Hire Vets program helping troops get work

Hire Vets program helping troops get work
By Robert M. Cook

DOVER When Ken Seitz lost his job at Seabrook Station in 2004 after working there for 22 years as a senior engineer for plant testing, he said never thought his status as a Navy veteran would help him land a new job.

But thanks to the Hire Vets First program, a national initiative nearly every state has adopted, he landed a job as an engineer and project manager at Perot Systems in Dover in September.

The program also helps hundreds of National Guard and Reserve soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Seitz, who left the Navy in 1969, said he wasn’t aware of the program when he went to the Department of Employment Security in Portsmouth to file for unemployment benefits in November of 2004.

“I tried retirement for a while, and I just wasn’t ready,” said Seitz, who then was 58.

After reviewing his profile and job skills, Thomas Forbes, one of the state’s 10 veterans counselors, told Seitz his skills perfectly matched a project manager’s…

     All he needed was to devote six to seven weeks to getting the proper certification.

“It’s in demand all over right now,” Seitz said.

Forbes said Seitz had been doing a similar job for many years at Seabrook Station, but never got certified. The state provided $1,100 for the veteran’s tuition, and Seitz attended New Hampshire Technical Institute in Concord.

As important as it is to help veterans returning from the war in Iraq find new careers when they leave the service, Seitz said, there are many veterans like himself who also need help if they lose a job but still have a few years to go until retirement.

“We are employable,” he said. “We have a lot to offer, and we do have the proper work ethic.”

All 10 of the state’s veterans counselors must be veterans themselves, said Carter Higgenbotham, a veterans counselor who works in the Employment Security office in Laconia

He described his role as serving as a facilitator who tries to match up a veteran’s skills and goals with an employer. He also refers veterans who may not be ready to enter the workforce to the Veterans Administration Center in Manchester if needed.

There are several state and federal job training programs available to help returning soldiers find careers linked to their former duties, which could include nursing, computer programming or security and communications, he said.

But ultimately, he added, veterans are the ones who make it happen.

“I’m a facilitator, and I would tell you I have never gotten these veterans a job,” he said. “They go out and get themselves a job.”

Under the federal Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act, employers must hold jobs for National Guard and Reserve soldiers called to active duty, said Richard Brothers, commissioner of the state’s Department of Employment Security in Concord. But that law doesn’t help returning vets who were self-employed and lost customers while they were away, he said.

“When you come back after 18 months, you don’t have a business anymore,” he said.

Hire Vets First is helping dozens of former self-employed contractors, plumbers, electricians and carpenters from New Hampshire find new jobs or start new careers, Brothers said.

He added that any soldier who was on active duty and was deployed overseas can qualify for the G.I. Bill and access education and training.

Brothers said employers long have sought out veterans for open positions.

“I find them to be the most employable people,” the commissioner said, calling service members generally well educated, computer literate, disciplined and skilled.