Veteran Jobs Mission Convenes in D.C.

The 2019 Veteran Jobs Mission (VJM) Coalition Meeting was held in Washington, DC on May 8-9. Participants from over 100 leading organizations represented the major U.S. industries—from AT&T and MillerCoors to Amazon and Cisco to Southwest Airlines and IBM.

The convening kicked off with a welcome reception at the AT&T Policy Forum where members met the following day for the coalition meeting.

In recent years the VJM has expanded its focus beyond hiring to include overall veteran career success and the meeting served as an opportunity for members to highlight this broadened effort. The agenda covered the latest best practices and innovations around upskilling the workforce and highlighted how veteran talent is well positioned to suit the changing landscape in employment.

JoHanna Martinez from AT&T and Jason Wright of JPMorgan Chase & Co. opened the meeting.

“We continue to sharpen our focus beyond just hiring. With all of our companies doing increasingly innovative work, we are facing the challenge of finding the right talent to perform this work. As the VJM, we want to one, align the military community with the future of work; and two, emphasize the military is uniquely suited to fill future workforce needs—trainable and adaptable.”

The meeting closed following a HR senior leader panel, featuring Chris Sambar (AT&T), Jason Phillips (Cisco) and Bill Feehan (JPMorgan Chase & Co.). Gloria Sinclair Miller from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) served as the moderator. They discussed topics from the importance of leadership buy-in to how their respective companies are preparing to hire for the next generation of workforce needs.

The VJM will build off the momentum from the meeting with planned events throughout the summer with NYC in June, Chicago in July and Nashville in August.