working with the U.S. Department of 

Labor Employment and Training Administration Veterans’ Employment and Training Service. It has extensive knowledge of job 

banks, labor market information, and labor exchange systems, having successfully built and operated and maintained most of DOL’s 

award-winning workforce portals and E-Tools applications over the 

last 10 years. 

Mr. Morman——

Senator BROWN. Mr. Warren, try to wrap up here, if you can. 

Mr. WARREN. Both Mr. Morman and Mr. Vollman are highly respected workforce experts. 

I have gone into this level of detail to assure you that no stone 

was left unturned in our quest for an effective first-line online employment system to match America’s employers with our Nation’s 

veterans. 

As a citizen and as a veteran, I can honestly say we have been 

tremendously encouraged by the hard work and dedication of all 

government officials with whom we have worked with on this 

project. My only recommendation would be to continue the dialogue 

we have established. I truly believe we have a unique opportunity 

to forge a public-private partnership that can become a model for 

helping our Nation’s veterans. 

Thank you for the opportunity to make this presentation today 

and this concludes my remarks. I would be happy to answer any 

questions. Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Warren follows:]

32

PREPARED STATEMENT OF WILLIAM O. WARREN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, DIRECTEMPLOYERS ASSOCIATION

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

‘‘VetCentral,’’ a job distribution program for veterans, has been created by 

DirectEmployers Association to help Federal Contractors meet their statutory job 

posting responsibilities after America’s Job Bank is closed on July 1, 2007 and in 

accordance with the proposed regulations implementing the Jobs for Veterans Act 

of 2002 (JVA). The law requires that any employer receiving Federal contracts in 

the amount $100,000 or more shall immediately list all of its employment openings 

with the ‘‘appropriate employment service delivery system.’’ The law also states that 

each such employment service delivery system shall give such qualified covered veterans priority in referral to such employment openings. 

VetCentral will be fully integrated into DirectEmployers’ JobCentral National 

Labor Exchange site, making it easy for Federal Contractors to comply with the 

amendments to the Federal Contractor Job Listing Program! It will eliminate the 

need for Federal Contractors to identify the appropriate local service delivery system and contacts for their job listings. 

Jobs can be indexed (scraped) from Federal Contractors’ corporate web sites and 

automatically entered into VetCentral. The program will then forward the job listings to the appropriate Local Veterans Employment Representatives (LVERs), and 

Disabled Veterans Outreach Program Representatives (DVOPs) through local OneStop Career Centers integrated in the employment service delivery system. 

DirectEmployers Association has partnered with industry experts to design, develop and implement VetCentral so Federal Contractors can remain compliant with 

The Vietnam Era Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA), as amended 

by the Jobs for Veterans Act of 2002, and easily transition from America’s Job Bank 

when AJB is discontinued. 

2007 is the publication target date for the revised VEVRAA/JVA regulations according to the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs’ (OFCCP) last semiannual regulatory agenda. The OFCCP, as a matter of enforcement discretion, is 

presently allowing Federal Contractors to meet their job listing requirements by 

posting employment openings with either America’s Job Bank or directly with the 

appropriate local employment service delivery system until the amended regulation 

becomes final. 

JobCentral National Labor Exchange (www.jobcentral.com) has been selected by 

The National Association of State Workforce Agencies (NASWA) (www.naswa.org) to 

provide job seekers, employers and states a cost-effective transition from America’s 

Job Bank (AJB) when it is discontinued July 1, 2007, as previously announced by 

the U.S. Department of Labor. 

JobCentral will provide a wide range of employment services to participating state 

workforce agencies, from job listing distribution to and from state employment web 

sites to participation in the national labor exchange with other states. The service 

will also be available to Federal agencies for fast response to recruiting needs, after 

disasters, such as hurricanes or earthquakes. 

FEDERAL CONTRACTORS’ STATUTORY JOB POSTING REQUIREMENTS

The Vietnam Era Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA), enacted in 

1974, requires covered Federal Government contractors and subcontractors to take 

affirmative action to employ and advance in employment specified categories of veterans protected by the Act and prohibits discrimination against such veterans. In 

addition, VEVRAA requires contractors and subcontractors to list their employment 

openings with the appropriate employment service delivery system, and that covered veterans receive priority in referral to such openings from those employment 

service delivery systems. Further, VEVRAA requires Federal Contractors and subcontractors to compile and submit annually a report on the number of current employees who are covered veterans (the VETS–100 Report). The affirmative action 

and mandatory job-listing provisions of VEVRAA are enforced by the Employment 

Standards Administration’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs 

(OFCCP) within the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL). DOL’s Veterans’ Employment 

and Training Service (VETS) administers the veterans’ employment reporting requirement. 

In 1998, the ‘‘Veterans’ Employment Opportunities Act (VEOA)’’ was approved by 

Congress. The VEOA amended VEVRAA to: (1) expand the class of protected veterans to include ‘‘any other veterans who served on active duty during a war or in 

a campaign or expedition for which a campaign badge has been authorized’’; (2) require contractors to include their maximum number and minimum number of emVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:27 Sep 27, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00036 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\RD41451\DOCS\37761.TXT SENVETS PsN: ROWENA
33

ployees during a specific period of time on the VETS–100 Report; (3) increase 

VEVRAA’s contract coverage threshold from $10,000 to $25,000; and (4) prohibit the 

Federal Government from contracting with or paying contractors who fail to file the 

VETS–100 Report. 

Enactment of the Veterans’ Benefit and Health Care Improvement Act of 2000 

(VBHCIA) added ‘‘recently separated veterans’’ as an additional VETS–100 reporting category. The new category was defined in the VBHCIA amendments as ‘‘any 

veteran during the 1 year period beginning on the date of such veteran’s discharge 

or release from active duty.’’ On December 1, 2005, the Office of Federal Contract 

Compliance Programs (OFCCP) announced new regulations that made its Veterans 

Affirmative Action Plan (AAP) requirements consistent with the VEOA and 

VBHCIA. 

Congress revised the veterans’ compliance and reporting requirements for Federal 

Contractors and subcontractors again in 2002 when the ‘‘Jobs for Veterans Act’’ 

(JVA) was enacted. The JVA amendments apply only to contracts and subcontracts 

entered into on or after December 1, 2003. 

The JVA amended VEVRAA’s definition of ‘‘covered veteran’’ by deleting ‘‘veterans 

of the Vietnam era,’’ and adding a new category of veterans who receive an ‘‘Armed 

Forces Service Medal.’’ It also expanded the definition of ‘‘recently separated veterans’’ to include any veteran discharged within the last three (3) years. The JVA 

requires covered Contractors to report the number of all current employees by job 

category and hiring location on the VETS–100 form. It also raised VEVRAA Federal 

contract coverage from $25,000 to $100,000. 

JVA also amended VEVRAA by requiring covered Contractors and subcontractors 

to take affirmative steps to employ qualified disabled veterans, recently separated 

veterans, Armed Forces Service Medal veterans, and other protected veterans. 

Under the JVA, Contractors with a Federal contract or subcontract of $100,000 or 

more that was entered into on or after December 1, 2003, are required to list their 

job openings with an ‘‘appropriate employment service delivery system.’’

In addition to listing their employment openings with an ‘‘appropriate employment service delivery system’’, the JVA proposed regulations provide that Contractors and Subcontractors may list their employment openings with a One-Stop Career Center, other appropriate service delivery points, or America’s Job Bank. The 

definition of an ‘‘appropriate employment service delivery system’’ is not clear in the 

proposed regulations. It is anticipated this will be clarified when OFCCP issues a 

final regulation, scheduled for publication in 2007. 

On January 20, 2006, the OFCCP published ‘‘Part 60–300 Proposed Rule, Affirmative Action and Nondiscrimination Obligations of Contractors and Subcontractors 

Regarding Disabled Veterans, Recently Separated Veterans, Other Protected Veterans, and Armed Forces Service Medal Veterans.’’

In these proposed regulations, OFCCP has interpreted JVA’s mandatory listing 

requirement to mean that Contractors and Subcontractors can no longer meet their 

job listing obligations by posting their jobs on AJB. JVA now requires that job listings be actually listed with or ‘‘pushed’’ to the appropriate local employment service 

delivery system. While a prototype application was developed to accomplish this 

‘‘local job push’’ within the AJB structure in 2003, it has never been implemented 

by USDOL and instead USDOL’s Employment and Training Administration (ETA) 

announced in March 2006 that AJB would be phased out completely by July 1, 2007. 

OFCCP has not yet finalized its Proposed Rule, although the agency has actively 

reviewed the public comments received in response to its proposal. The agency’s last 

semiannual regulatory agenda indicated a 2007 publication target date. 

ASSESSING FEDERAL CONTRACTOR OPTIONS

The failure of OFCCP to issue final rules implementing the Jobs for Veterans Act 

of 2002 has created some confusion about how employers with Federal contracts are 

to comply with the ‘‘mandatory listing’’ requirements of 38 U.S.C. 4212 and its predecessors. The issue arises particularly for those who are now using America’s Job 

Bank (AJB) as a compliance vehicle, something explicitly permitted by current regulations (41 CFR 60–250.5 Paragraph 2) that will become unavailable beginning July 

1 when the Labor Department terminates that service. 

The lack of final rules has resulted in significant speculation about how compliance can be achieved in the post-AJB world. The answer to that question is not simple and depends on two primary facts: (1) whether the contractor has any pre-December 1, 2003 contracts still in effect that remain subject to existing OFCCP rules 

(41 CFR 60–250) and (2) whether OFCCP has issued final rules implementing the 

new mandatory job listing provisions of the Jobs for Veterans Act (P.L. 107–288). 

34

There is a significant ‘‘hope’’ in the market that simply listing jobs with State Job 

Banks will be sufficient to achieve compliance under the new law. In large part, this 

hope is tied to how the term ‘‘appropriate employment service delivery system’’ 

might be interpreted. Let’s examine whether or not such hope is realistic. 

It is difficult to read the entirety of the current and proposed OFCCP Regulations 

and come away with a reading that says listing jobs with a State Job Bank would 

be sufficient to guarantee Federal Contractor compliance. Perhaps OFCCP will issue 

such regulations, but they have not yet and a look at the statute itself would make 

that option unlikely. 

There will be two sets of rules at play. The first set, which applies to any company with an existing Federal contract for more than $25,000 that was signed before December 1, 2003, will be in effect as long as those contracts are active (which could 

be several years). Those rules apply not just to jobs covered by the contract, but to 

all jobs in the company (which a few exceptions for top executives and very short 

term jobs). See 41 CFR 60–250.5, Paragraph 2. Those rules require that the listing 

be done ‘‘at an appropriate local employment service office of the state employment 

security agency wherein the opening occurs.’’ They also allow for listing with AJB 

as an alternative method of compliance. However, when DOL ends AJB service on 

July 1 the only compliance method under the current rules will be listing with a 

local office. 

A company which has no pre-December 1, 2003 contracts will not be covered by 

this rule, provided that OFCCP actually issues final rules for the Jobs for Veterans 

Act. If OFCCP does not issue such regulations by June 30, AJB’s last day, all contractors will need to comply with the current rules, and the only compliance method 

will be listing at ‘‘at an appropriate local employment service office of the state employment security agency wherein the opening occurs.’’ Companies with pre-December 1, 2003 contracts will be covered by the old rules as long as those contracts are 

in place. The plain language of 41 CFR 60–250.5 Paragraph 2 covers all that company’s jobs. OFCCP in its notice of proposed rulemaking stated: ‘‘Contractors with 

contracts entered into both before, and on or after December 1, 2003, will be subject 

to both the requirements found in part 60–250 and the requirements proposed for 

part 60–300.’’ (Page 3353 of the Federal Register for January 20, 2006.) 

The proposed rules contain the potentially unclear phase ‘‘appropriate employment service delivery system,’’ but do not either explicitly or implicitly equate this 

phrase with State Job Banks or posting of jobs at the state level. The words themselves may be unclear; but in the context of Title 38 they have a fairly established 

meaning. Section 4104 of Title 38 which establishes the LVER (Local Veteran Employment Representative) program states in paragraph (d) ‘‘Each local veterans’ employment representative shall be administratively responsible to the manager of the 

employment service delivery system and shall provide reports, not less frequently 

than quarterly, to the manager of such office and to the Director for Veterans’ Employment and Training for the State regarding compliance with Federal law and 

regulations with respect to special services and priorities for eligible veterans and 

eligible persons.’’

Further, the Questions and Answers prepared by the Veterans Employment and 

Training Service (VETS) to explain the requirements of JVA as they relate to Federal Contractors and posted on the DOL web site explicitly call for jobs to be posted 

at the local level. (http://www.dol.gov/vets/contracts/main.htm#A-1)

A–1. What are the requirements of the Federal Contractor Job Listing 

Program and what is the legal basis for reporting requirements? 

Title 38, United States Code, Section 4212(d) requires that Federal contractors list all employment openings with the nearest State Job Service office (also known as State Employment Service or One Stop Service Location) and Workforce Development Offices (in some States). This job-listing 

requirement applies to all job openings with the exception of executive or 

top management jobs, positions filled from within the organization, and jobs 

lasting 3 days or less. This includes agreements to lease workers from 

‘‘Temp Agencies.’’...

A–3. ‘‘How do I list job openings with a Job Service local office, local One 

Stop Service Center, or Workforce Development Office?’’

To list job openings with a local office, contractors and subcontractors 

must contact the local office of the State employment service location in 

their area. The Veterans’ representatives in the state employment Service 

local office can help explain the requirements of the Federal Contractor 

Program. To locate the state employment service center, local one stop service center or Workforce Development local office nearest you, please contact 

your state’s Director for Veterans’ Employment and Training (DVET). A diVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:27 Sep 27, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00038 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\RD41451\DOCS\37761.TXT SENVETS PsN: ROWENA
35

rectory of State DVET offices can be located at the following web site: 

(http://www.dol.gov/vets/aboutvets/contacts/main.htm).

The movement of Wagner Peyser services into One-Stop Career Centers in many 

States created the shift in language (from employment service office to employment 

service delivery system), but the listing is now and always has been to facilitate the 

employment of veterans by having the local office and the DVOP/LVER ‘‘work’’ the 

job order on behalf of their veteran customers. That rationale is also contained in 

the current and the proposed regulations in 60– 250.84 and 60–300.84. 

The Jobs for Veterans Act itself speaks to that rationale in its own statutory language. 38 U.S.C. 4212 section (a)(2)(A) requires the mandatory listing by Federal 

contractors. Section (a)(2)(B) requires the employment service delivery system to 

provide priority referral of qualified veterans to those jobs. The mandatory listing 

is not so that the general public can see the job, but rather so that qualified veterans can get priority referrals to those jobs. That priority referral process has been 

and continues to be a ‘‘local’’ process which involves staff, either general purpose or 

DVOP/LVER, that ‘‘work’’ the job orders on behalf of the qualified veterans. 

Even more troubling for those who ‘‘hope’’ that listing with State Job Banks alone 

will satisfy this requirement is Section (a)(2)(C) of 38 U.S.C. 4212 which requires 

the ‘‘employment service delivery system’’ that has received that listing to ‘‘provide 

a list of such employment openings to States, political subdivisions of States, or any 

private entities or organizations under contract to carry out employment, training, 

and placement services under chapter 41 of this title.’’ If Congress had intended 

that a compliant listing could be made at the State Job Bank level, there would be 

little reason for the addition of States to the list of entities with whom the job listing need be shared. 

It is also useful to note that requirements of the Jobs for Veterans Act are not 

self-implementing. The introductory paragraph in 38 U.S.C. 4212(a)(2) states ‘‘the 

Secretary of Labor shall prescribe regulations requiring’’ which is followed by the 

particular statements in paragraphs A, B and C. OFCCP itself recognizes need for 

the new rules before the JVA requirements become effective. It states in answer to 

the question ‘‘Does listing a job with America’s Job Bank (AJB) satisfy mandatory 

listing for veterans? ’’

Currently all covered contractors may list their job openings with either 

America’s Job Bank or with an appropriate local employment service office. 

After OFCCP promulgates a new VEVRAA regulation implementing the 

Jobs for Veterans Act (JVA), covered contractors with contracts entered on 

or after December 1, 2003, will be required to post their jobs at an appropriate employment service delivery system. The Department of Labor is 

working on a new option to allow contractors to meet both the current and 

the revised mandatory job-listing requirement. A new web portal, the Veterans’ Job Clearinghouse, will automatically post listed employment openings with the appropriate employment service delivery system while also 

giving contractors the option of continuing to list job openings on America’s 

Job Bank. But until the final regulations implementing JVA amendments 

go into effect, contractors may continue to fulfill their job listing requirements by using either America’s Job Bank or their local SES. (See http:/

/www.dol.gov/vets/contractor/main.htm#A-4)

The Veterans’ Job Clearinghouse (VJC), mentioned in the above answer as a potential solution, was developed to provide a mechanism to re-distribute Federal contractor job openings that were posted on America’s Job Bank to the local level, including to DVOP/LVER staff at the local offices, not to State Job Banks. This would 

have allowed Federal Contractors to continue to post on AJB and maintain their 

compliance. The Labor Department has abandoned the VJC effort, in part because 

it was dependent on AJB. However, DirectEmployers Association is using the VJC 

approach of local office delivery in its VetCentral compliance tool, and has engaged 

the same vendor that built VJC to build VetCentral. 

DirectEmployers Association, through JobCentral National Labor Exchange and 

VetCentral, will approach compliance as requiring delivery of the job listing to the 

local office which delivers Wagner-Peyser labor exchange services that is nearest the 

hiring location. That approach is based on DirectEmployers’ reading of the current 

and proposed rules and the belief that compliance efforts should be conservative in 

their reading of regulatory requirements. 

Some companies may hope that listing with a State job bank, which does not generate compliance with the current rules, would now generate compliance with the 

proposed rules. But that hope does not seem to have much basis in the statute, the 

regulations themselves, or the practice of the employment service. 

36

Things to consider——

• The proposed rules for post December 1, 2003 contracts are not final and 

OFCCP has not stated when they will issue the final rules. • The current rules are in effect for all Federal contractors until the new rules 

are issued and will cover any Federal contactor with a pre-December 1, 2003 contract. Those rules are not at all unclear—on July 1 the only acceptable compliance 

method will be listing with a ‘‘local employment service office.’’ • AJB does not now deliver job listings to all States. Less than half of the States 

take the current AJB download of jobs. That number is not likely to improve when 

AJB ends. For example, Alabama where major defense contractors have large facilities does not take the AJB feed now. It will be difficult for anyone other than 

DirectEmployers Association, with its National Association of State Workforce Agencies (NASWA) Alliance, to guarantee compliance under even the ‘‘hopeful’’ reading 

of the proposed rules given that reality. We are aware of no other approach that 

provides compliance for companies that must also comply with the current rules in 

41 CFR 60–250.

DirectEmployers Association is taking the conservative approach to compliance 

(usually the way most company lawyers approach the issue) and making sure that 

member companies are covered whatever the eventual ruling and interpretation of 

the rules might be. While on July 1, DirectEmployers/JobCentral will be 

downloading jobs to more States than currently take the AJB feed, it will not have 

100 percent coverage of all States. It will generate compliance by delivering its 

member company jobs to the local offices in all the States. 

DirectEmployers Association member companies will not be surprised. Companies 

depending on ‘‘hopeful’’ interpretations of the law and regulations may be. 

VEVRAA/JVA COMPLIANCE RESEARCH

DirectEmployers Association has been working on a solution for employers’ mandatory job listing requirements since the AJB phase-out was announced almost a 

year ago. After careful research and months of discussions with various stakeholders, some employers might be surprised by our conclusion that the VEVRAA/

JVA compliance solution for employers after AJB is phased out will not be a national public or privately financed (commercial) AJB-type job board that distributes 

their jobs to state employment sites. Many employers might be further surprised to 

learn that AJB, had it continued to exist, would not have served as a vehicle for 

them to meet their VEVRAA/JVA job posting requirements. 

There are two reasons for this: (1) in recent years, various states for various reasons have dropped out of participation in the AJB system. It is estimated that as 

many as twenty-five or more states are currently not taking job listing downloads 

from AJB. Therefore, all employers’ jobs are currently not being distributed to the 

local employment systems as required by VEVRAA/JVA; and, (2) the JVA changes 

the mandatory job listing requirement to require that, before posting with AJB, 

One-Stop Career Centers, or state job banks, jobs must be listed with an appropriate employment service delivery system. AJB currently does not do this. 

It is also unclear whether simple posting on a state’s job bank (either directly or 

as a result of download from AJB or other job site) would generate compliance with 

VEVRAA or JVA. The intent of VEVRAA was to place the Federal Contractor job 

in the hands of the local employment service office where by tradition or policy the 

veteran employment representatives had a day to ‘‘work’’ the job on behalf of veterans prior to it being released to the general population of job seekers. In 1995, 

OFCCP modified its regulations to allow posting on America’s Job Bank to satisfy 

the VEVRAA requirement. OFCCP and the Veterans’ Employment and Training 

Service (VETS) were convinced that such a posting would actually make more of the 

jobs from large companies available to veterans by allowing them and their advocates to view them directly from the Internet. In 1995, America’s Job Bank did not 

distribute jobs back to the states. 

The passage of the JVA was intended to return the compliance approach back to 

the pre-1995 way of posting with the local employment service office, primarily so 

that veterans would get a priority chance to apply for jobs. The January, 2006 proposed JVA regulations define employment service delivery system as ‘‘a service delivery system at which or through which labor exchange services, including employment, training, and placement services, are offered in accordance with the WagnerPeyser Act.’’ From this, one could infer that an ‘‘employment service delivery system’’ can only be a locally staffed office, where actual services are delivered. Therefore, it has not been determined whether or not posting to a state electronic database will meet the job posting requirements. Simple posting to state job banks does 

not guarantee JVA compliance. 

37

However, Federal Contractors should have no immediate fear. Until OFCCP 

issues a final regulation, scheduled for publication in 2007, the agency, as a matter 

of enforcement discretion, is presently allowing Contractors to fulfill their VEVRAA/

JVA job listing requirements by either using AJB or posting with their local employment service delivery system. 

DIRECTEMPLOYERS’ VEVRAA/JVA COMPLIANCE SOLUTION

The Vietnam Era Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act of 1974 (VEVRAA), as 

amended by the Jobs for Veterans Act of 2002 (JVA), requires covered Federal Contractors and subcontractors to list their employment openings with ‘‘an appropriate 

employment service delivery system.’’ Since America’s Job Bank (AJB) will not be 

a job-posting option for compliance after July 1, 2007, DirectEmployers Association 

has partnered with industry experts to design, develop and implement ‘‘VetCentral’’, 

a web-based application for the distribution of jobs to veterans. This application, 

when fully integrated into DirectEmployers’ JobCentral National Labor Exchange, 

will act as a distribution point for Federal Contractors—‘‘pushing’’ their jobs to the 

appropriate employment service delivery system and maintaining the necessary 

records of each transaction. It will offer a compliance solution for Federal Contractors and Subcontractors that is believed to be consistent with the new JVA regulations that are scheduled to be published in 2007. 

VetCentral will comply with both the spirit and intent of the mandatory job listing requirement by delivering, or ‘‘pushing’’ job listings directly to the nearest of the 

estimated 2,200 Disabled Veterans Outreach Programs (DVOPs) and Local Veterans 

Employment Representatives (LVERs), through a local employment service office (if 

it exists) and/or a One-Stop Career Center if it is an office delivering Wagner-Peyser 

services. It provides required compliance reporting capabilities for participating employers in addition to offering extensive tools for use by veterans’ employment representatives. VetCentral will also enable Federal Contractors and subcontractors to 

‘‘push’’ their job listings to applicable DVOPs and LVERs through state One-Stop 

Career Centers from a single point of access through JobCentral. Jobs from 

DirectEmployers’ member companies will continue to be indexed (scraped) directly 

from their corporate web sites and made available to veterans through VetCentral 

so participating employers will have uninterrupted compliance with the JVA regulations when AJB is closed. 

ADDITIONAL VETCENTRAL BENEFITS

In addition to providing JVA compliance, the many benefits of VetCentral include:

• Elimination of the significant administrative burden facing Federal Contractors 

in distributing their job listings to the appropriate employment delivery system. 

• A single point of job entry through JobCentral’s indexing process. 

• Required compliance reports for Federal Contractors through the JobCentral 

interface. 

• Assistance in giving covered veterans priority in referral to employment

openings. 

VETCENTRAL COMPLETION AND IMPLEMENTATION

Software development for the VetCentral job distribution application is presently 

complete and ready for implementation. Companies that make an early election to 

utilize the VetCentral service through JobCentral should encounter no loss of 

VEVRAA/JVA reporting capability as they transition from America’s Job Bank when 

it is discontinued on July 1. 

PROGRAM PARTNERSHIPS AND CONSULTING AGREEMENTS

To design and develop this critical application, DirectEmployers Association has 

partnered with XPAND Corporation and contracted for the consulting services of 

two former key U.S. Department of Labor Employment and Training Administration 

(DOL–ETA) managers, Dave Morman and Jim Vollman. XPAND, Morman, and 

Vollman all have extensive experience in working with various government agencies 

and veterans organizations in the design, development, and implementation of online workforce systems and E-Tools. 

XPAND is a pioneer in advanced technologies, implementing leading-edge and 

awardwinning enterprise web solutions including many years of experience working 

with the U.S. Department of Labor Employment and Training Administration and 

Veterans’ Employment and Training Service (VETS). It has extensive knowledge of 

job banks, labor market information, and the labor exchange system, having successfully built, operated and maintained most of DOL’s award-winning workforce 

38

Portals and E-Tools applications over the last 10 years. XPAND also has extensive 

experience working with representatives from the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) and the Veterans’ Employment and Training Service 

(VETS) to strategize technical solutions for the proper distribution of jobs to local 

DVOPs and LVERs. 

Both Dave Morman and Jim Vollman are highly respected for their many years 

of government service at DOL and for the pioneering work they did in making AJB 

one of the most heavily used government web sites and an industry leader in workforce management. Vollman was the chief architect of America’s Job Bank and was 

responsible for its growth and development in its early stages gaining its acceptance 

by nearly all 50 states. Morman managed ETA’s National Electronic Tools Program 

which included AJB; he has previously served as the Executive Director of the Veterans’ Employment and Training Service. In their positions at DOL, both were deeply involved in the early development, management and direction of AJB and our Nation’s national labor exchange programs and in serving veterans. 

DirectEmployers Association has also entered into an agreement with The National Association of State Workforce Agencies (NASWA) to provide JobCentral National Labor Exchange services to replace the functionality previously provided to 

State employment sites by America’s Job Bank. This program includes a wide range 

of services from job listing uploads and downloads to full-scale site management and 

a free national labor exchange. The JobCentral/NASWA program allows the distribution of jobs to participating states for affirmative action purposes and to reach 

each state’s workforce. It is also a convenience for companies that are required to 

post job listings to their state sites. While this is an extremely important partnership for our member companies and participating states, it alone may not provide 

VEVRAA/JVA compliance because posting jobs to state employment web sites may 

no longer satisfy the new JVA job posting requirements, hence the creation of 

VetCentral. 

DirectEmployers Association believes strongly in the concept and value of a lowcost national labor exchange and will continue to provide JobCentral for all job seekers, employers, and states that choose to participate. A national employment system 

like JobCentral National Labor Exchange can play a vital role in the management 

of our Nation’s workforce, especially at a time when employers are facing a nationwide labor shortage. It should be an important part of every employer’s Affirmative 

Action Program (AAP). By working together, an immediate, cohesive group of leading U.S. employers can be available to Federal agencies for fast response as witnessed by JobCentral’s response to the Katrina disaster. Bottom line: a cooperative 

of employers can provide a national low-cost employment system where all employers, regardless of size can participate—all difficult, if not impossible, to do in a commercial for-profit environment. 

THE NEED FOR A LOW-COST NATIONAL LABOR EXCHANGE

Funded by Employers America’s Job Bank, the only federally funded job board on 

the Internet and the first Internet presence for labor exchange for each of the states, 

has served a very important role for both job seekers and employers since its inception in 1995. It most recently listed over two million jobs from employers in all industries and nearly 700,000 job seeker resumes which are available free of charge 

to employers. 

The discontinuance of America’s Job Bank along with the impending labor shortage caused by baby-boomer retirements and a dwindling workforce provides a formidable challenge for all employers. Because job postings and resume searching have 

always been provided free of charge by AJB, many small to medium-sized employers 

have relied on AJB as their only Internet recruiting source. 

AJB has also played a prominent role in helping employers build their workforce 

and comply with state and Federal regulations by serving as the Nation’s only online cross-state labor exchange and distributing corporate job listings to state employment services. It has been invaluable in helping employers meet Federal job 

posting requirements for Affirmative Action Plans, Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) and Jobs for Veterans Act compliance. 

The loss of America’s Job Bank is even greater for employers when you consider 

the labor shortage facing our Nation. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) predicts a labor shortage of more than 10 million skilled workers by 2010 which heightens employers’ need to attract difficult to reach groups such as minorities, veterans, 

seniors and women to the workforce. 

JobCentral’s National Labor Exchange will be free of charge to job seekers and 

easily affordable for all employers. No job seeker or employer will be excluded because of financial constraints. It will help employers satisfy their compliance reVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:27 Sep 27, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00042 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\RD41451\DOCS\37761.TXT SENVETS PsN: ROWENA
39

quirements and, through new search technology, provide a single place on the Internet where job seekers can find employment opportunities in all industries. 

It will allow job seekers to search over five million (5,000,000) jobs from corporate 

web sites, newspapers, trade associations, and other Internet sources in all 50 states 

plus the District of Columbia, major metropolitan areas, and all U.S. cities and postal zip code areas. The National Labor Exchange will be available free-of-charge to 

job seekers. Job postings, resume searching capabilities and other services will be 

available at no cost to all employers in all industries. 

The JobCentral National Labor Exchange will help companies: (1) meet their respective Affirmative Action Program (AAP) objectives, Office of Federal Contract 

Compliance Programs (OFCCP) obligations and veterans hiring goals when America’s Job Bank (AJB) is discontinued in July, 2007 and; (2) meet their general recruiting needs at the time of an impending national labor shortage. 

In addition to general recruiting for all occupations in all industries, the site will 

also serve as the primary focal point for recruiting diverse candidates, returning 

members of the U.S. Armed Forces and specialty groups such as the physically challenged and senior members of the workforce. It will also allow companies to work 

directly with government officials at all levels in responding to national emergency 

recruiting needs such as we experienced with the Katrina disaster. 

The JobCentral National Labor Exchange site will play a leading role in helping 

employers meet their individual affirmative action goals and, as a group, better 

manage our Nation’s workforce. It will provide an opportunity for companies to meet 

their compliance and staffing requirements in an environment which is owned, managed and controlled by employers.

Senator BROWN. Thank you, Mr. Warren. 

Ms. Morris, Mr. Bradley, your five minutes. Thank you. 

STATEMENTS OF SHAUN G. BRADLEY AND SANDY MORRIS,

CO-CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICERS, BRADLEY-MORRIS, INC., 

KENNESAW, GEORGIA 

Mr. BRADLEY. Thank you, Senator. Mr. Chairman and distinguished Members of the Committee, on behalf of Co-CEO Sandy 

Morris and myself, I would like to thank the Committee for the opportunity to speak with you today. We are honored to be included 

in the discussion of seamless transition for our military. 

Our company, Bradley-Morris, Inc., often referred to as BMI, was 

created in 1991. For the majority of our history, we have operated 

as a typical contingency placement firm, and according to Staffing 

Industry Analysts, we rank in the top 1 percent of contingency 

placement firms nationwide. 

The reason we are here today is because of our candidate focus, 

that is, the job seekers we screen and present to Fortune 500 and 

emerging companies that help fill their job openings. We focus on 

the ex-military talent pool, one of the most highly trained and most 

diverse groups of job seekers in existence. Over our company’s history, we have placed more than 15,000 veterans into jobs in corporate America. These positions have included management, engineers, technicians, and sales people, to name a few. Twenty-nine 

percent of these placements have been diversity, that is, minority 

and women. 

As a matter of fact, we think so highly of this talent pool that 

more than 60 percent of our own employees are ex-military. Thus, 

they are personally familiar with the transition challenges and are 

keenly aware of the great training members of the military community receive while they are serving. 

And because we subscribe to the contingency model, our services 

are free to military-experienced job seekers. That is, our client companies pay the fee for our services. 

40

Ms. MORRIS. Good morning. To expand on Shaun’s points, a new 

opportunity presented itself to us approximately three years ago 

and it was based on specific feedback we received from our employers that we work with. They told us that they would like to expand 

the ways that they source military job seekers, and as a result we 

created CivilianJobs.com, which offers employers and job seekers 

three ways to connect: Via the web, via job fairs on or near military 

bases, and then via print newspaper that is on military bases. 

Whereas the Bradley-Morris model delivers specific jobs for specific candidates, CivilianJobs.com offers something for everyone. 

Any former member of the military may use these services, and not 

just those transitioning. CivilianJobs.com provides employers with 

the most efficient and cost-effective ways to access the veteran talent pool. Again, these services are all free to military-experienced 

job seekers. 

As you might expect, it has been incredibly rewarding for us to 

place these men and women that have honorably served in our 

Armed Forces with great careers in corporate America. We find 

that the demand is high and our business is strong. And we believe 

there are even more opportunities to assist ex-military by strengthening our public and private partnership. 

Mr. BRADLEY. As part of our service to military men and women, 

we visit many bases around the world to bring our job assistance 

services to them, whether we are conducting group career counseling putting on job fairs, or distributing job seeker advice via our 

base newspaper. We work in close partnership with both the ACAP 

and TAP Transition Offices of each service branch to get notice of 

these events out to veterans, as well as notice of our client companies’ job opportunities. 

Ms. MORRIS. As with any endeavor, some audiences are more receptive and enthusiastic to our message than others, and over our 

history, there have been some instances where a lack of enthusiasm as to notifying veterans and transitioning military personnel 

of our opportunities has been attributed to BMI being a for-profit 

company. This is despite the fact that, again, our job seeker services are free to military personnel. 

Over time, we have found the ‘‘less-than-enthusiastic’’ to be a 

small percentage of the whole. However, as we were asked to discuss the seamless transition topic, having a clear mandate that it 

is OK for military bases, branches of the service, or military affinity groups to support companies like ours, companies that provide 

free job services to veterans, whether they are for-profit or not, 

would certainly provide a more seamless transition to more veterans, that is, help veterans get more jobs. 

We also support two pieces of legislation recently introduced,

S. 1272, the Yellow Ribbon Reintegration Program Act of 2007, focusing on seamless transition for our National Guard troops, introduced by Senators Isakson and Chambliss, as well as H.R. 2330, 

the Veterans’ Employment Transition Support Act of 2007, introduced by Representative McCotter. Both of these proposed initiatives help strengthen the cause of veteran job seekers and will help 

us assist more ex-military personnel in their job search. 

Mr. BRADLEY. In summation, we look forward to supporting the 

Committee’s work on seamless transition and we will be glad to be 

41

of assistance and provide additional information as needed to further illuminate this important issue. 

Thank you for your time. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Bradley and Ms. Morris follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SHAUN BRADLEY AND SANDRA MORRIS,

CO-CEOS, BRADLEY-MORRIS, INC. 

Mr. Chairman and distinguished Members of the Committee, we would like to 

thank the Committee for the opportunity to speak with you today. We are honored 

to be included in the discussion of seamless transition for our military. 

Our company, Bradley-Morris, Inc., often referred to as ‘‘BMI,’’ was created in 

1991. For the majority of our history, we’ve operated as a typical contingency placement firm, and according to Staffing Industry Analysts, we rank in the top 1 percent of contingency placement firms nationwide. 

The reason we are here today is because of our candidate focus, that is, the job 

seekers we screen and present to Fortune 500 and emerging companies that help 

fill their job openings. 

We focus on the ex-military talent pool, one of the most highly trained and most 

diverse groups of job seekers in existence. Over our company’s history, we’ve placed 

more than 15,000 vets into jobs in corporate America. These positions have included 

management, engineers, technicians and sales people to name a few. Twenty-nine 

percent of these placements have been diversity, that is, minority and women. 

As a matter of fact, we think so highly of this talent pool that more than 60 percent of our own employees are ex-military. Thus, they are personally familiar with 

transition challenges, and are keenly aware of the great training members of the 

military community receive while they are serving. 

And because we subscribe to the contingency model, our services are free to military-experienced job seekers—that is, our client companies pay the fees for our services. 

A new opportunity presented itself to us approximately 3 years ago, based on specific feedback we received from employers. They told us they would like to expand 

the ways they source military job seekers. 

As a result, we created CivilianJobs.com, which offers employers and jobs seekers 

three ways to connect: Via the web, via job fairs on or near military bases, and via 

a print newspaper on military bases. 

Whereas the Bradley-Morris model delivers specific jobs for specific candidates, 

CivilianJobs.com offers something for everyone—any former member of the military 

may use these services (not just those transitioning). CivilianJobs.com provides employers with the most efficient and cost-effective ways to access the veteran talent 

pool. Again, these services are all free to military-experienced job seekers. 

As you might expect, it’s been incredibly rewarding to be able to place the men 

and women who have honorably served in our Armed Forces into great careers in 

corporate America. 

We find the demand high, and our business is strong. 

And, we believe there are even more opportunities to assist ex-military by 

strengthening our public/private partnership. 

As part of our service to military men and women, we visit many bases around 

the world. We bring our job assistance services to them, whether we are conducting 

group career counseling, putting on job fairs, or distributing job seeker advice via 

our base newspaper. 

We work in close partnership with both the ACAP and TAP transition offices of 

each service branch to get notice of these events out to veterans, as well as notice 

of our client companies’ job opportunities. 

As with any endeavor, some audiences are more receptive and enthusiastic to our 

message than others. Over our history, there have been some instances where a lack 

of enthusiasm as to notifying vets and transitioning military personnel of our opportunities has been attributed to BMI being a ‘‘for profit’’ company. This is despite 

the fact that, again, our job seeker services are free to military personnel. 

Over time, we have found the ‘‘less-than-enthusiastic’’ to be a small percentage 

of the whole. However, as we were asked to discuss the ‘‘seamless transition’’ topic, 

having a clear mandate that it is OK for military bases, branches of service, military affinity groups, etc., to support companies like ours—companies that provide 

free job services to veterans, whether they are a ‘‘for profit’’ company or not—would 

help us provide a more ‘‘seamless transition’’ to more veterans, that is, help more 

veterans get jobs. 

42

We also support two pieces of legislation recently introduced: S. 1272, the ‘‘Yellow 

Ribbon Reintegration Program Act of 2007,’’ focusing on seamless transition for our 

National Guard troops, introduced by Senators Isakson and Chambliss; as well as 

H.R. 2330, the ‘‘Veterans’ Employment Transition Support Act of 2007,’’ introduced 

by Representative McCotter. Both of these proposed initiatives help strengthen the 

cause of veteran job seekers and will help us assist more ex-military personnel in 

their job search. 

In summation, we look forward to supporting the Committee’s work on Seamless 

Transition and will be glad to be of assistance and provide additional information 

as needed to further illuminate this important issue. 

Thank you for your time. 

BRADLEY-MORRIS’ RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF TURBOTAP/DOD 

TRANSPORTAL/DEFENSE KNOWLEDGE ONLINE (DKO) PORTAL

RESUME DISTRIBUTION

Resumes submitted to TurboTAP must be distributed beyond Monster.com to 

other free job seeker services for transitioning military. Monster.com only represents 

a portion of available jobs (e.g., we understand that Monster.com which powers 

TurboTAP.org only presents jobs that employers pay to advertise), and in our experience, Monster.com/Military.com does not have visibility of many of the highestvalue and most applicable jobs for transitioning servicemembers (such as those 

found at Bradley-Morris, Inc./CivilianJobs.com). 

FREE JOB PLACEMENT SERVICES

Free job placement services must be highlighted.—In the Senate hearing, a repeated prominent theme emerged: There is a pronounced communication gap that 

exists between private sector companies’ job opportunities (such as those offered 

through companies like ours) and getting that information into the hands of 

transitioning servicemembers and veterans. Adding to this gap, TurboTAP is designed as a ‘‘do-it-yourself’’ site. 

To help address these gaps, free services that do part of the job search ‘‘leg work’’ 

for transitioning servicemembers must be ‘‘up front.’’

Intuitively, it would seem a transitioning servicemember would want to learn 

about the free added-value services first, on the home page, services that actually 

schedule interviews and/or match them with applicable military-friendly companies 

(such as the services offered by companies like ours). 

On the current web site, there is space available under the More Resources area 

to add a Free Job Placement Services section (see addenda for more detailed information on this suggestion). 

We have provided additional detail for each of these points in the Addenda attached. 

In conclusion, Secretary Dominguez brought out many good points in his written 

testimony regarding TurboTAP. However, one statement gave us pause:

‘‘. . . we further plan to make transition an on-line transaction much like 

banking and bill paying have become.’’

If this is indeed the future of TAP that TurboTAP portends, we do not feel this 

is a productive direction if the ultimate goal of TAP is for transitioning 

servicemembers to secure civilian employment. In fact, we feel this direction would 

be at odds with the best interests of the transitioning servicemember if, again, the 

end result of TAP is meant to be civilian employment. 

Our company, Bradley-Morris, Inc. (BMI) and our subsidiary, CivilianJobs.com, 

deliver jobs to transitioning servicemembers every day. Over our company’s 15-year 

history, this experience has shown us that hiring is an ‘‘in-person’’ business. Interviews are conducted in-person, job fairs are conducted in-person, base visits and career counseling are conducted in-person, etc. ‘‘In-person’’ is the ultimate essential ingredient to employment. 

If TAP/TurboTAP isn’t helping to deliver this essential ingredient by communicating, promoting and linking to the free ‘‘in-person’’ job seeker services, services 

that companies like Bradley-Morris, Inc. and CivilianJobs.com offer, we do not believe that TAP and TurboTAP will be as successful as we all hope they would be.

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Senator MURRAY [presiding]. I would like to thank all of you for 

your testimony, and I apologize for everybody. I had a VA markup 

downstairs. I know Senator Craig did, as well. Senator Akaka has 

gone to a markup. Everybody is returning, and I want to thank 

Senator Brown, who assisted in chairing for a minute. Senator 

Akaka has asked that I take over for a few minutes. And to all of 

you who it looks like we are just running in and out and not paying 

attention, we are trying our best to pay attention here, but it has 

been a difficult morning with so many markups in the Senate. 

But I want to thank all three of our panelists today for being 

here to talk about a very important topic and making sure that our 

men and women who serve us don’t come home and find themselves unemployed, which is far too often the case today. All of you 

have done a really good job in working throughout your professional lives to address that issue and we really appreciate it. 

I wanted to ask you one question. I have found that a lot of veterans who return home from Iraq and Afghanistan are not aware 

of the opportunities that are available to them. I held a roundtable 

out in my State in Vancouver, Washington, and brought in some 

Guard and Reserve members who had returned from Iraq, had not 

been able to find a job, and I also had at the table, people from 

the Washington State WorkSource whose job is to find jobs for people who don’t have jobs. They didn’t know each other existed and 

they sat there at the roundtable and started talking about how 

they could get jobs for these young men. 

Yet until I had that roundtable, they didn’t even know they existed. The WorkSource employees told us that they could not get 

access to veterans’ information. They couldn’t call and get veterans’ 

names so that they could reach out to them and the veterans themselves, for whatever reason, didn’t know that this WorkSource even 

existed. 

So I wanted to ask you, how can we make veterans more aware 

of the services, and do you find that it is hard to access the veterans’ names and how can we work through that? 

Mr. BRADLEY. Well, first, there are a lot of people that are in the 

service that don’t think about what they are going to do after the 

service until the day they leave the service. The missions are intense. It is not everybody, but that is a decent percentage of it. 

If the goal is to have people in the military see something or do 

something, then I think the way to accomplish that is to hold the 

commanders accountable for it being done. That is how things 

work. A lot of the information that we want veterans to know, we 

are depending on them to do it, for them to look at it. And the reality is the ones that need the help the most are the ones that are 

going to be least likely to do that. So sometimes there needs to be 

a little bit of a push. Have you looked at this? I want to make sure. 

So I would make the commanders responsible for making sure that 

gets done. 

Ms. MORRIS. You know, Senator, it is funny, because you were 

talking about, when you were giving your speech earlier, that they 

are talented, they have skills, but people don’t know it. Shaun and 

I often tell people, we feel that we are in the education business, 

not in the placement business, because that is really what it is 

about. It is educating not just the employers about the talent pool 

52

and what they can bring, but also the individuals transitioning, letting them know what is available, and that is an educational process. We run into that all the time. 

Kind of what I mentioned in my testimony is we are reaching out 

all the time to organizations, to facilities, anything we can do, 

ACAP, TAP, we have worked with all of them to try to get the information out. I don’t know that there is a right answer, but certainly some of the things that were mentioned here today. You 

know, Secretary Ciccolella was talking about working together with 

organizations. We are partnering with them with job fairs. Again, 

that coordination will help. 

So I think any public-private partnerships that can be established to help get the word out will help in that regard. 

Mr. WARREN. I would agree with that. One of the most effective 

things that we have done is Secretary Ciccolella actually was on a 

phone call conference call with over 100 companies that are our 

member companies and he took the time to explain the transition 

programs that are available and the information that is available 

for veterans, and that was by far the most popular session that we 

have had like that. Again, I think I would go along with that public-private partnerships can really do a lot to help get that information out. In that case, he took over an hour on a conference call 

to actually go through all the programs and our employers were 

overwhelmed by that. 

Senator MURRAY. I appreciate that, and I know the agency heads 

are no longer at the table. I hope that they get to Members of Congress information, because one of the things I do at every Chamber 

meeting or Rotary meeting I go to in talking to businesses is say, 

I am speaking on behalf of a lot of men and women who are coming 

home. They are skilled. They show up on time. They have good 

work skills. They are dedicated employees. They need a job. I am 

counting on you to help provide that. And I think if we can provide 

that information, to any of the agencies that are here, to Members 

of Congress, all of us go home and talk to those organizations and 

help get some of this information out, it would, I think, be of benefit. 

Senator Isakson? 

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHNNY ISAKSON,

U.S. SENATOR FROM GEORGIA 

Senator ISAKSON. Thank you, Senator Murray, and I want to welcome Shaun Bradley and Sandy Morris. Not only are they from my 

home State, but they are from my home county. They are in Kennesaw, Georgia, I think the largest organization of your type in the 

United States, is that not correct? 

Ms. MORRIS. We like to think so. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator ISAKSON. Well, I just wanted to throw that advertising 

plug in for you. 

Ms. MORRIS. Thank you. We appreciate that. 

Senator ISAKSON. Speaking of advertising, Sandy, thank you for 

talking about S. 1272. We do think that is an important piece of 

legislation and somebody like yourself acknowledging that, I think 

is very helpful to us. 

53

I think you answered the question that I had, Shaun, talking 

about putting the responsibility on the commanders, but I would 

like to just push that a little bit further. Talk about some things 

that DOD can—well, let me preface this. I was at Mologne House 

on Monday. Mologne House at Walter Reed is where the wounded 

veterans who are in transition—they are not totally ready to go 

back to their post or back to society, they have medical problems—

Mologne House is where they and their families can stay. I know 

the Army is making a real effort to help have counselors and 

guides for them to work through the medical side. Do you know if 

there is much of that on the job placement side? 

Mr. BRADLEY. As far as——

Senator ISAKSON. As far as the military or the Department of Defense. 

Mr. BRADLEY. With disabled——

Senator ISAKSON. No, not just disabled, but in terms of really trying to get job counseling and get the veterans who are leaving or 

transitioning out connected with people like yourselves. 

Mr. BRADLEY. Oh, there is a real strong program with the TAP 

and the ACAP offices and they do a really fine job. There is career 

counseling. There is resume help. It is good. Now, their challenge 

is to deal with the volume of people that are going through the program, and just as with any large program, are they able to provide 

as much one-on-one attention to each personally the services they 

would like? You would have to ask them that. But, oh yes, those 

are good people at those offices. 

Senator ISAKSON. From the standpoint of job placement, you 

mentioned veterans with disabilities. From the standpoint of job 

placement, what percentage of those you are placing have a disability, a service-related disability? 

Mr. BRADLEY. Well, we can tell you how many of our own Bradley-Morris staff is classified as disabled. Sixteen percent of BradleyMorris’s——

Senator ISAKSON. Sixteen percent? 

Mr. BRADLEY. Sixteen percent of our own people are classified as 

military disabled. While we don’t have that statistics for the people 

that we place into companies, we could look at it and see if we 

could come up with it. It is a sizable percentage, and we have offered to help in this area. I mean, when Sandy was talking about 

clarity on being able to work with a private or a for-profit company, 

we actually offered our services to a government agency that was 

providing services to disabled veterans. Because we were a forprofit company, you know, thanks but no thanks. So we would like 

to be able to do that. 

Senator ISAKSON. OK. Maybe I shouldn’t ask this, but I always 

like to shine a light on the good guys. Are there companies that 

you could point to that are really aggressive in seeking and employing veterans? 

Ms. MORRIS. Oh, absolutely. I mean, we work with thousands of 

companies all over the country and one of the things we try to do—

I mean, you have to remember, what our people are doing on the 

phone every day, as Senator Murray was talking about, is calling 

all these companies all over the country to educate them and tell 

them about this resource. 

54

The biggest problem is really that a lot of the companies aren’t 

aware of it. Once they are made aware, once we introduce them to 

these candidates, once they interview them, they are sold. They 

come back time and time again, and then, of course, success breeds 

success because they talk to their friends, their associates, or their 

subsidiaries or divisions and then it spreads. So once they are introduced to the candidate pool, absolutely, they are all very

interested. 

Senator ISAKSON. And I guess, following up, this will be my last 

question because my time is running out, what has been your most 

successful method? You talked about how you get the word to the 

employers on what is out there and the service. What is your most 

successful tool that you use to get to the soldiers? 

Ms. MORRIS. Well, it is day-to-day letting them know we are 

here. It is that contact, constant contact. We have people that all 

they do all the time is travel to all the bases. We go overseas. We 

go to Hawaii. As Shaun mentioned, we work with the TAPs and 

ACAP offices to continually let them know that when they are 

ready, they have a place to go as a resource to use. 

Senator ISAKSON. Thank you very much, and thanks for coming 

to Washington today and testifying. 

Mr. BRADLEY. Thank you, Senator. 

Chairman AKAKA. [presiding]. Thank you very much. 

Senator Webb? 

STATEMENT OF HON. JIM WEBB,

U.S. SENATOR FROM VIRGINIA 

Senator WEBB. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I appreciate the testimony that you all gave this morning. I read 

it before I got here. I would like to, first of all, make a comment 

about a portion of your testimony where you indicate that there, 

at least in some areas, was some resistance to the fact that you are 

a for-profit enterprise. My experience in this area goes a long way 

back. In fact, I see Ron Drock [ph.] out here in the audience, who 

used to work for the Disabled American Veterans 29 years ago 

when we were working on these. 

I would like to say, first of all, that the experience we have had 

with government actually trying to do this kind of job has been 

abysmal. We had a program that during the Carter Administration 

they tried to put into place. I think Ron will probably remember 

this. It was, like, a $40 million program to try to, with the Department of Labor, actually help do the same sort of thing you are 

doing and it was just horrible. I think we got something like 400 

jobs for veterans in about a year. 

So the fact that you are doing this and making money out of it 

is not a bad thing when you consider what the alternatives are for 

the kinds of expenditures when government tries to replicate the 

sorts of things that you are doing. 

I would also like to say that my brother, the first job he got when 

he left the Marine Corps was through a job fair program like this. 

I think they are very useful and the right way to do it. 

The questions that I have go to, first of all, awareness. We talk 

about awareness, awareness on both sides and particularly with respect to enlisted personnel. I am wondering, first of all, what perVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:27 Sep 27, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00058 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\RD41451\DOCS\37761.TXT SENVETS PsN: ROWENA
55

centage of people you are placing are junior enlisteds. Do you have 

any idea? 

Mr. BRADLEY. Historically, Senator, we will place about 60 to 65 

percent enlisted, 35 to 40 percent officer. 

Senator WEBB. Do you know what percentage of those are junior 

enlisteds rather than people retiring? 

Mr. BRADLEY. I would need to get the specific number, if you 

would like, but because there are more of them, more junior 

enlisteds than are senior, it is probably the majority, I mean, the 

E–4, E–5, there are more of them and consequently more are 

placed. 

Senator WEBB. That is good to know. The question really goes to 

the awareness inside the active duty ranks that this sort of assistance is available when they are transitioning out. I find anecdotally 

that they are less likely to be employed at the point of their discharge rather than when they go back home. Is that something 

that you have seen? 

Mr. BRADLEY. That is not our program. Our program is that before they leave the service, they have a job, they know where they 

are going. Typically, they will interview 60 to 90 days before they 

get out. They will have a job. It takes about three weeks before initial interview to job offer, so they are good to go. So as far as 

awareness, we believe, as Sandy said, we want them to be aware 

of us. We say it over and over and over again to make sure they 

are aware of us, and we get a lot of—because we have been so successful, we get huge numbers of—you know how it works, buddies 

referring buddies referring buddies and that takes on a life of its 

own and that is the majority of our candidates now come to us that 

way. But we don’t rely on that. 

Senator WEBB. That is really great to hear. We need a lot more 

of it. One of the things I have been working with, in fact, with our 

unions in Virginia, where they say they want to go after veterans, 

as has been said many times, somebody who has spent four, six 

years on active duty compared to people in their age group has a 

much more refined sense of responsibility, knows how to get things 

done. They are in an environment where you have got to get things 

done every day. They are a great commodity. In talking to the 

unions in Virginia about wanting to reach those people, I have 

been trying to encourage them to get closer and closer to the point 

of discharge rather than waiting until people come back to the community. So I really commend you on what you are doing here. 

Mr. BRADLEY. Senator, if I could comment on that, I have been 

doing this 20 years and Sandy has more experience than me, even 

though you would not be able to tell that, and I don’t think there 

has ever been a case—the military-experienced job seeker versus 

his civilian counterpart, the same age, there is no comparison because the military-experienced job seeker will tell what he did from 

a leadership standpoint, from a stress level, from just cultural sensitivity, every category that is important to somebody being a successful employee. 

Now, translating that to a world that sometimes doesn’t understand—I would not say that people don’t value, because I think 

they do, but there is a world out there of people that haven’t served 

or don’t know anybody in the military, that they just don’t know. 

56

They just don’t understand. As Sandy said earlier, when they interview them, it is like their eyes pop open. They just can’t believe 

how good these military candidates are. That is the world that we 

live in. 

Senator WEBB. I am glad you are doing it. Thank you,

Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman AKAKA. Thank you very much, Senator Webb. 

Senator Tester? 

Senator TESTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Just a couple real quick questions just to clarify. 

Are all three of your groups working before discharge for placement, all three folks here? I mean, I understand that Shaun and 

Sandy, you are focused on the folks before they get out or they are 

discharged. 

Mr. WARREN. Both. 

Senator TESTER. Both? 

Mr. WARREN. Both. 

Senator TESTER. OK. For the ones after they get out, how do they 

get access? How do you inform them you are available? Is it by 

mail, or is it by direct contact? Do you call them? The ones that 

are in the military are a little easier because they are in a spot 

where you can identify them. 

Ms. MORRIS. Right. Well, after they have already been out, are 

you saying that they have already had a job and they are making 

a second job change, or they just exited——

Senator TESTER. Either one. 

Ms. MORRIS. OK. Well, they can come to us a number of different 

ways. Obviously, again through the public and private partnerships, we try to get the word out. A lot of it is through referrals, 

because even though they may not have a job, maybe their buddy 

got a job through one of the sources. 

But we also do a lot of advertising. We publish a newspaper 

called Civilian Job News and that goes to all the bases. And so obviously there are going to be people reading that, and we have got 

advertisements in there as well as information to provide to them 

as to what they need to do. 

Senator TESTER. Do you have outreach, too, for those that are out 

of the military that are in civilian life? Does that publication go to 

the folks who are out of the military? 

Ms. MORRIS. That publication doesn’t, but we do a lot of advertising outside of that——

Senator TESTER. OK. 

Ms. MORRIS. [continuing].—and we have a job board and online 

services, as well. 

Senator TESTER. OK. Well, I don’t ask these questions to be critical. As Senator Webb, I appreciate the work you do because I 

think it is valuable. 

Do you reach into all States as far as placement? 

Ms. MORRIS. We try to. 

Mr. BRADLEY. Yes, Senator. I mean, there are States where we 

have not placed anybody. I actually——

Senator TESTER. How about pulling the veterans in? Is it all 50 

States for that, too, because——

Mr. BRADLEY. Oh, absolutely. 

57

Senator TESTER. OK. 

Mr. BRADLEY. Absolutely, because somebody who is stationed in 

Wisconsin, which is where I am from, doesn’t mean they want to 

spend the rest of their life there. 

Senator TESTER. Then somebody in California might want to, 

say, work in Montana. 

[Laughter.] 

Senator TESTER. Thank you folks for all you do. I appreciate it. 

Chairman AKAKA. Thank you very much, Senator Tester. 

Let me ask two or even three questions. Mr. Warren, as a successor to America’s Job Bank, please describe the role your organization is undertaking to assist returning servicemembers make a 

smooth and effective transition from the military to a civilian

workforce. 

Mr. WARREN. Our primary role in that respect is to help the employers, all employers, but primarily the Federal contractors, get 

their jobs to the local level, to the State level, to the local DVOPs 

and LVERs and to the people, the counselors that can help them. 

In other words, looking at IBM as an example, IBM would have to 

post jobs in, I think, about 30 States, and what we do is electronically deliver those jobs to the appropriate DVOP, LVER, and OneStop Career Center in each State to help those people know where 

the jobs are, where the Federal contractors are, and how to get the 

veterans into those jobs. 

Chairman AKAKA. Let me ask just one more question. DOD has 

recently launched its TurboTAP web site. I recognize that 

DirectEmployers is a contributing resource to that site. 

Mr. WARREN. That is correct. 

Chairman AKAKA. I would greatly appreciate it if each of you 

would visit the finished product on the web and share with the 

Committee for the record your reaction to it and any suggestions 

you might have for improvements. So I am asking you to do that 

and we would really appreciate your responses. 

Mr. WARREN. Could I respond now to that, or——

Chairman AKAKA. Yes. 

Mr. WARREN. As part of our participation in that product, our 

firm is actually providing the job search capability that connects 

the veterans with the employer, and so I have looked at that extensively, the whole product, the whole service. And as a citizen and 

as a veteran, I can say that I am probably more impressed with 

that service and what they have done with that than anything that 

I have seen or any service, especially any online service, that I 

have seen. I think it is an outstanding product and I think they 

have done a tremendous job in developing it. 

In terms of looking at it and making recommendations beyond 

that, I would have to spend more time. 

Chairman AKAKA. Well, thank you. What about——

Mr. BRADLEY. We would be happy to look at it, Senator. 

Chairman AKAKA. Fine. Then will you respond in writing? 

Ms. MORRIS. Absolutely. 

Mr. BRADLEY. Yes, sir. 

Chairman AKAKA. I really appreciate that. 

Let me ask the Members here, do you have any further questions? 

58

Well, I want to thank you so much for your testimony of panel 

two. It will help us in our work here. It is looking exciting and we 

certainly want to help seamless transition of our military people. 

So again, thank you very much for being here. 

Mr. BRADLEY. Thank you, Senator. 

Mr. WARREN. Thank you. 

Chairman AKAKA. For our final panel, we will hear some very 

personal stories. First, the Committee welcomes Corey McGee. Mr. 

McGee was severely injured in Iraq and he will share his inspiring 

success story with us. 

We are also pleased to welcome Monique Rizer, a young wife and 

mother who was recently awarded the Army Commander’s Award 

for Public Service for her work as a Family Readiness Group leader 

during her husband’s deployment in Iraq. 

Mr. Don Osterberg, Vice President of Schneider National, Inc., of 

Green Bay, Wisconsin, will share some of his insight on transition 

from an employee’s perspective. 

We are happy to have you all join us today and look forward to 

hearing from you. So may I ask Mr. McGee to begin with your 

statement. 

STATEMENT OF COREY McGEE, OEF/OIF VETERAN 

Mr. MCGEE. Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, 

thank you for the opportunity to testify today. It is an honor to be 

here on behalf of the newly injured soldiers coming home from Iraq 

and Afghanistan who will be transitioning into civilian life to find 

new careers, not just jobs. From experience, I can tell you that it 

is not an easy road to travel, but I hope that today will bring us 

one step closer to creating a better experience for combat-wounded 

veterans and their families around the United States. 

After receiving the news that I had to retire from the military 

due to the wounds I received in combat, I decided that I needed to 

think about what was next. I was worried that no one would want 

to hire a paraplegic. I had joined the Army straight out of high 

school. The only thing I was trained to do was be a sniper for a 

scout platoon. Even if there were an opportunity for employment, 

how would I know about it and set up an interview? What would 

I wear and how would I get to the interview? Because I had 

planned to be in the military for the next 20 years, I did not have 

a resume and the only degree I had was a high school diploma. I 

had no back-up plan. It never occurred to me that I would be paralyzed and searching for gainful employment. 

After a few months after returning from Fallujah, I met a woman 

by the name of Jennie Lohowictz who gave me the answers I needed to begin to travel on the road to success. 

She introduced me to the Coming Home to Work Program. This 

program allowed me to serve as a Department of Veterans Affairs 

volunteer, which enabled me to get the experience I needed to work 

in the business world. Though it goes against that old Army cliche, 

I volunteered. 

I joined the nationwide volunteer group of thousands who serve 

veterans at VA hospitals, helping in a variety of assignments from 

escorting the patients to medical appointments within the hospital 

to working in administrative work. Volunteering gives returning 

59

soldiers an opportunity to transition back into civilian life as well 

as establish relationships with VA staff and members of the veterans service organization community. It also allows soldiers to use 

old and current skills as well as learn new skills without the pressure of a job. It helps soldiers transition into the community and 

establish relationships, just as a young business professional in the 

real work world. 

I have been through a lot within the last three years, from a 

quadriplegic to a paraplegic, to the man sitting here before you 

today, as I transitioned from an under-educated soldier with few 

practical skills to a college-educated Public Affairs Specialist with 

the help of this program. Even though I could no longer serve my 

country within the Army, I am proud to continue to serve from 

within. I now have a full-time position at the VA as a Public Affairs Specialist while also attending college full-time at the Northern Virginia Community College. 

Thanks to my experiences, I was able to find a job in the VA 

medical center in Atlanta, Georgia, where I am moving with my 

soon-to-be wife. I plan to transfer to Emory University to further 

my education in the fall. I would not change a thing within the last 

seven years of my life. I would do it all over again if I could because I would not be here today without everything that I

have done. 

Having said that, though, there is one change that I would like 

to recommend that might be able to help soldiers and their families. I have two children from a previous marriage and know what 

it is like to worry endlessly about how to take care of them financially after a military career is cut short. After receiving the training I needed from the VA as a volunteer for a year, I knew I wanted to work for the VA as an actual employee once completing my 

medical discharge. However, no governmental agency could hire me 

nor guarantee me a position since I was still technically employed 

by the military. 

By the end of my year-and-a-half of volunteering with the VA, 

I was living off the hospital grounds, going to work almost every 

day, and only rarely returning to Walter Reed for physical therapy 

and exams, yet I still had no idea if there would be a job for me 

upon my release from the military. It took two months for me to 

secure a position once I was discharged, a long time when you support two children and live in such an expensive city. 

My suggestion is for the entire process to be more streamlined 

to make it easier for these young heroes to directly transition from 

a volunteer position to a permanent position once released. A government employer should have the option to hire a soldier parttime that is currently on medical hold and meets the standards for 

the position. For those soldiers who may not need office training, 

it would be most beneficial to have a point of contact to guide them 

to employers who are interested in hiring soldiers, disabled or not. 

Even better would be the establishment of a web site designed solely for retired soldiers and their families that would highlight job 

opportunities or training seminars and classes. This web site could 

be similar to the numerous other job market search sites, like Monster.com or USAjobs.com, but would only be accessible to retiring 

60

soldiers. This would help families to eliminate the worry of finding 

a career and help soldiers recover faster during their rehabilitation. 

Mr. Chairman, that ends my statement and I thank you for the 

privilege of appearing before the Committee today. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. McGee follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF COREY MCGEE, OEF/OIF VETERAN

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to 

testify today. It is an honor to be here on behalf of the newly injured soldiers coming 

home from Iraq and Afghanistan who will be transitioning into civilian life to find 

new careers, not just jobs. From experience, I can tell you that it is not an easy 

road to travel, but I hope that today will bring us one-step closer to creating a better 

experience for combat wounded veterans and their families around the United 

States. 

After receiving the news that I had to retire from the military due to the wounds 

I received in combat, I decided that I needed to think about what was next. I was 

worried that no one would want to hire a paraplegic. I had joined the Army straight 

out of high school, and the only thing I was trained for was to be a sniper for a 

scout platoon. Even if there were an opportunity for employment, how would I know 

about it and set up an interview? What would I wear and how would I get to the 

interview? Because I had planned to be in the military for the next 20 years, I did 

not have a resume and the only degree I had was a high school diploma. I had no 

back-up plan. It never occurred to me that I would be paralyzed and searching for 

gainful employment. 

After a few months after returning from Falluja, I met a woman by the name of 

Jennie Lohowictz who gave me the answers I needed to begin to travel on the road 

to success. She introduced me to the, ‘‘Coming Home to Work Program.’’ This program allowed me to serve as a Department of Veterans Affairs volunteer, which enabled me to get the experience I needed to work in the business world. Though it 

goes against that old Army cliche, I volunteered. I joined a nationwide volunteer 

group of thousands who serve veterans at VA hospitals helping in a variety of assignments from escorting patients, to medical appointments within the hospital, to 

working in administrative work. Volunteering gives returning soldiers an opportunity to transition back into civilian life, as well as establish relationships with VA 

staff and members of the veterans service organizations community. It also allows 

soldiers to use old and current skills as well as learn new skills without the pressure of a ‘‘job’’. It helps soldiers transition into the community and establish relationships just as a young business professional in the real work world. 

I have been through a lot within the last three years. From a quadriplegic to a 

paraplegic, to the man standing here today as I transitioned from an undereducated 

soldier with few practical skills, to a college educated Public Affairs Specialist with 

the help of this program. Even though I could no longer serve my country within 

the Army, I am proud to continue to serve from within. I now have a full time position at the VA as a Public Affairs Specialist while also attending college full-time 

at the Northern Virginia Community College. Thanks to my experiences, I was able 

to find a job in the VA medical center in Atlanta, Georgia, where I am moving with 

my soon-to-be wife. I plan to transfer to Emory University to further my education 

in the fall. I would not change a thing within the last seven years of my life. I would 

do it all over again if I could, because I would not be here today without everything 

I have done. 

Having said that, though, there is one change that I would like to recommend 

that might be able to help soldiers and their families. I have two children from a 

previous marriage and know what it is like to worry endlessly about how to take 

care of them financially after a military career is cut short. After receiving the 

training I needed from VA as a volunteer for a year, I knew I wanted to work for 

the VA as an actual employee once completing my medical discharge. However, no 

government agency could hire me nor guarantee me a position since I was still technically employed by the military. By the end of my year and a half of volunteering 

with the VA, I was living off of the hospital grounds, going to work almost every 

day, and only rarely returned to Walter Reed for physical therapy and exams. Yet, 

I still had no idea if there would be a job for me upon my release from the military. 

It took two months for me to secure a position once discharged, a long time when 

you support two children and live in such an expensive city. My suggestion is for 

the entire process to be more streamlined, to make it easier for these young heroes 

to directly transition from a volunteer position to a permanent position once released. A government employer should have the option to hire a soldier part time 

61

that is currently on medical hold and meets the standards for the position. For those 

soldiers who may not need office training, it would be most beneficial to have a 

point of contact to guide them to employers who are interested in hiring soldiers, 

disabled or not. Even better would be the establishment of a web site designed solely for retired soldiers and their families that would highlight job opportunities or 

training seminars and classes. This website could be similar to the numerous other 

job-market search sites, like monster.com or usajobs.com, but would only be accessible to retiring soldiers. This will help families to eliminate the worry of finding 

a career and help soldiers recover faster during their rehabilitation. 

Mr. Chairman, that ends my statement, and I thank you for the privilege of appearing before the Committee today.

Chairman AKAKA. Thank you very much, Mr. McGee. 

Mr. MCGEE. Thank you, Senator. 

Chairman AKAKA. We will hear now from Ms. Rizer. 

STATEMENT OF MONIQUE RIZER, ARMY RESERVE SPOUSE 

Ms. RIZER. Thank you. Thank you for your service, Corey. My 

name is Monique Rizer and I am married to a 13-year Army Reserve soldier who deployed to Iraq from May of 2005 until August 

of 2006. Thank you for inviting me to speak with you about how 

Reserve spouses return to civilian employment after a deployment. 

My entire statement has been submitted for the record, but I would 

like to share some highlights with you today. 

My husband deployed three months after he moved to Virginia 

for his civilian job. I was transitioning from employee to contractor 

for a contracting and consulting firm I had worked for two years. 

When my husband deployed, I looked for work, but with two young 

children at home and a soldier at war, full-time opportunities were 

daunting. After his R&R in January of 2006, I felt overwhelmed 

and I decided to stop seeking employment or contracting opportunities altogether. It was in the best interests of my children and my 

soldier and the 20 families I supported as a Family Readiness 

Leader. 

I was eager to work again when he returned from his tour August 2006, but the search was more difficult than I had expected. 

I was not aware of resources for Reserve or Guard spouses seeking 

professional employment and I received no government assistance. 

I relied on popular web sites and my own small network of friends. 

During the first half of his tour when I was looking for work, recruiters called me regularly based on my publicly posted resume. 

When he returned home, I updated my resume with my FRG experience and the military award I had received for that work. I received only one call during that job search. I couldn’t help but wonder if the lack of interest in my resume was because I now had a 

nearly two-year gap in my paid employment history. I can’t be 

sure, but according to January 2006 Bureau of Labor Statistics, a 

woman my age with employment tenure of two years or more, 

which I had, the median time without work was five-and-a-half 

weeks. I was without work for nearly six months. 

It was frustrating to think that I, too, had served my country 

while my husband was deployed, and it was more difficult looking 

for work now than before. My credentials hadn’t changed. In fact, 

they had improved. I added a software course to my master’s degree and was highly recommended by the military leader I worked 

with during the deployment. 

62

Active duty spouses who relocate with their sponsor to an active 

duty station receive DOD job preference. I believe Congress should 

consider a six-month preference for Reserve and Guard spouses, as 

well, similar to six months of TRICARE benefits we receive postdeployment. Of course, this would not help Reserve and Guard 

spouses who live in remote areas as compared to areas here in 

Washington, DC, which is why civilian employment support is imperative. 

I believe spouses must also be proactive and take advantage of 

the opportunities that are presented during a deployment. I immersed myself in military life during my husband’s deployment. I 

told everyone I knew I was looking for a job and I continued to volunteer, which finally led to my employment. 

However, I do believe I am behind my civilian peers due to the 

deployment. My husband is legally protected from this effect under 

the law. I make half the hourly rate of my last contracting opportunity. He, on the other hand, received a raise that he missed 

while he was in Iraq. I am in a field that I was not trained for, 

so I am not building a career in my primary area of experience. 

However, I also am offered benefits that I did not have as a contractor, such as paid leave, holidays, a retirement plan, and health 

care benefits. I am also now in a place I feel secure if he was deployed again, which we know is likely as a long-term Reserve

family. 

Day care is another area affected by a servicemember’s deployment. My husband is currently on active duty, right now, actually, 

attending a military course for two weeks out of State. I am living 

what my life would be if he deployed again while I am working and 

it is challenging. He usually cares for our children one day a week 

during his flex schedule so I can work longer hours, and now I 

have to seek out friends to cover before and after-school care for 

my third-grader and full-day care for my 3-year-old. If I were paying for this, it would eat up more than 60 percent of my net pay, 

making the financial benefit hardly worth it. 

My other consideration with returning civilian employment was 

that my husband suffered a traumatic brain injury in his first few 

days in Fallujah. It was mild compared to others, but I am still 

concerned about his long-term ability to provide for us, since we 

have invested in him as our primary breadwinner. I am constantly 

torn, like many military spouses, between being home as a support 

for my family and working hard outside the home to eventually be 

in a position to be the primary breadwinner if the situation demands it. For now, we take life one day at a time. We are very 

thankful that he is home and I am employed. So far, his civilian 

career is going well. 

I believe widespread communication about resources available to 

Reserve and Guard spouses seeking employment would help. Employers to offer part-time work with benefits is crucial, and even 

extra leave time for military spouses who must take off for issues 

related to the servicemember’s deployment would be beneficial. Day 

care is also key. Whether the servicemember is deployed or serving 

an extended battle assembly, two-week AT, or military course, 

there should be some provision for spouses who need extra day care 

assistance that their spouse usually provides. As with the 

63

servicemember, the spouse should not be penalized for taking time 

to support his or her family while the servicemember is deployed. 

They should be able to reclaim their place in the civilian workforce. 

Each military spouse’s experience is unique, but today’s Reserve 

and Guard spouses are relied upon for family support like never 

before. We are committed to that support, but our jobs and pursuit 

of higher education is sometimes delayed because of it. We resign, 

reduce hours, or change jobs. I believe I have shared some challenges we all face: Finding employment that works with our unique 

life, having consistent day care, and supporting our servicemember. 

Thank you for your time. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Rizer follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MONIQUE RIZER, SPOUSE OF AN ARMY RESERVIST

My employment history since graduating with my master’s degree in 2003 has 

been heavily influenced by my husband’s military and civilian career. Up until the 

deployment I was progressing at a pace I was satisfied with and felt was on par 

with my peers. His deployment to Iraq, however, resulted in a gap in my employment history, and changed my future career course. Following is some background 

about my employment history leading up to my husband’s deployment. 

We both grew up and attended college in Washington, Senator Murray’s state. 

After graduating on the same day, he from law school and I from a master’s program, we relocated to Pennsylvania, Senator Specter’s state, in July of 2003 where 

my husband served as a Federal law clerk until February 2005. I was fortunate to 

keep my job with a Northwest based top 100 accounting and consulting firm, where 

I began as a communications intern during my master’s program, by working from 

home in Pennsylvania despite the firm having no offices outside of Washington or 

Idaho. I had also given birth to our second son during that time, so the arrangement 

was ideal for our circumstances as young professionals with young children. 

Our family moved to Alexandria in February of 2005 when my husband accepted 

a full time position in Virginia, Senator Webb’s state. The move forced my company 

to reevaluate our telecommuting agreement, and, while I pushed to keep working 

from home, they were not able to continue with this work arrangement, but they 

did contract with me for several projects as the new employee was trained. By this 

time I had tripled my starting hourly wage. 

Within weeks of moving to Virginia rumblings of a deployment put a question 

mark on my employment future, since we had no idea how it would affect our family. He received orders and deployed on Mother’s Day 2005 for 3 months of training 

in Indiana, and then was sent to Iraq where he served in a small town outside of 

Fallujah from late July 2005 until July 2006. Our sons were 6 and 18 months at 

the time. 

I had begun a frantic search for employment before we moved to Virginia, right 

after I was informed I could no longer telecommute for my firm once I moved. The 

pressure to replace my income, and put to use my education, which had been funded 

primarily by a full scholarship I was awarded as junior in college, weighed heavily 

on my mind, but when my husband finally deployed I wasn’t sure what to do. Despite my husband’s 11 years of service as a Reserve component soldier (he served 

as an enlisted Washington National Guard soldier for 5 years, then as an officer 

in the WNG prior to transferring to the Army Reserves when we moved to Pennsylvania) I couldn’t have imagined what the next 15 months would bring; an injury 

caused by an IED in the first weeks of him being in Iraq, and the anxiety on all 

of us. 

GOING BACK TO CIVILIAN EMPLOYMENT

When he returned home early August 2006 we both wanted as much time as a 

family as possible, so using his military leave and some of our own funds to float 

us without an income for a few days he was able to take several weeks off before 

returning to his civilian job. 

I decided to seek part time employment when my husband returned home. I freelanced on a few projects while he was deployed, but only during the first half. After 

his two-week leave in January of 2006, I was overwhelmed and sought counseling, 

so did not pursue any additional freelance opportunities. When he returned, I was 

eager to find ways to get my career back on track, but still could not to take my 

main focus off my family, which, for me, precluded me from seeking full time work. 

64

By this time it had been a year and a half since I had been employed. I volunteered 

as an FRG leader during the deployment and the responsibilities I had helped to 

explain my absence from the work force for prospective employers, but it would take 

another 6 months to find a position that could accommodate my family needs, which 

I believe is an important point. 

When my husband returned, he was not the same, and our family was not the 

same. Like thousands of servicemembers, he was dealing with post traumatic stress 

and also a traumatic brain injury, which affected all of us. He lives with chronic 

headaches, decreased hearing and eyesight, and traumatic memories, to name some 

of his symptoms. My 2-year-old son was uncomfortable with his father for anything 

routine, such as bed times, having spent half his life separated from him, so it was 

a challenge for my husband to bond with our children again, and find his role in 

our lives since we had been independent of him for so long. Given these circumstances I felt a great responsibility to my family and wanted to balance our 

health with my career, so I think it took me much longer to find employment than 

had I been seeking traditional full time employment without the added concern for 

my family. 

It was at times discouraging looking for work. I was not aware of resources for 

Reserve or Guard spouses seeking professional employment, besides a career fair on 

Ft. Belvoir, which I attended. I relied on Monster, Craigslist, and my own small network of friends. During the first half of his tour, when I was looking for work, I 

had several recruiters calling based on my Monster profile. When he returned home, 

I updated my profile with my FRG responsibilities and my award for public service. 

I received one call in 6 months. Was the dearth in interest because I now had a 

nearly 2-year gap in my paid employment history? I can’t be sure, but it was frustrating to think that I, too, had served my country while my husband was deployed, 

and it was more difficult looking for work now, than before that service. 

And yet, the pull to be home with my family, to take care of them, was strong 

enough to make me question if going back to work was even the right move. I had 

conflicting emotions—take care of them from home, or get back into the work force 

so that I can eventually get a high paying job in case my husband’s employment 

was affected by what he suffered in Iraq. (He was still in the disability process at 

that time and we did not know what kind of compensation he would receive for his 

injury.) It may sound paranoid, but given the recent discoveries about even mild 

TBI and the delayed onset of symptoms particularly when coupled with PTSD, it 

was a real and frightening thought at the time, and it still crosses my mind that 

who knows what or how TBI symptoms could affect his longevity as an attorney. 

I want to be prepared to care for my family no matter what the future holds. 

I believe Reserve spouses must also be proactive and take advantage of the opportunities that are presented during a deployment. I became involved in military life 

to an extent I never had before, which resulted in my finding employment with 

NMFA. I do believe I am behind my civilian peers due to the deployment—an effect 

that my husband has protection from under Uniformed Services Employment and 

Reemployment Rights Act—I make half the hourly rate from my last contracting opportunity with my previous firm, and I am in a field that I was not trained for, so 

I am in a sense losing career building time in my primary field of education and 

experience. However, I also am offered benefits that I did not have as a contractor, 

such as paid leave, holidays, a retirement plan and health care benefits. And I’m 

in a place I feel secure in if my husband was deployed again. 

FUTURE EMPLOYMENT AS A RESERVE FAMILY

We have a much clearer understanding of what it means to be a Reserve family 

in today’s military. Not only can we expect the 2 weeks of yearly training to take 

work off for, we know another deployment is a real possibility and we must consider 

how it affects our civilian jobs. For me it means needing a flexible and a supportive 

employer who will understand if I need time off for my husband or my children or 

even a leave of absence. It also means having back up daycare arrangements. 

Child care 

I am experiencing now what life would be like if he deployed. My husband is currently away for 17 days to attend a military course and I have relied on the generosity of my friends (also military spouses) to care for my children when my husband normally would. 

A deployment today would increase my daycare costs by about $200/month since 

my husband currently has a flex schedule, which allows him to be home with our 

children one day a week. (During a deployment, that’s about what I spent sending 

my husband food since he lived outside of a FOB and did not have regular access 

to meals other than MREs, morale items, and paying for shipping.) I rely on him 

65

for this so that I can work more hours that day without having to pay for an additional day of daycare for our 3-year-old, or before and after school care for my third 

grader. If I did have to pay for an additional day, the total cost of daycare would 

eat up more than 60 percent of my paycheck. 

While I do qualify for military child care when my husband is on active duty orders for more than 72 hours, this would not completely eliminate the challenges. 

First, I still would have to pay for it. Second, I know from experience using the part 

time care on post during the deployment that you must plan at least one month 

in advance to get an hourly care slot, not to mention having to go through the process of re-registering them, and hours are limited from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m. This would 

conflict with my work schedule. Third, there is no transportation from a civilian 

school to before and after care on post for my third grader. 

If he were deployed again, I would have to either alter my work schedule or lose 

pay, and paying for additional child care would make the net financial profit of 

working hardly worth it. 

Future deployments 

Since returning, my husband has been contacted twice for another deployment. 

We assume that he cannot be ordered to deploy again since he just finished a 15-

month tour less than 1 year ago, but the lack of clarity on the deployment rules 

for Guard and Reserve servicemembers puts us in a precarious position wondering 

how long he can stay in the service, considering the interruptions it causes to our 

primary livelihood. I know nothing is sure, but some guidance or an attempt to follow a standard, such as limiting deployments to 18 consecutive months in 5 years, 

would at least help us to understand what we are facing if we remain a Reserve 

family. No one has been able to answer that question for me. 

Job interruptions caused by lengthy deployments can have significant consequences for Reserve families. One Reserve spouse who ran her own business told 

me that after her Reserve spouse’s second deployment in 4 years, with a total of 

2 years away, she was compelled to close her business. The risk of future deployments was too great for her. She wrote to me saying:

‘‘First, it is a lot of work to run a business, but on your own it is even 

more. This is not double the work . . . it is exponential. The farm, the 

house, the business, it is exhausting both physically and emotionally. 

Secondly the financial risk involved. A small business is always tenuous. 

I have a few employees and although they are all contractors, I try to keep 

myself and them employed to their fullest potential. The lost of a large contract, the bankruptcy of a large client, or worse yet another geopolitical disaster such as 9/11 could wipe out my company in a day. This would have 

a large impact on my finances while my spouse is overseas. 

And finally, since my husband’s return in August, my thoughts have been 

overwhelmed with worries that he will be called back again. And this time, 

it will be longer than the last. I need a more stable, less risky environment. 

It is hard to find an employer who believes that I want to give up successful entrepreneurship for a return to the corporate life. But I tell them 

this is now a way of life for the military spouse.’’

THE SERVICEMEMBER

While I have the opportunity, I would like to offer some insight into the 

servicemember’s transition to civilian employment after a deployment. We are more 

profoundly affected by his or her return to civilian employment if they are the primary breadwinners. 

Each servicemember’s experience is different, but there are common challenges to 

returning to civilian employment—if they even have something to return to. I believe a large part of this issue revolves around ensuring servicemembers, and their 

families understand the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights 

Act and how it applies to public and private employers and ensuring employers adhere to these protections without causing undue burden or pressure on the 

servicemember. In addition, I believe certain changes should be made, or at least 

more clearly articulated within USERRA regarding the employment rights of our 

Nation’s citizen warriors. I admit I do not understand the law myself. But, I can 

offer our family’s experience to highlight some difficulties and successes. 

I have found the general understanding of employment rights for Reserve 

servicemembers to be limited to: (1) a guarantee that you will have a position to 

return to, or one comparable to the position you left when you deployed, (2) any pay 

increases, or promotions you were entitled to before you deployed should remain on 

schedule. I believe the rule should be simple—you should not be penalized in any 

66

way because you served your country when called to active duty. Our 

servicemembers put their lives on the line, spend years away from their spouses and 

children, sometimes only to return to a boss pressuring you to return to work, dragging feet to give deserved, earned benefits, or nothing to return to at all. We must 

also continue to recognize employers who exemplify support to Guard and Reserve 

servicemembers and their families. 

The transition back and forth from civilian to military to civilian again can be 

consuming because of everything else that is going on. Our family’s primary concern 

was securing a pay increase that we were sure he would have earned had he not 

been deployed. We had hoped the pay raise would be a natural part of his return 

to work but that did not occur and so my husband began the due diligence to receive 

the raise he deserved. After writing letters and progressing up the appropriate 

chain, 7 months later he received the raise, and pay dated back to the date of the 

raise. Though we disagreed with the date of the pay raise, we felt it was best to 

not push our luck and considered the matter resolved. Other issues we faced when 

he returned to work were: reconciling whether or not he acquired leave while he 

was deployed (he did not), how to make up for matching contributions to our retirement plan (this process is not clear), and achieving the next scheduled pay raise. 

While we are grateful to have received his raise, but that 7-month wait heaped 

stress upon my husband who was already dealing with other challenges from the 

deployment. 

Overall, I believe our family was fortunate that my husband was a Federal employee during his deployment. His profession as an attorney and chosen field of 

practice offered certain protections that we felt confident would be fulfilled, or to 

see enforced in the case that they were not. Though only weeks into his new position before he received orders to deploy (incidentally, he was at Air Assault school 

for 2 weeks after beginning his new position when he heard of the deployment orders), where he came from an 18-month long Federal law clerkship, his supervisors 

were incredibly supportive. His benefits specialist was patient to explain any questions I had during his deployment regarding issues such as health care benefits, 

which were paid for by the Federal Government as primary health care coverage, 

military leave pay and life insurance. 

Mr. Chairman and distinguished Members of the Committee, I thank you for your 

interest in how Reserve component servicemembers and their military families transition back to civilian employment after returning from war. We are proud of our 

service, but I ask that we not bear additional costs as we balance our civilian life 

with our military commitments. More emphasis placed on resources for job placement after returning from deployment, better communication and enforcement of 

Reserve and Guard employment rights, and continued support from outstanding employers will help sustain citizen warriors and their families, and our Nation’s security for the long term. 

MONIQUE RIZER’S RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE IMPROVEMENT

OF TURBOTAP WEB SITE

I have gone through the Turbo TAP web site and I have a few observations: 

First, I think it is very well done. The information is organized, well written, and 

visually pleasing. I was especially happy to see information for servicemembers who 

are also small business owners. From a web development perspective, I think a 

search tool and a clear ‘‘enter here’’ button would be useful, rather than having to 

find a way to get to the ‘‘meat’’ of the site by clicking on the General Information 

link down on the lower right side of the home page. 

I think the site would be improved by adding more information about family 

members. Where do spouses go for counseling if they need it after a deployment 

ends? What kind of assistance is there for children? Parents of single 

servicemembers? A large part of the transition, particularly when coming off a combat tour, is mental and emotional. What can family members expect in their 

servicemember as he or she makes the transition to the civilian world and how can 

the family member help, or how can the servicemember help? This kind of information would make the site even more comprehensive. 

The Guard and Reserve section seems more for active duty servicemembers going 

to a Reserve component, instead of for Reserve Component servicemembers separating from active duty. I think it would be well worth it to expand that section 

into resources for RC servicemembers and have more information about PTSD, 

going through the disability rating process, leave time after coming off active duty, 

USERRA rights, etc. I realize some of this information may be in other areas of the 

site, but with the web, redundancy is important to reaching the intended audience 

67

as so many people search for information in so many different ways. As a Reserve 

or Guard spouse, I would head straight for that section and hope to find my answers 

there, tailored for a Reserve family. 

I think asking a servicemember and family member who has used the site to 

guide their transition would really tell how useful this site is. I know it would have 

been a great resource for me and my family when my husband returned from Iraq 

last year. But, we found our way... and I guess we still are.

Chairman AKAKA. Thank you very much. 

And now Mr. Osterberg. 

STATEMENT OF DON OSTERBERG, VICE PRESIDENT, 

SCHNEIDER NATIONAL, INC., GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN 

Mr. OSTERBERG. Good morning, Chairman Akaka and distinguished Members of the Committee. I certainly am honored to 

serve on such a distinguished panel as my co-panelists today and 

I thank both of you for your service to our great Nation. 

As was mentioned, my name is Don Osterberg. I am currently 

serving as Vice President for Schneider National. I am also a retired Army infantry officer. I am here today representing not only 

Schneider National, but the Truckload Carriers Association, as 

well. For those of you that may not be familiar with Schneider National, we are our Nation’s largest truckload carrier. We generate 

nearly $4 billion in annual revenue. We have nearly 25,000 associates that serve worldwide. And we provide integrated transportation logistics services. Perhaps most importantly today, we have 

a very long history of supporting America’s veterans. 

Our history dates back to 1935, when our founder, Al Schneider, 

a longtime member of the Wisconsin National Guard, sold his family automobile to buy his first truck. As Al Schneider’s business 

grew, so did his need for quality drivers and other associates and 

Al began recruiting, as you would expect, from his fellow Guardsmen in the Wisconsin National Guard. Over 70 years later, Schneider National continues to approach Guard members, Reservists, 

and separating servicemen and women with nationwide career opportunities. 

Our preference to hire military veterans is as true today as it 

was for Al Schneider back in 1935. As an example, last year, we 

hired just under 1,700 veterans as driver associates for our company, and this year to date, we have hired 812 veterans as driver 

associates. We also hire many military veterans as mechanics, office associates, managers, and executive leaders. 

We currently have 56 of our associates that are serving on active 

duty and are deployed with Guard and Reserve units worldwide. 

We have several programs in place for our members of the Guard 

and Reserve. For example, we offer extended benefits and differential pay when servicemembers are deployed and we have guaranteed home time for weekend drill and annual training where no vacation time is required on the part of our associates. 

Our programs for supporting our military have garnered us 

many regional and national awards and recognition. For example, 

in November 2006, Schneider National was ranked 17th on GI 

Jobs’ annual list of top 50 military-friendly employers. Going back 

to 1991, Schneider National was named America’s most supportive 

employer of the Guard and Reserve by the Enlisted Association of 

National Guard of the United States. It was the first time that 

68

they had presented that award, as many of you may know, and 

today, that award is known as the Al Schneider Award in honor 

of our founder. 

In 1996, Schneider was awarded the first ever Employer Support 

Freedom Award by the Department of Defense and the National 

Committee for Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve. 

Schneider National was selected based on our continued support 

for Guard and Reserve associates and their families. Over the 

years, Schneider has also received numerous awards from veterans’ 

support organizations at State and national levels, including most 

recently recognition from the Department of Defense through the 

‘‘My Boss is a Patriot’’ program. 

Schneider National is active in the National Committee for Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve, encouraging other employers to hire members of the Guard and Reserve and supporting 

membership and participation in Reserve units. We are also a national HireVetsFirst employer, an Employer Support for the Guard 

and Reserve Five-Star Employer, and a proud supporter of the 

Army Wounded Warrior Program. 

However, I don’t mention those for any attempt at organizational 

self aggrandizing, but really to establish I believe we have earned 

a modicum of credibility and experience on the question of employing not only Guard and Reserve members, but military veterans 

separating from the military. We have some challenges that organizations like Schneider National and others will face, other truckload carriers. I want to summarize some of those challenges and 

really ask for your help in several of these areas. 

First of all, our challenge today, and it certainly has been very 

enlightening for me to listen to the predecessor speakers today, but 

our challenge is to recruit even more separating servicemembers 

and members of the Guard and Reserve than we have in the past. 

We certainly have a need, and toward that end, we offer a quickhire process for separating servicemembers. We actively participate 

in many of the organizations and programs that were mentioned 

today, including military job fairs. We have a section on our employment web site dedicated exclusively to veterans. And our company and our industry have many thousands of good jobs available 

today. 

Recent projections, for those of you that are familiar with the 

truck driver shortage that we currently are experiencing, not only 

do we have an acute truck driver shortage today, but that shortage 

is projected to grow to perhaps as high as 111,000 by the year 

2014. By virtue of the fact that we have good jobs available today, 

and yet there are certainly some unemployed military veterans, 

suggests that we certainly have a communications and marketing 

issue. But perhaps more importantly, I think we face transition 

issues with separating servicemembers. 

It is my opinion that it seems imperative that the Department 

of Veterans Affairs become involved in developing career transition 

programs to facilitate matching separating servicemen and women 

with employers that provide opportunities that directly affect our 

economy, like the trucking industry. 

In 2005, I was honored to be invited to participate in a national 

conference hosted by Secretary Nicholson to discuss a VA-led caVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:27 Sep 27, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00072 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\RD41451\DOCS\37761.TXT SENVETS PsN: ROWENA
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reer transition initiative, Coming Home to Work. I believe it is very 

unfortunate, both for veterans as well as for employers, that the 

Coming Home to Work initiative was not fully launched. I firmly 

believe that VA leadership in helping separating veterans as well 

as Guard and Reserve members transition from their military career to suitable civilian careers is even more essential today with 

the large number of combat veterans returning from both Iraq and 

Afghanistan. 

Secondly, I would ask for your support in revising the accelerated 

benefits under the Montgomery GI Bill for separating servicemen 

and women. The current GI Bill system of educational assistance 

for veterans is inefficient. It is an inefficient funding system for 

professional truck driver training and other short-term, high-cost 

educational programs that are not currently listed on VA’s accelerated benefits payment list. Accelerating GI Bill benefits for training in high-growth occupations like trucking, as opposed to simply 

high-tech occupations, would help provide more veterans with gainful employment opportunities and sound career paths even faster. 

We are currently working with DOL on an apprenticeship program 

that we think will help. 

I finally would ask, I know there is a great deal of work going 

on with the Air Force as the Air Expeditionary Force Cycle and the 

Army’s Force Generation Model to address the issue of predictability of Reserve and Guard members, and certainly we would ask 

for your support in ensuring that the services can provide us with 

that modicum of predictability. 

In closing, Schneider National and other Truckload Carriers Association members have great employment opportunities for veterans today. We also have a strong motivation to provide veterans 

with honorable career opportunities that support the transportation industry as the lifeblood of our Nation’s economy. 

Thank you very much for your kind attention.

Chairman AKAKA. Thank you very much, Mr. Osterberg. 

I would like to change the order and ask Senator Webb for your 

questions and I will close out. Senator Webb? 

Senator WEBB. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I would like to first thank all of you for your testimony. I think 

in different ways, I have lived all different facets of what you have 

just testified about. 

First, I would like to, if I may, Mr. McGee, I would like to ask 

you something about your treatment, your medical treatment. I 

had a rifle platoon and then a company in Vietnam, and in my 

small platoon, we had a triple amputee, more than one double amputee, high-arm amputee, spinal cord injury, and largely as a result of that, I have on a daily basis for many years—in many cases 

a daily basis—tracked how people have been able to readjust and 

the opportunities that they were given and that sort of thing. I 

think it is a great story that you are now in the flow here. 

But for you to have proceeded from a quadriplegic to where you 

are today, could you give us a comment on the medical care that 

you received in the military and in the VA, if you were using DVA? 

Mr. MCGEE. I had nothing but great treatment from Walter Reed 

and VA, although it did take me—I spent two-and-a-half years

trying to go through my medical board, so it was a long time beVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:27 Sep 27, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00073 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\RD41451\DOCS\37761.TXT SENVETS PsN: ROWENA
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cause I kept progressing and getting better as time went on. I was 

paralyzed from the waist down for a year, and after the year was 

done, I kept progressing. So overall, I have had nothing but great 

treatment because they have always taken care of me. I have never 

had a complaint, just as far as the length of time that I was going 

through my medical discharge, but that is the only thing. 

Senator WEBB. Sure. That seems to be a constant theme over the 

past couple of years, medical treatment being very good, but the 

processing itself seems to be where things are breaking down. 

May I ask, when you were progressing, were you put on like a 

temporary retirement while your condition continued to evolve, or 

did they just hold you on active duty until they decided that your 

condition had stabilized? 

Mr. MCGEE. They held me until they could finally stabilize. I 

wasn’t retired until a year after I finally—well, about half-a-year 

afterwards is when I finally was discharged, when I finally became 

stabilized. 

Senator WEBB. Did they put you on permanent retirement at 

that point, or are you still temporary——

Mr. MCGEE. Still temporary. It is still temporary for the next 

five years. 

Senator WEBB. Ms. Rizer, I would like to hear your comments 

about—you were talking about seeking employment and this sort 

of thing while your husband was deployed. There was something 

of a syndrome that went on during Vietnam with spouses, and I 

know of one case where someone I knew very well, who was a 3.9 

graduate out of college, et cetera, got turned down for 51 jobs in 

4 months because she was deemed a permanency risk because her 

husband was deployed. Do you feel like any of the struggles that 

you were going through were as a result of your husband being deployed? 

Ms. RIZER. Well, when he was deployed, I was very unsure about 

what I wanted to do, so I was going on interviews and seeking employment and I tried not to bring up the fact that he was deployed. 

I didn’t want that to be a consideration. So I couldn’t say for sure 

whether that affected the interviews that I went into and whether 

or not I got a job. 

But when he came back, it was definitely something that I had 

to bring up because I had to explain that I needed to be home with 

my family and so I wasn’t working. It may have deterred. To be 

honest, I only got a couple of interviews, which was part of the 

frustration. I couldn’t even get my foot in the door for the first five 

months or so. 

But I have no doubt that an employer considers that, because my 

husband, even he interviewed for new jobs when he returned home, 

he was specifically asked if he thought he would be deployed again, 

and he is a Federal employee. So I think that it is surprising that 

employers still do consider that for Reserve and Guard, I guess 

spouses now too, because it is just a reality that we live today. We 

are going to be deployed again. So yes, in a way. 

Senator WEBB. Mr. Osterberg, I hope your company will look at 

the GI Bill that I introduced at the beginning of this session. I 

spent a good bit of time working on it. As you may know, I was 

committee counsel on the House Veterans side years ago and I 

71

have always believed that the people who have served since 9/11 

deserve the same level of benefits as the people who served in 

World War II, and I think that would affect the OJT programs you 

are talking about, too, because they are tuition-based rather than 

monthly based. I hope your company will look at that and maybe 

give us some support if you believe it fits into what you are doing. 

Mr. OSTERBERG. Yes, and thank you for your leadership on that. 

I think you are absolutely right. 

Senator WEBB. I appreciate it. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman AKAKA. Thank you very much, Senator Webb. 

Ms. Rizer, I thank you very much for your compelling story. It 

is clear that it is not only the warrior, but also the warrior’s family 

who bears the burden. I can also appreciate the very difficult decisions that you and your family faced at that time and, of course, 

what you will be facing in the future. 

You indicated that when you were looking for work after your 

husband’s demobilization, you were not aware of the resources for 

Reserve or Guard spouses seeking employment. Was this because 

there were none or because information about such resources was 

not readily available? 

Ms. RIZER. I am sure there are resources available, because being 

a Family Readiness Group Leader and being very connected to the 

entire division, I had a lot of information disseminated through me. 

So I know there are resources. I am sure there are. There must be, 

because there are similar resources for active duty spouses. But I 

think Reserve and Guard spouses sometimes don’t think that they 

are eligible for those resources because they are not active duty 

365. So I think there could be some education there definitely that 

we are eligible for these services when our husbands return, our 

servicemembers return. So for myself, I don’t know how I missed 

that information, just because, I guess, I was very well informed. 

Chairman AKAKA. I am trying to reach for information about 

agencies or groups that would help you look for a job. 

I guess it is something that we need to work on——

Ms. RIZER. Yes, definitely. 

Chairman AKAKA [continuing].—to help the families. 

Mr. McGee, the Committee is really honored to have had the opportunity to share your inspiring story. Just one very brief question. You indicated that your primary interface in terms of employment was through the VA’s vocational rehabilitation program. Did 

you have any interaction throughout the process with the Department of Labor? 

Mr. MCGEE. No, sir, I didn’t. I didn’t know who to go to. There 

was only one person that kind of came up to me and that was the 

VA representative. 

Chairman AKAKA. I see. We have been talking to the different 

agencies about providing information for individuals like you and 

we want to be sure that there are a number of agencies that can 

help in this way. 

Mr. Osterberg, I especially thank you for making yourself available to this Committee on short notice and for your very interesting 

testimony. I understand and commend your personal commitment 

to training and hiring those returning from service. In terms of hiring individuals who are serving in the Guard and Reserve, could 

72

you comment on any special problems an employer might

encounter? 

Mr. OSTERBERG. Well, certainly we have the luxury of being a 

relatively large employer, so we have the ability to mitigate some 

of the costs and productivity negative impacts of employing Guard 

and Reservists who are deploying at a much more frequent rate 

and for longer duration than we have historically seen. 

I recognize, however, that there are many smaller employers that 

don’t have the luxury of size that we have and have to essentially 

work very hard at financial impact to their organization. They have 

no recourse, as you can imagine if we have 15-month deployments, 

but to replace their deployed servicemembers when they leave and 

it certainly creates some disruption in the workforce. I believe most 

of them are very committed to doing it because it is the right thing 

to do, but clearly there are some costs and productivity challenges 

associated with that. 

So if there is anything that the Committee and Congress can do 

to help create the same kinds of mitigation strategies that we have 

the luxury of in a larger company for smaller companies, I think 

it would certainly be appropriate to focus on that. 

Chairman AKAKA. Thank you for that. 

DOD has recently launched its TurboTAP web site. Both Mr. 

McGee and Ms. Rizer talked about the need for online resources. 

I would greatly appreciate it if each of you would visit the finished 

product on the web and share with the Committee for our records 

your reaction to it and any suggestions you might have for improvements. That will certainly help us with what we are trying to 

do, to hear from you and from your level as to how it is working 

out and maybe what we can do to improve it. We want to try to 

create a system that will be helpful, that will be seamless, that our 

families as well as the warriors themselves might be able to seek 

help in these places. So I am very, very grateful that you all were 

here and look forward to your responses on this request. Is that all 

right with you? 

Ms. RIZER. Yes. 

Mr. OSTERBERG. Yes. 

Mr. MCGEE. No problem, sir. 

Chairman AKAKA. Well, again, in closing, I thank all of our witnesses for appearing today. We truly, truly appreciate you taking 

the time to share your views with us. 

We are looking forward to this hearing so that we can try to put 

together a program that will help you and many others that are 

coming in the future. So again, we can’t thank you enough for what 

you have done. 

The hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:40 a.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

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A P P E N D I X 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE NATIONAL MILITARY FAMILY ASSOCIATION

Today’s military is comprised of predominantly young adults under the age of 35. 

Sixty-six percent of military spouses are in the labor force, including 87 percent of 

junior enlisted spouses (E–1 to E–5). For many, working to pay bills and cover basic 

expenses is the primary reason for working. Studies show the gap between the financial well-being of military families and their civilian peers is largely due to the 

frequent moves required of the military family and the resulting disruptions to the 

career progression of the military spouse. In a 2005 report by the RAND Corporation: Working Around the Military: Challenges to Military Spouse Employment and 

Education, researchers found that military spouses, when compared to their civilian 

counterparts, were more likely to live in metropolitan areas and are more likely to 

have graduated from high school and have some college. 

Yet the RAND study found that all things being equal, military spouses’ civilian 

counterparts tended to have better employment outcomes and higher wages. Surveys show that a military spouse’s income is a major contributor to the family’s financial well-being and that the military spouse unemployment rate is much higher 

(10 percent), than the national rate. The loss of the spouse’s income at exactly the 

time when the family is facing the cost of a government ordered move is further 

exacerbated when the spouse is unable to collect unemployment compensation. 

Lacking the financial cushion provided by the receipt of unemployment compensation, the military spouse must often settle for ‘‘any job that pays the bills’’ rather 

than being able to search for a job that is commensurate with his or her skills or 

career aspirations. This in turn hurts morale and affects recruitment and retention 

of the servicemember. 

With a concern that spouses desiring better careers will encourage 

servicemembers to leave the military, the Department of Defense (DOD) is acknowledging the importance of efforts to support spouse employment. In 2003 DOD signed 

a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Department of Labor (DOL) to 

expand connections to the job markets in America’s communities, involvement with 

labor laws that affect reemployment (i.e., training, unemployment compensation) 

and interest in states’ reciprocal licensing and certification requirements needed to 

qualify for employment. 

The results of this collaboration thus far have been:

• Establishing Milspouse.org, a resource library for military spouse employment, 

education and relocation information. • Establishing One-Stop Career Centers near major military installations (i.e. 

Norfolk, Va.; San Diego, Calif.; Fort Campbell, Ky.). • Expanding opportunities for National Guard and Reserve members and military 

spouses to access training and education grants. • Exploring options with states to offer unemployment compensation to military 

spouses when unemployment is the result of a permanent change of station (PCS) 

move. • Improve reciprocity for state certifications and licensing requirements.

Unfortunately, funds for this promising collaboration have run out and are not 

due to be reinstated. NMFA believes this lack of funding is a significant blow to 

the promise of these early initiatives. While DOD will continue to work some of 

these issues, we believe the Department of Labor is best positioned to provide the 

coordination necessary with states and other agencies to promote opportunities for 

military spouse employment. 

DOD has also sponsored a partnership with Monster.com to create the Military 

Spouse Career Center (www.military.com/spouses) and recently announced the 

availability of free career coaching through the Spouse Employment Assessment, 

Coaching and Assistance Program (SEACA). However, with more than 700,000 active duty spouses, the task of enhancing military spouse employment is too big for 

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DOD to handle alone. Improvements in employment for military spouses and assistance in supporting their career progression will require increased partnerships and 

initiatives by a variety of government agencies and private employers. NMFA applauds current partnerships through the Army Spouse Employment Partnership 

(ASEP) where currently 26 corporate and government partners have pledged to provide solid employment opportunities to military spouses. Although marketed as an 

Army initiative, all military spouses may take advantage of this program. Unfortunately, without the ability to track the actual hiring numbers, it is difficult to determine the success of these partnerships. 

Despite greater awareness of the importance of supporting military spouse career 

aspirations, some roadblocks remain. In addition to their inability to qualify for unemployment compensation in many states, military spouses may not be eligible for 

the many labor and workforce development opportunities offered in the states in 

which their servicemember is assigned. As the military streamlines operations and 

contracts out many services, military spouses may find the contract positions have 

significant disadvantages over positions as non-appropriated fund (NAF) or civil 

service employees. While one could argue that the ability to be a contractor provides 

a spouse with some flexibility, this ‘‘opportunity’’ also brings significant monetary 

implications for the military spouse. What many spouses do not realize, until it is 

too late, is that, as a contractor, spouses enjoy none of the regular employee benefits 

available through NAF or civil service positions. In addition, they must file quarterly tax statements to pay self-employment tax. NMFA asserts it is time to take 

a closer look at the efficiencies of contracting and the resulting impact on military 

spouses who frequently fill these contractor positions. 

One of the primary reasons that spouses interviewed in the RAND study gave for 

not working outside the home was a lack of affordable, accessible child care. As a 

spouse explained in a 2005 NMFA Survey of Military Spouses, ‘‘For the first time, 

I am staying home because we have 3 children, 2 are under 2 years of age, and the 

cost of daycare is so much that it is not worth it for me to return to work.’’ This 

situation may be further exacerbated in National Guard and Reserve families where 

parents may work shifts to tradeoff child care responsibilities. When the 

servicemember is activated the spouse is forced to find child care and to make budget adjustments to cover this new and significant expense, along with adjusting to 

all of the other stresses a deployment brings.

As a National Guard spouse, I had to quit my high paying position (primary 

source of income and benefits) during my husband’s deployment because of 

a combination of a long commute and daycare hours. My husband had drop 

off responsibilities so that I could commute before peak traffic hours. There 

is no protection or advocacy for Guard and Reserve spouse jobs. My family 

went from software jobs to qualifying for food stamps in the year and a half 

after my husband’s return because of the difficulty in finding a job that I 

could stick with through another potential deployment.

Many National Guard and Reserve families live a significant distance from a military installation making DOD child care centers an unrealistic solution to the problem. Programs such as Military Child Care in Your Neighborhood and Operation 

Military Child Care which are offered through a DOD partnership with the National 

Association for Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies (NACCRRA), are helping. The fact remains, however, that currently DOD has a shortage of 35,000 child 

care slots just for regular full time care. This number does not even begin to reflect 

the staggering shortage of part-time, evening, and respite care slots available to 

military families. 

Many military spouses realize that additional education is required to improve 

their employment prospects. These spouses encounter another set of barriers as they 

seek further education. As one spouse stated in a recent NMFA online spouse education and employment survey: ‘‘My resume looks like I cannot hold a job, never 

mind that I have worked since I was 15! Low salary, no time to accrue seniority, 

no time for education to improve skills all lead to low self esteem. Never mind that 

when my husband retired he had access to the MGIB and subsequently has finished 

two masters’ degrees while my options are still limited.’’

In the 2006 Defense Manpower Data Center Survey for Military Families, 87 percent of spouses report education/training is a personal goal and 54 percent report 

training would have helped during their last relocation. The high cost of education, 

the lack of uniformly authorized in-state tuition, and the high cost of transferring 

certifications and licenses from state to state are challenges that must be addressed. 

NMFA has also been aware of these challenges. In 2006, the Association’s Joanne 

Holbrook Patton Military Spouse Scholarship Program garnered over 8,000 applicants! An analysis of responses reaffirmed that military spouses have a strong comVerDate 0ct 09 2002 11:27 Sep 27, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00078 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 H:\RD41451\DOCS\37761.TXT SENVETS PsN: ROWENA
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mitment to educational advancement even as they struggle to juggle school, work, 

and family, especially with today’s current deployments. They understand service 

life brings unique educational challenges, which often influences their career choices 

as well. NMFA is developing educational tools to enhance a spouse’s ability to navigate through the frustrating years it can take to complete a degree. The NMFA 

Military Spouse Education Resource Guide is now in its second printing. 

In January of this year, NMFA launched its new online Military Spouse Education web section, a comprehensive resource about higher education tailored for the 

military spouse (http://www.nmfa.org/spouseeducation). 

But even with all these initiatives and scholarship opportunities, the need continues to be great. As one spouse put it, ‘‘I have searched for education or tuition 

reimbursement for military spouses and I have found no help. I don’t qualify for 

grants or financial aid because my spouse makes too much money. I see many scholarships for military children or children of the fallen but very little for spouses. How 

can a spouse further her education when there is very little help for us?’’

NMFA is pleased to report that some states, with encouragement from the DOD 

State Liaison Office, are examining their in-state tuition rules and licensing requirements to ease spouses’ ability to obtain an education or to transfer their occupation 

as they move. NMFA is appreciative of the efforts by DOD to work with states to 

promote the award of unemployment compensation to military spouses, eligibility 

for in-state tuition, and reciprocity for professional licenses. DOD has also recognized it is imperative that programs be developed to move the 22,500 military 

spouses without a high school degree toward General Education Development (GED) 

certificates and address the 52,000 military spouses with a high school diploma who 

need to move toward an Associate or Technical degree. 

NMFA asks that:

• The partnership between DOD and DOL be realigned to give DOL the authority 

to serve military spouses through legislative changes designating military spouses 

as an eligible group for funds for training and education. 

• Congress promote Federal and state coordination to provide unemployment 

compensation for military spouses as a result of Permanent Change of Station (PCS) 

orders. 

• Congress promote Federal and state coordination to make college credits and 

fees more easily transferable and adopt state education policies that permit a military spouse to qualify for in-state tuition regardless of servicemember’s duty location.

NMFA also supports programs or legislative changes that would give local Workforce Investment Boards the opportunity to provide education and training assistance to military spouses. Private sector employers who protect employment and/or 

education flexibility of spouses and other family members impacted by deployment 

should be applauded as role models. 

WOUNDED SERVICEMEMBERS HAVE WOUNDED FAMILIES

As revealed in the series of articles about Walter Reed Army Medical Center, 

post-deployment transitions can be especially problematic for injured 

servicemembers and their families. NMFA asserts that behind every wounded 

servicemember is a wounded family. Spouses, children, parents, and siblings of 

servicemembers injured defending our country experience many uncertainties. Fear 

of the unknown and what lies ahead in future weeks, months, and even years, 

weighs heavily on their minds. Other concerns include the injured servicemember’s 

return and reunion with their family, financial stresses, and navigating the transition process to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). The system should alleviate, not heighten these concerns, and provide for coordination of care that starts 

when the family is notified the servicemember has been injured and ends with the 

DOD and VA working together to create a seamless transition as the injured 

servicemember transfers from active duty status to veteran. 

While all military spouses face unique challenges in obtaining employment, 

spouses of wounded servicemembers face additional issues. Initially many spouses 

of wounded servicemembers find themselves in the role of caretaker while the 

wounded servicemember receives treatment and rehabilitation. When a wounded 

servicemember is discharged, however, the spouse may also become the primary 

wage earner in the family. Many military spouses are unprepared for this new circumstance for all of the reasons discussed earlier in this statement. This new reality 

can be financially devastating. In these circumstances it is imperative that the Department of Veteran’s Affairs (VA) and DOL are prepared to assist spouses in transition. 

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The current program, which permits military spouses of severely injured 

servicemembers to utilize remaining GI Bill benefits, is an excellent concept. Unfortunately, many spouses in the role of caretaker are unable to return to school in 

the time frame permitted under the current program. NMFA recommends extending 

the eligibility period for this program to permit more spouses in this situation to 

utilize this important benefit. 

The DOL has assisted veterans, who have special needs, transition to the civilian 

workforce. In 2002, Congress enacted the Jobs for Veterans Act (JVA) to improve 

employment and training services for veterans. A one-stop system was created 

under the Workforce Investment Act of 1998 to integrate employment and training 

into a comprehensive service delivery system. The JVA stipulates veterans, who 

meet eligibility requirements, are given reemployment service priority over non-veterans. NMFA recommends this benefit be expanded to include spouses of seriously 

wounded servicemembers, who would have qualified, but due to their injuries are 

unable to work. 

In the past, the VA and DOD have generally focused their family support service 

on spouse and children. Now, however, it is not unusual to see the parents and siblings of a single servicemember included as part of the servicemember’s family unit. 

Almost 50 percent of active duty and Reserve component servicemembers are single. 

Having a wounded servicemember is new territory for family units. Regardless of 

a servicemember’s marital status, their families will be affected in some way by an 

injury. As more single servicemembers are wounded, parents and siblings must take 

on the role of helping servicemembers through the recovery process. Family members are an integral part of the health care team. Their presence has been shown 

to improve their quality of life and aid in a speedy recovery. 

Congress needs to be cognizant of the caregiver. Family members have made the 

commitment to care for their loved one. We must acknowledge they are a part of 

the health care team. They advocate, transport, and move along with their wounded 

loved one from Walter Reed Army Medical Center or the National Naval Medical 

Center at Bethesda, to a polytrauma center and follow on to other medical treatment facilities throughout the United States, often leaving their own lives/jobs behind. Congress needs to take into consideration the economic impact on families who 

decide to care for their loved one. Families may voluntarily choose to leave their jobs 

for a variety of reasons. Family members may desire to spend as much time as possible with the wounded servicemember. The overwhelming challenges of trying to 

care for and navigate the complex health care system may cause them to give up 

their jobs. They may wish to relocate to be with the injured servicemember or veteran so they may receive optimum care. 

The Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) provides leave for 12 unpaid work weeks 

for 1 year. We are finding family members switch on and off in order to maintain 

a family presence 24/7. The law may not provide enough time off given the seriousness of injuries of the servicemembers. Unpaid leave may further add to the overall 

loss of families’ incomes. Some families do not qualify for the FMLA because their 

employer does not employ over 50 employees or because they have not been with 

the employer for over 12 months. NMFA recommends Congress reevaluate the 

FMLA given the unique aspects presented with wounded servicemembers and their 

families. 

Families are taking on an ever increasing role in caring for their loved one’s 

wounds. Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) has been found to be the signature wound 

for Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom injured 

servicemembers. Families’ active role in caring for TBI injuries should be acknowledged. NMFA recommends the establishment of a TBI training and certification program for family caregivers, which would recognize the important commitment family members make in caring for their loved ones diagnosed with TBI. 

There is no doubt that tremendous strides have been made to assist military 

spouses in obtaining and retaining employment. Work remains to be done, however. 

Valuable programs such as those fostered by the partnership between DOD and 

DOL must be funded. The issues surrounding military spouse employment are 

multifaceted; therefore, the solution must also be multifaceted. Agencies such as 

DOL and VA must be included in the solution, but the outreach must also extend 

to local communities, state agencies, educational institutions, and employers. Only 

by weaving a tapestry of services and programs can we truly begin to tackle this 

important issue.

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Military families support the Nation’s military missions. The least their country 

can do is make sure wounded servicemembers and veterans’ families have consistent 

access to high quality education and employment. Wounded Servicemembers have 

wounded families. DOD and VA must support the caregiver by recognizing the important role they play in the recovery and rehabilitation of the wounded 

servicemember and veteran, and the sacrifices they make in delivering daily care 

to their loved one’s wounds. 

Thank you for your continued support of military families.

Æ