Federal Register / Vol. 77, No. 37 / Friday, February 24, 2012 / Notices 11195 

DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY 

Fiscal Service 

Surety Companies Acceptable on 

Federal Bonds—Name Change and 

Change in State of Incorporation: 

Nations Bonding Company 

AGENCY: Financial Management Service, 

Fiscal Service, Department of the 

Treasury. 

ACTION: Notice. 

SUMMARY: This is Supplement No. 10 to 

the Treasury Department Circular 570; 

2011 Revision, published July 1, 2011, 

at 76 FR 38892. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Surety Bond Branch at (202) 874–6850. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Nations 

Bonding Company (NAIC #11595) has 

formally changed its name to Merchants 

National Bonding, Inc., and has 

redomesticated from the state of Texas 

to the state of Iowa, effective January 1, 

2012. Federal bond-approving officers 

should annotate their reference copies 

of the Treasury Circular 570, 2011 

Revision, to reflect this change. 

The Circular may be viewed and 

downloaded through the Internet at 

http://www.fms.treas.gov/c570. 

Questions concerning this notice may 

be directed to the U.S. Department of 

the Treasury, Financial Management 

Service, Financial Accounting and 

Services Division, Surety Bond Branch, 

3700 East-West Highway, Room 6F01, 

Hyattsville, MD 20782. 

Dated: February 15, 2012. 

Laura Carrico, 

Director, Financial Accounting and Services 

Division. 

[FR Doc. 2012–4204 Filed 2–23–12; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4810–35–M 

DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS 

AFFAIRS 

Announcement of Competition Under 

the America COMPETES 

Reauthorization Act of 2011: Badges 

for Veterans Contest 

AGENCY: Department of Veterans Affairs. 

ACTION: Notice. 

SUMMARY: To encourage creation of 

systems which help good jobs find 

Veterans and Veterans find good jobs, 

the Secretary of Veterans Affairs (VA) 

announces a prize contest under Section 

105 of the America COMPETES 

Reauthorization Act of 2011, Public Law 

111–358 (2011) (the ‘‘Act’’). 

DATES: Entries will be accepted until 5 

p.m., Eastern Standard Time, February 

27, 2012. Winners will be announced on 

or about March 1, 2012. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

James M. Speros, Special Assistant to 

Chief Technology Officer, Office of the 

Secretary, Department of Veterans 

Affairs, 810 Vermont Avenue NW., 

Washington, DC 20420; (202) 461–7214. 

(This is not a toll-free number.) Also, see 

Section 6. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Veterans 

rejoin the civilian community with upto-date, cutting edge job skills 

developed during training and work 

experience in their military service. 

These job skills are highly valued and 

desired by civilian employers. Veterans 

report challenges in ‘‘translating’’ 

military job skills to their civilian 

counterparts and in obtaining civilian 

credit for military training. The easier 

task is drawing direct linkages between 

skills acquired in the military and the 

duties performed in civilian jobs. More 

challenging is obtaining civilian 

recognition of military training when 

formal education or other credential is 

a prerequisite for employment, self 

employment, or licensure leading to 

employment. 

Through the Badges for Vets Contest 

(‘‘Vets Contest’’), VA and its 

collaborators, the U.S. Departments of 

Education, Labor, and Energy, seek an 

easily understandable means to translate 

military training and experience into 

their civilian equivalents. The badges 

created under this system will be 

marketable credentials enabling 

employers to quickly identify Veterans 

as among the best qualified in any job 

applicant pool, or which identify 

Veterans as qualified to perform services 

if self-employed. 

Because a Veteran employed or selfemployed in a civilian occupation can 

far more readily re-enter non-military 

society, Veteran employment is an 

objective of several programs 

administered by VA and its Government 

collaborators. The Badges for Vets 

Contest will advance the mission of VA 

by encouraging the development of 

systems which help good jobs find 

Veterans and Veterans find good jobs. 

The Vets Contest will be conducted in 

cooperation with the ‘‘Badges for 

Lifelong Learning Competition’’ 

(‘‘Competition’’) administered by the 

Humanities, Arts, Science, and 

Technology Advanced Collaboratory 

(HASTAC) Initiative with the support of 

the Mozilla Foundation and the 

McArthur Foundation, http://www.dml

competition.net/Competition/4/badgescompetition-cfp.php. The goal of the 

Competition is support for the creation 

of digital tools to identify, recognize, 

measure, and account for skills, 

competencies, knowledge, and 

achievements acquired during the 

course of lifelong learning. The Mozilla 

Open Badge Infrastructure, http://

openbadges.org, has been selected to 

enable interoperability and seamless 

collection of badges. The Vets Contest is 

described generally at http://www.dml

competition.net/Competition/4/badgesprojects.php?id=2667. 

VA does not anticipate that it will 

issue badges or, except as an employer, 

actively participate in the resulting 

badges program. Instead, VA believes it 

can serve Veterans and employers by 

acting as a catalyst for the development 

of meaningful badge systems for use by 

Veterans and employers. 

Contest Requirements and Rules 

1. Subject of the Contest. The goal of 

the Vets Contest is to support the 

development of systems that deliver 

real, substantial and sustainable benefits 

to employers and to Veterans by 

enabling employers to quickly identify 

Veterans who have military education 

and skills that meet requirements for 

civilian jobs, or which help Veterans 

who want to start their own business 

demonstrate their qualifications to their 

customers. 

2. Amount of the prize. VA will award 

up to $25,000 to as many as three 

entrants. VA may elect to award two 

additional prizes of up to $25,000 each. 

3. Participation in the Contest will be 

through the Badges for Lifelong 

Learning Competition. 

a. The Vets Contest will be 

administered by VA according to the 

rules and requirements posted on the 

Competition Web site, 

http://www.dmlcompetition.net/

Competition/4/badges-competitioncfp.php, including those on the ‘‘Terms 

and Conditions’’ page, http://www.dml

competition.net/Competition/4/badgesterms-and-conditions.php#IP. 

b. The rules in this Notice supplement 

the rules on the Competition Web site. 

If there is any conflict between any 

requirement stated on the Competition 

Web site and the provisions of this 

Notice, the provisions of this Notice will 

govern. 

c. Important: Entries must be made 

through the Competition Web site: 

http://fastapps.dmlcompetition.net/

user/login?url=application

%2Fsubmit%2Fdmlc-4v. Before 

submitting an entry, an entrant must 

register for a FastApps account at http:// 

fastapps.dmlcompetition.net/user/

register. Registration for a FastApps 

account constitutes ‘‘registration to 

participate in the competition’’ required 

by Section 105(g)(1) of the Act. 


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