 Thank you for coming to the employment seminar today. My name is Ryan Burgos. I am the National Employment Director for Disabled American Veterans. Before we begin the seminar, I would like to introduce some guests that are in the house today from our interim employment committee. If you guys could please stand and be recognized. And then also, we have our strategic partner, Recruit Military, here in the house. If you guys could please also stand. But again, thank you for coming to the seminar this morning. I would like to first introduce our special guest of the morning. His name is Mr. Julian Purdy. And he is the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Policy for Veteran Employment and Training Service in the Department of Labor. Julian has over 12 years of service working for and in the federal government. As a former Army NCO, he is truly dedicated to public service and to the betterment of our nation's heroes. Everybody, please welcome Mr. Julian Purdy. All right, first I want to give thanks to Ryan for reading my short version of the bio. Appreciate that. Could have been here for a little while. So I'm really happy that I'm here. And I really want to thank the DAV National Leadership and all the veterans and family members in attendance today. I'm really grateful for the opportunity to participate in the 101st DAV National Convention and provide you with some information about vets, who we serve, and what our priorities are. I'm also thankful for the service of the 1 million DAV members across the nation and the great work that you do with support of service members, their families, and veterans of all generations. We know that this is a team effort to serve the employment needs of our veterans, transitioning service members, and military spouses. And I'm grateful for DAV support and partnership. While we appreciate the support of the entire DAV family and team, I would like to give a special acknowledgement to the vision and leadership of a few folks, such as the national commander, Joe Parcentovich, the national adjunct, Barry Jesynowski, the national executive director, Cody Van Voxel, the executive director in Washington, Randy Rees, and one of vets' very own, the third junior vice commander, Joe Donovan. Where you at, Joe? I think you're in here somewhere. All right, there he is, back there. And so I have the very esteemed honor to be representing the Department of Veterans Employment and Training Service and serving there for over two and a half years in this administration. And our vets' team consists of over 2,800 federal and state staff, contractors, and grantees. And last year, we collectively served over 441,000 veterans and military spouses across all of our agencies' programs. We have staff in every state across the country. We fund over 1,500 veteran reps in the American Job Centers, which include over 1,000 disabled veteran outreach program specialists. We have 400 contractors supporting the employment workshops at over 200 installations worldwide for nearly 200,000 transitioning service members on the annual basis. And we have over 150 grantees supporting our homeless veterans' reintegration program. We have a committed and passionate team. I'm a prior Army veteran, as Ryan read earlier today, and I'd like to say that the Army is the best branch. Thank you. I'm glad we have unanimous consent on that. I heard no dissent in views, as I said that, so I appreciate it. And I have to say that over 96% of the vets' staff are veterans serving veterans. And a large percentage of those veterans are actually service-connected veterans to include myself. And even though we have 96% who are veterans, the other 4% also are those who are supporting veterans as spouses, as children, as parents, as veterans also. No, so we appreciate the service that veterans have done to our country, and we understand how important it is to support these veterans as they transition out of the military and beyond. And in fact, at vets, our mission is to enable all veterans transitioning service members, military spouses, to reach their full potential in the workforce. And during my time at vets, we've actually modified that legislation to ensure that we include military spouses and all reservists and national guards, because as a reservist myself, I understand how sometimes there are programs and services that component two and three have unequal eligibility requirements and sometimes are actually just left out of. So I've made that my personal choice to make sure we include those folks. And so as our nation moves beyond the pandemic, it's good to see that the veteran employment rate has gone back to what it was before COVID. As of July, the veterans unemployment rate is 2.8%, which is still below the full unemployment rate of 3.4% nationally. And so while that rate is pretty low and back to pre-pandemic levels, we still have to do more for underserved veteran communities who are experiencing a higher unemployment rate. For example, the unemployment rate for Gulf War II veterans with service-connected disabilities has actually gone up. And we have to do something about that. We have seen numbers that show that those with 60% or more of a disability rating have a civically lower participation rate in the workforce at 66%. While comparative veterans who have a disability rating of 30%, and their participation in the workforce is 95%. So there is a discrepancy there. We've noticed it and we have to do more research to figure out where other discrepancies exist and how we can combat them. So therefore, we look at promoting and advancing equity, inclusion, accessibility for underserved veteran communities such as disabled veterans as a key priority for our agency. But we also have to look at how we're supporting veterans of color, those in rural communities, Native American communities, LGBTQ plus communities, justice involved, and others who have been historically underrepresented. Every veteran deserves a good job with family sustaining wages and the opportunity to establish generational wealth and the wellbeing for themselves and their family. There's a lot of focus on veteran resiliency and suicide and rightly so. We recognize that meaningful employment facilitates social connectedness, sense of purpose, and financial stability. All key factors are resiliency. But at times the broken narrative, I mean the broken veteran narrative is more frequent and louder than veteran accomplishments and value in our workforce and our communities. I speak to a lot of employers and share this narrative, which also goes to a lot of the data that shows that veterans outperform their non-veteran peers in the workforce. And so we have seen that hiring veterans is a good business decision. And while it sounds great for me in my position to say that, we have numbers to actually back that up. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, veterans have a lower employment rate and a higher labor participation rate than their non-veteran peers. Pew Research says that veterans have a 17% higher standard of living than their non-veterans over the last 40 years. And post-911 veterans earn more than those who have never served in our forces according to the U.S. Census Bureau. These numbers speak for themselves. However, this narrative needs to be told. We have to say this more often and more loudly, that hiring veterans is a good business decision. Service to our nation and uniform facilitates, as many people know, better long-term employment outcomes than those who don't serve. This message is essential for the sustainment and we're all going to your force as well. As you've been reading, recruitment has been very challenging as of lately and most services are on track to meet their annual goals. DOD has recently shared that about 23% of 17 to 24-year-olds would not even qualify for the military today. And then if you combine that between 180,000 and 200,000 service members leave the active duty every year, we see ourselves at a precipice that we must face. Financial stability is a key factor in how many folks leave the military. Re-enlistment and continuing to serve in uniform is a family decision. Our military families and spouses have a big vote, especially with the new blended retirement system where service members don't have to stay in for 20 years to receive some form of payment out in the pension. And our military spouses are extremely educated and a talented force, often more educated than their veteran and military spouses themselves. According to BLS, military spouses earn 38% less than civilian spouses counterparts. To me, that's a problem. And also, they experience 21% unemployment rate. So while I'm not a mathematician by any means, those numbers speak volumes about, we have a problem in our nation about hiring and retaining military spouses in our civilian workforce. And so on June 9th, 2023, President Biden signed an executive order to ensure that the federal government is an employer of choice for military and veteran spouses, as well as caregivers and survivors by strengthening the ability for the executive departments and agencies to recruit, hire, develop, promote and retain the skilled and diverse pool of talent. And in support of this executive order and the fiscal year 24 presidential's budget, VETS as an agency is seeking to expand eligibility for the Uniformed Services Employment and Reimplement Rights Act to ensure that military spouses have anti-discrimination protection within the workforce as well. Increasing employment opportunities and protections for military spouses will help retain members of the armed forces, enhance our military readiness and will allow employers to tap into a pool of talented individuals while sustaining the all volunteer force and the well-being of our military families. The current labor dynamics indicate that workers are seeking better opportunities with increased wages, benefits and flexibility to provide security and spend more time with their families. A clear path to good jobs is to register apprenticeships to include these high demand industries that allow such opportunities, such as cybersecurity, the defense industrial base, clean energy, semiconductors, transportation and union jobs and construction. VETS is currently working closely with these industries to create clear pathways for veterans and military spouses. This is why another one of VETS priorities is to leverage partnerships to maximize employment outcomes. And these partners include our Department of Labor teammates, such as the Employment and Training Administration, federal agency partners at DOD and VA, the Small Business Administration and others. And our close relationship with the state workforce agencies are truly crucial since we have a number of key partners that will help us extend and be a force multiplier for our efforts. We also have a number of key partners to include our grantees for the Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program, veteran service organizations such as DAV, labor units, nonprofits and private sector entities focused on veteran employment. And of course the employers and industry associations leading forward to hire veterans and military spouses. Getting the military to civilian employment transition right continues to be a VETS focus. And I'm excited about our recent Transition Assistance Program initiatives to include the Employment Navigator and Partnership Pilot, also known as EMPP. This is our first program to provide one-on-one career assistance to interested transitioning service members and their spouses outside of the traditional TAP classroom setting. This program is currently at 29 military installations worldwide. And VETS has partnered with high-caliber employment and training organizations from the public and private sector that focus on apprenticeship, digital matching, placement services, employment mentorship and wraparound services to name a few. In fact, one of our first partners in this program was recruit military who's sitting right here in the second row. And so far to date, nearly 12,000 to include 750 military spouses have received services from our employment navigators. I'm also excited to talk about our efforts and our off-base transitioning training pilot, also known as OBTT, which kicked off last year. This is an opportunity for veterans, national guard and reservists, including their spouses to attend employment workshops and their local communities. The 10 two-hour workshops are in-person and virtual to help facilitate a busy lifestyle. Attendees can mix and match their workshops to meet their employment goals and attend at their own pace. OBTT is off to a great start at our five initial pilot states in California, Pennsylvania, Texas, Massachusetts and North Carolina. Today, over 5,500 participants have attended over 3,100 workshops in those five states. And we received many compliments from participants who found that the training was very useful and led to employment. And as we continue to grow and evolve this program, we will also greatly appreciate any feedback we receive as we further evolve and customize this program to meet the demands of our participants. Soon, we plan to extend to at least 20 states across the nation in our efforts to roll out this program. And so we're thankful for DAV's efforts to promote this program via your networks and membership. And Vets has also launched a career workshop for transitioning military spouses known as the Transition Employment Assistance for Military Spouses Teams. And so the team's workshops are designed to help military spouses plan and prepare for their job search in pursuit of their employment goals. At fiscal year to date, we have had over 1,500 military spouses attend these workshops. We are also continuing to develop and implement the Wounded Warrior and Caregiver Employment Workshop. That is specifically designed to address the employment needs of Wounded Warriors. This has been developed in coordination with the Department of Labor's Office of Disability, Employment Policy, the VA, and various service organization, veteran service organizations and stakeholders. The curriculum is focused on job accommodation resources so Wounded Warriors are able to realize their full potential in the workplace despite the injuries they may have received while in service. This workshop blends learning delivery that includes instructor led virtual sessions and is designed to meet the needs of transitioning service members whether they may be wounded, ill, or injured. At fiscal year to date, we've nearly had 12,000 participants in this program alone. The military to civilian transition is challenging for most. Given this transition right, it focuses on getting that good employment outcome and resiliency that veterans and their families have. And this is why the transition assistance program remains and always will be a top priority for vets. So in closing, I wanna make it clear that the veterans team, the vets team is committed to employing, enabling all veterans, service members, and military spouses to reach their full potential in the workplace. Successful employment outcomes for our veterans and military spouses is fundamental for maintaining our all volunteer force. And it is the right thing to do for those who step forward to serve our nation. Soon, we don't have it up right now, but we're gonna put up a contact us slide. Thank you for that. And I appreciate the continued collaboration and partnership with DAV and vets. I appreciate being here with you today and thank you for all your efforts to advocate for and support those in uniform, veterans, and their military families. Thank you. Thank you, Julian. We, so again, my name is Ryan Burgos. I wanna go over a couple of items with you guys, just to inform everybody about how are the state of our national employment program. We are a very small team, but we are a mighty team. We've got four individuals that are there, hopeful to get an additional assistant director here in the near future. However, we have Mr. Jeremy Yost. He is gonna be speaking here in a few moments. He is the assistant national employment director. We also have Mr. Anthony Pruitt, who's our employment specialist. And then we have Ms. Deanna Stofer, who's our support staff there in the office. We pride ourselves in the fact that whenever service members are coming off of active duty, it's a very stressful time for them. But we pride ourselves in the fact that we're a one stop shop. There's more to separating off active duty than filing claims for disability. It's vitally important that to continue to be a provider for their family, they need meaningful employment opportunities. And that's where DAV steps up to the plate again. And we hold numerous job fairs all over the country. We work directly with disabled veteran outreach program specialists. And to include local veteran employment representatives as well. We work directly with employers to ensure that they've got all the benefits needed to sustain a veteran workforce, to include employee resource groups. And they can get assistance from us at any point in time by reaching out directly to our office via our website or our contact information on a consistent basis. We also will hold different webinars with employers. Again, just as another resource to educate them on the importance of hiring disabled veterans. So our employment program began in 2014 with our strategic partner, Recruit Military. So next year we are coming up on a decade of service. And again, that was a very strategic partner because we know our strong suits are, which is assisting veterans when it comes to claims for disabilities and volunteer hours and things of that nature. However, when it comes to the employment space, we needed a partner that could go the extra mile on our side with us. So again, that's where Recruit Military has come in and really been that strategic partner. We also have Hiring America who assists us in creating videos and putting us, putting our name out there when it comes to Armed Forces Network, local news stations. As soon as the problem is education is everything. You don't know what you don't know. So if we can get on the basis and visit with separating service members and their spouses and give them that piece of education, it's gonna go a really long way. So on our website, jobs.dav.org, we've got a multitude of resources there to include a job board with over 290,000 vacancies nationwide. And on that website as well, we've got a complete list of our job fairs that are coming nearly everywhere. So this year, we're proud to say that we've got over a hundred and 17, 107 career fairs that is both virtual and in-person. And I personally like the virtual environment. Not only do we have one tomorrow, a virtual event, but these virtual events, individuals have the ability to, instead of walking from booth to booth, they're able to actually click on which booth they wanna go to. Employers can see them, they can see the employers on the spot, interviews can happen, on the spot hiring can happen. It's a really awesome environment to actually be a part of. Individuals, and also just so everybody knows, I mean, just because it's a virtual event does not mean that it's only remote opportunities. They are in-person opportunities as well. And I think that's one thing that we see at job fairs whenever we're there or whenever we're just talking to people, they say, well, I don't wanna attend a virtual event because I wanna work in-person. I don't wanna remote job. I mean, I'm kinda similar. I don't wanna work at home either. I'd rather be in the office and actually see people and engage with people. However, our virtual environments are awesome because, excuse me, these are locations where people can actually go into the office every single day. And this is just an image of our job boards that's on our website. Again, you don't have to log in. You don't have to do anything. You visit jobs.dav.org. Simple to use. You plug in something, the job that you're looking for. If you're looking for a human resources manager or a project manager, you plug that in along with your zip code, you have the ability to look within a 25 mile radius of your home and hundreds of jobs normally pop up depending on what you're looking for. And they're all hyperlinked directly to Recruit Military's website where you have the ability to see all the requirements for the position. You can also apply for that job just with a simple click of a button. So it's an awesome resource just to show a veteran or their spouse. Hey, look, this is so easy here. Let me show you this. Let me literally blow your mind on how easy this tool is to use. We also have our Patriot Employer Program. Our Patriot Employer Program, as you guys might have seen, we recognized a few businesses on stage yesterday along with the DevOps and Lever of the year. And this program has the ability to, excuse me, we have the ability to issue a digital badge to employers. We do this on a monthly basis. And it's all about spreading awareness because we know when an employer, when a veteran or a spouse is looking for a job, sees that DAV stamp of approval at the bottom, they know that that's an organization they can go to and trust. And they can have a meaningful career, not just a job to hold you over, but somewhere you can stay for a long period of time. So through this program, we have the ability to recognize numerous companies throughout the year. But just to give you guys a little more information, I wanna show you guys a short video real quick. DAV has long been devoted to helping veterans with everything from benefits assistance to job opportunities and more. And now through their Patriot Employer Program, DAV is recognizing those companies doing their part to help our nation's defenders find meaningful employment and provide a working environment that understands and appreciates veterans. We here at Disabled American Veterans, we feel it's very important to ensure that our nation's heroes leave active duty service with meaningful employment. One way that we do that is highlighting companies that go above and beyond when it comes to not only hiring veterans, but also retaining those veterans. The Patriot Employer Program was implemented in October of 2021. We wanted it to go out to all entities, no matter their size. So we recognize small, medium, and large employers. And then we have subcategories for companies that are very good in specific areas, whether it be hiring, career building, community involvement, and community support. Which is a nice thing to do. We wanna recognize as many companies as we can that are hiring veterans and their spouses. Here at DAV, we make sure we vet each application that comes in. So that way, when other organizations and other veterans see that DAV stamped approval, they know that because it's coming from a prolific service organization like our own, that they can trust that organization. And they know that, well, you know, DAV is giving their seal of approval. It must be somewhere that we can go to not only find employment, but we can find our next career move, not just a job to hold us over. Anyone can nominate a company, whether that's an employee or somebody outside the company that knows what the company is doing in regards to hiring veterans. Under the Patriot Employer Program, we're not just restricted to three awards or small, medium, and large. We wanna be able to offer the employers that are nominated a digital badge, showing that yes, they hire veterans and spouses. Applying for the Patriot Award qualified us for the Employer of the Year Award. And we were very proud to receive the Patriot Award from the DAV and we were notified that we actually won the Employer of the Year Award. Being recognized by the DAV is just amazing. Knowing all the work that they do and all the accomplishments that they have on a daily basis to be partnered with them is just, it's awesome on behalf of WPS. We put in two years ago for the first DAV Award, which was the Small Business DAV Employer of the Year Award and we felt incredibly privileged that we won that. And then this year, we won the DAV Career Advancement Award. Veterans looking for work when they come to your organization. The DAV Award lets them know that this is a place that respects their values, their mindset, their work ethics and their desires to advance in their career. Just even the Patriot Employer Award is a door and it shows that your door's open and it truly means that the business is open to you as a veteran and it's not the typical hurdles that you may have to cross. You might be teaching that company some things and they're ready and willing to learn or they're already at that stage and the door's open regardless for you to come in. So either way, it's a ready place for you. I encourage everyone to apply and nominate their companies for higher veterans. Higher veterans is beneficial for the employer and to the veteran and we hope that the Patriot Employer Program encourages more companies to hire even more veterans. That being said, I encourage everyone, please go home, go to patreonployer.org, nominate a business so we can get more veterans hired. It's vitally important to end veteran unemployment. This is just a small piece, you know, we, every step we take just chips off another piece so it is vitally important that we get many veterans hired. So from now I would like to introduce our Assistant National Employment Director, Sir Jeremy Yost, Marine Corps veteran. So please come up here. Sorry, I am standing, my apologies. I would say the Marine Corps is the best branch. Yeah, summer, yeah, now we got some negative nances. So the first thing I'm gonna go over is the Veterans Advantage Program. So when it comes to hiring veterans, it's not the only thing that we wanna do. We wanna also tell these companies on how to hire veterans, retain them and also before recruit them as well. So just because they hire them, it's not where we wanna stop. We wanna make sure that those individuals continue to have gainful employment and also have that career as well. So our Veterans Advantage Program, the DAV Guide to Retaining and Hiring Veterans with Disabilities, was launched in 2018. We have a 44-page booklet that is free to anyone to be able to read. All they have to do is go onto jobs.dav.org, click on the hiring guide and you can download it immediately. You can also provide it to companies that you know that are looking to hire veterans as well. So I'm gonna go a little more in depth on our job fairs. So as Ryan stated earlier, we started in 2014 with our DAV partner, recruit military. Currently this year we have done 90, well we will do, my apologies, 90 in-person job fairs this year and 18 virtual. Now this ranges across the entire country. Now we do have additional resources like tips for resume writing, interview tactics and other things on top of that on our website include mentors that can help you as well. Recruit Military, our partner, also has tools and resources on their website that can help you throughout the process. Next thing, job fairs. When you go onto our website and click on the job fairs tab, you're going to see all the job fairs that are coming in the next month to two months depending on when it is updated. Now it's updated every few weeks so anything that is adjusted, if we have a new one or one comes off, we will get that updated as soon as possible. All the ones in red are virtual. All the ones in black are in-person. So if somebody's looking to do a virtual event, we advise them to look for the red ones. If they're looking to go in-person, go to the black ones. Now when it comes to it, all you have to do is hit the register now. Type in and log into your recruit military profile and you can register for that event. Ryan stole my thunder a little earlier. We're doing 108 job fairs total this year. Again, 90 in-person, 18 virtual. The 24 schedule is now completed. It will be updated soon. Estimated around 99 events next year but we'll have additional ones put on there throughout the year. During our 18 virtual job fairs, these are hosted online so you can log in at home. You don't have to go anywhere and you're able to talk to all these employers while you're on there. These are different from the traditional because it gives the opportunity to locate and apply for jobs no matter where the veteran lives or serves. You can find out about all of our job fairs on all of our links, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter. Every single week we are updating with the new job fairs that we have coming that week. So just wanted to highlight some of the numbers that we have for this year. For since 2014, my apologies. Job fairs, we've been to 925 job fairs across country. We've had over 290,000 attendees. Exhibitors over 47,000. The two numbers that we see that are huge is DAV interviews, 135,000 interviews that have been done on the spot at job fairs. And jobs offered 174,867 job offers extended out to individuals. Now you see, you can see that the number is bigger for job offers than the actual interviews itself because multiple people are getting multiple interviews and job offers as well. So I'm going to introduce our new Patriot Employment Director. I'm just going to read the small bio, not his whole bio. Nick is a community builder, economic developer and entrepreneur who has worked in and around the entrepreneurial ecosystem for more than 14 years. Nick is also a Mustang Civil Affairs Officer in the United States Army Reserve where his community service includes earning the rank of staff sergeant before attending Officer Candid School where he is commissioned as an engineer officer before transferring to Civilian Affairs. He now holds a rank of major after 23 years of service and is planning to retire at the end of 2023. Thanks, Jeremy. I really didn't expect that much of an intro. Where's all my Army veterans at out there? Yeah, let's say on school. All right, well, as Jeremy mentioned, first I want to thank the team up here for allowing me to come and crash their party a little bit on the employment side. But thank you for the warm introduction. Thank you all for attending this morning. As you mentioned, I'm the director of Patriot Boot Camp, one of our newest programs here at the DAV, many of which many of you probably haven't even heard of the program. Although if you attended yesterday's business session, you probably saw Chef Robert Irvine up there talking about Patriot Boot Camp and I thought that was pretty exciting. Anybody else think that was exciting? Yeah, yeah. So what is Patriot Boot Camp? Some of you, as you came by the table over the last couple of days, knees were rattling thinking we're gonna send you away off to another boot camp. But it's not quite that rigorous. So this program is really for the veteran entrepreneur or the spouse entrepreneur. So we want to make that clear. We really want to support veterans and their spouses. So make sure you get the word out. But the program is really quite simple. If you are an aspiring entrepreneur who is currently in business and you're business, you are really looking to grow. This is the place to come and get a trans, go through a transformative program where you get access to education. And I think the most important part is mentorship and access to other information in workshops, panel discussions about all the various topics that can help build you as a better business owner. So we all know that business owners, if you decide you're an entrepreneur and you have something to offer, whether that be service or a product, you're typically the best part, you're typically that service or that product. But the one thing that most entrepreneurs struggle in is all the other stuff, right? All the accounting and just the business understanding, the planning, all that aspect. So this is a great program to build upon those skills and take those with you into the future. It's also a program that allows that entrepreneur access to those who are investors, those who know about taking investment, those who can advise you and guide you in the investment scheme as you move forward in your business, if that's your thing, because it isn't necessarily every veteran's next step. But if you are also a business owner in your local community and you're looking for other resources, you may come across a term that is referred to as incubator. So you might see that out in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. You can associate DAB Patriot Food Camp with an incubator program, meaning you're in business, we take your program, we warm it up in a nice snuggly environment, give you the tools and the resources and the nurturing that you need to take the next step, to grow your business. Our team, you guys already know my ugly mug now by this point, so a couple other folks on our team, Tammy Mathis, she's our program coordinator. And if you ever get involved with the program, you will most certainly know of Tammy Mathis. She will contact you about pretty much anything that goes on with the program. And then Sherri Rice, who is at this particular juncture, a consultant of ours, but what's interesting about Sherri is she was part of the founding crew of Patriot Food Camp, which was its own standalone charity prior to DAB acquiring the program in 2022. So she has a lot of historical knowledge that she brings to the table about the formation, the do's and the don'ts about the program. And so she's a nice advisor, that's an addition to our team for the duration of time. Couple interesting impacts. So I, I know these are kind of small, I didn't realize they'd be so small, sorry, but we've had, to our greatest ability to track participants from one charity to the next, we've had 971 participating entrepreneurs over the last 12 years. We typically run our boot camps, three, maybe four boot camps per year, depending on sponsorships and opportunities and of course interest. So that's a large number when you think of a cohort of 50 every year. So 441 expert mentors, and this is again, I mentioned is a very good strength of the program. So while we have, we may have a cohort of 50 participating businesses, we also like to match it up with a 50 participant, participants of mentors. So that's a major component of the program. So if you are a business owner and you have some knowledge that you'd like to share, you can do so by getting involved with the DAB Patriot Boot Camp. 7,200 hours of mentorship, that's just an estimation. I'm sure it's way beyond that when you consider that lasting relationships are formed through the boot camp and they continue mentorship into the future with the people they meet there. 21% female participation, very happy about this number and actually our last cohort was 49% female. So that's, we're getting out, we wanna attract more female entrepreneurs. 80%, what is that, 82%? It's too small for me to read, that's how small it is. 82% identify as a service connected disabled vet and again, I think that's low balling this number. 52% racially diverse and what I really mean by that is all other ethnic groups combined outside of Caucasian and those who don't identify include 52%. So that's a huge statistic, blowing out any other inclusion statistic that you could even assign to us. And then again, 971 for sitting entrepreneurs, I think that's a typo, I think it's really supposed to say 170 million in capital raised for the businesses that has participated in Patriot Boot Camp over the last 12 years and again, I think that number is extremely low when you look at reality but that's a measure, one of the many different measures that we use to show progress in the program. And of course we have many more statistics if you wanna talk about those, I'll be at the booth, come find me. So what are some ways that you can help? Obviously if you are a participant, I think that's why, if you're someone who has, is an entrepreneur, is in business with an idea, it's a competitive process so you'd submit an application, we'd love to have you do that with the hopes of participating in a Patriot Boot Camp. But aside from that, we all know a business owner or someone who's aspiring to be a business owner so I think that's a good plug and so share that with your networks, with your chapters, with your friends, family, et cetera to get more people into the program as we build this. And if you're an experienced entrepreneur, as I mentioned earlier, we'd love for you to consider being coming a mentor. That means different things to different people but we would love at least to have that conversation and to put you on our mailing list at a minimum. So please connect with us on that. If you're looking to give back, I mean we're always looking for sponsorships, I know it's a shameless plug, but nonetheless, if you have a business or if you're interested in investing, your resources in this mission, we'd be happy to discuss that with you as well. If you're interested in growing your business in a different capacity, you can become a sponsor, we have lots of interesting opportunities that we can get creative, honestly. We can create whatever you want if you wanna show that support. And then if you're like-minded and you just wanna become a partner in any other way, again, I don't even have any specific examples. We'd love to partner anyway we can and work with that with you. And then if you're alumni, we wanna hire veterans. So for those who have gone through the program in the past, I shuffle, I make introductions to Ryan and his team to continue their engagement with DAV and growing their business through the hiring of veterans. And I think that's gonna wrap me up for today, how they do on time. I think we did well. So I know there's a bunch of questions that are burning a hole in you, so as a reminder, the mic is up here. We'd love for you to come ask us some questions. I see some people getting up, all right. Thank you, everybody, for your time and attention today. Good morning. Good morning, Marty Panon, South Dakota. I see that we have a veteran advantage guide of hiring veterans for employers. I take questions once in a while from veterans that have experienced discrimination, ADA violations. Can you expand on that and what resources we have from a DAV perspective on how to address veterans that have experienced that? Thank you. From a DAV perspective, we have the resources to point people in the right direction. However, we don't directly represent them as a file of different lawsuits and things of that nature. However, I can invite Julian up to speak a little bit more on that. So there's a couple of different aspects that we could address with that. So first, within VETS agency itself, as I mentioned, there's the Uniform Services Employment and Reimplement Act, Rights Act. And what that does, that provides anti-discrimination protections for those who served in the workforce. So if it is an organization that is discriminated against someone because of their service or current affiliation or past affiliation, we will investigate that, find out if there's any merit, and then the US government can represent you in court if it goes to that level. We do try to mitigate those cases so it doesn't go to court between the employee and the employer. But worst case scenario, we do pass it on to the Department of Justice. You also mentioned the ADA. We also have some lawyers within the Department of Labor outside of VETS that can help and support any claims that someone has in regards to violations against the Americans with Disabilities Act. Jack Hanson, South Dakota. This is for Julian and the major. So I understand that you have never been in the service. So I have to say to that, we are Army strong. Army strong? Yes. But yes, we appreciate the comment. I do have to add to that. Although we stand up here and say the Army is the best service, I honestly can say, I appreciate each and every branch of service as I've worked with all of you. So you can't do it alone, so. There's not a question, it's just a statement. What works for us is that 10 reasons why you hire a veteran, hard copy. And we give that to any businesses. And I think that's very important. I don't know if you qualify for saying that, but that's so important, the hard copy, to give to the business. 10 reasons why we should hire a vet, and it works for us. I appreciate that, thank you. Stan Kokewicz, Chapter 44, Department of Wisconsin. I was a divot for nine years, LVR for 13, recently retired from the state of Wisconsin. But anyway, back when we had the hire vets first campaign, there were 52 buses in the city of Milwaukee with hire vets first. And I did not have the need to know where the money came from for that, even though my phone number was on the back of the bus. But anyway, why don't dozen vets put advertising money into the grant for divot LVR positions? So that's a great question. And to your point, we do have some really talented folks in those two positions. One thing that we are running up against, and I think a lot of departments are running up against this right now is just constraints for budget. And so sometimes you have to prioritize where we're putting our funding. And while we are rolling out with new initiatives to fill gaps, personnel is always a key aspect of how we do our service delivery. So making sure we have the right personnel in the right place is always important. But obviously with these state grants, we do leave it up to some degree of the state on who they hire and the qualifications of those individuals. But we do work very closely to assure that they are using the right metrics and spreading the word about these key positions. Hi, I'm Glenn Prouder. I started a chapter 66 with Larry. I started a disabled veteran food truck business here in Atlantic City. But at this point, I'd rather be a mentor to help other veterans in that way. So I'm trying to figure what programs do you offer that can help me be a mentor for my business? That's our Patriot Bootcamp. So just come talk to me when we get done. We can set you up, okay? And by the way, for the DAV app, if you, in this instance, if you're interested in becoming a mentor, if you go inside the DAV app, you'll see a, I guess it's a sub app for DAV Patriot Bootcamp and you can click on it. And there is a link in there to sign up with a mentor application and or subscribe to our mailing list. Yeah, Bob Casher at Great Commonwealth of Kentucky Chapter Three, Elizabeth Tomic. It's a scenario with a question. Small Town USA has a small construction business and they hire, they do hire veterans. How can they get into this program to get into some of these job fairs when they're having a critical time hiring experienced heavy equipment operators? So if they are interested in attending a job fair, all you need to do is reach out to us. So the, right when you visit our page, jobs.dav.org, the very first link that's on there is to email us directly and speak with us in reference to that. Does the owner of the company have to need to be a veteran in order to qualify to get into the program? No, they do not. Okay, that was my question. Thank you. Thanks for being here guys, I really appreciate it. Gary Burr, Chapter 169, Victoria, Texas. As a service officer, I sometimes come across the young guys just getting out that don't really have a lot of experience in interviewing. I get prepared for an interview. I've never been through a job interview. Don't want to set up their resume, et cetera. Is there some type of resource that you can help them before they attend these job fairs? There is, there is. So on our page again, there's a plug again, jobs.dav.org. So at the very bottom, there is mentorship opportunities where companies give a free hour to veterans to be mentored, whether that's help me build my resume, help me build my LinkedIn profile, interview tactics. And then also with our corporate partner recruit military, they hold webinars as well and they work with individuals and call one-on-one veterans and spouses to speak with them and make sure their resume is squared away just to give them the tools and equip them better for job fairs. Jeff Whitnamen, Chapter 9, Department of Ohio. I was a debop also and one of the things that we used to, that we talked to the veterans about was to let them know about WOTC, WOTC. It's a work opportunity tax credit and employers who hire veterans are eligible for a $9,600 tax break. So it's just, and I also tell them, hey, when you go in for an interview, they might ask you, hey, tell us the reason why we should hire you over at everybody else out in the waiting room. One reason is I'm a veteran, veterans are honest, we're dependable, we're loyal, we show up for work on time and we don't mind staying until the job gets done. And the second reason why is because if you hire me, you qualify for the tax break through WOTC and that doesn't mean you can hire me today, take the credit tomorrow and let me go on a third day. You have to keep me employed for 180 days. So if we have any employers here, hire a veteran. Thank you. Thank you. And just to kind of reiterate on that topic, I mean, the education is key. That's why we do meet with employers on a consistent basis and we talk about the veteran advantage, our hiring guide. And through education, we're able to make these employers realize just how important it is to hire veterans. But I mean, again, that is a vitally, vitally important topic. Is there, do we have any additional questions? Yes. Elville, chapter 57, Wisconsin. This is really directed towards recruit military. Pre-pandemic, recruit military would have job fairs in Milwaukee. Post-pandemic, we have not had any. We would hope that they would reconsider scheduling them back again. We're more than willing to work with them to ensure that they would be successful. So thank you. For sure. So I mean, in the event that a job fair is not in your area, that's the exact reason why there's virtual events. We can't be everywhere all at once. So in order to accommodate the more rural locations and to accommodate the veterans who can't attend our job fairs, that's why we have the virtual events. We're again, it's an awesome environment. I encourage everyone, if you have not seen it, even if you're not looking for a job, if you already have a job, I mean, the best time to find a job is when you already have one, right? So even if you don't have a job, whatever it might be, just explore the environment and see how awesome these virtual events are. Ryan, thanks. Stan Geno, Department of Washington, member of the Employment Committee, thank God. No, really, it's a great program. Can I give a little shameless plug? Stop by the booth. If you're a service officer, obviously everybody's touching base with vets, a lot of them need jobs, a lot of them wanna work, spouses, transitioning. Some of them even wanna move on to a different job. Pick up some cards, have it on your desk, have a couple with you. It's got the website on there, jobs.dav.org. It's easy, just hand it to them. And it's a big help. So promote, promote, promote, please. Thank you. Thank you. We've got a lot of information there also, not just some free stuff for everybody to grab. So come get us some education also at our table. Dave Felt, Wisconsin. I understand you wanna promote. I understand you wanna grow. Walkie's not a rule to city, okay? What are you guys doing to dispel the D in front of disabled American veteran? Because still out there, right now employers are really striving to get people. It's really hard. But before pandemic disabled American veterans told the employer, you're disabled. So how are you changing that stigma? So again, that's where our hiring guide comes in the mix. We use real world examples from real companies, real veterans, and explain things like a work opportunity tax credit. We explain everything that a veteran, whenever you hire a veteran, all the pros that you're getting. A lot of these employers are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on an annual basis just to train the employees that they already have to be good leaders in the organization. So through this guide, we explain to them that hey, you don't have to spend all this money to get a leader in your organization. You have somebody already fresh, brand new that is born leader. That's what they're supposed to be. So through our hiring guide, if anybody hasn't taken a look at it, I encourage everybody to visit jobs.dav.org and take a review of that hiring guide. So that's an awesome piece of literature to take a look at. So I want to address that last question because I mentioned that a little bit in my remarks. And just because this is disabled American veterans, it doesn't mean we're broken American veterans. You know, so it takes all of us here to speak to what Ryan said, that we have to educate and inform people that this is a great business decision for employers to hire veterans. They're leaders, they're resilient, they get the job done. Not everybody else out there in that workforce can do it that way. So we're going to continue to tell that narrative here in vets. We know DAV is going to tell that story. And so we're encouraging everybody else out there to spread that message to employers. Good morning, Edmmereris, Department of Rhode Island. So when you guys travel in person to do these job fairs, are you self-contained unit? You come out of here, you get your stuff, you get your marketing, all the stuff that's going to be done at the event, and you appear at the event and conduct your business. Do you notify the state departments throughout the country that you're going to have these fairs rather than post it on a website? So I got to go play with the click, click, click. Do you have a notification ability via email to our agents, or we all have those lists? Do you tell us that you're coming and then create maybe an opportunity for us to come visit with you, not to distract you, but to offer a supplemental help? So, again, I need to plug the click, click, click again. However, that is how we can reach the most amount of people in the quickest amount of time through all of our social media handles and everything of that nature. So every, almost a few times a week, there's posts that go up to inform everyone of our location. However, we always encourage any department or any chapter that if our job fair is in your area, please reach out to us. Let us know that you're going to be coming. Yes, that's my question. How do I keep scanning your calendars? Well, honestly, you'd only have to do a scan one time because we've got the complete list of all of our job fairs throughout the entire year located there. So you can look in January and find a job fair in December and you can notify us right when you read it in December or in January and say, hey, you know, Ryan, I would like to come to this job fair to see what it's about. You know, see the amount of veterans that you're in, spouses that you're helping and we've been more than happy to have you. Thank you. Thank you. Rodney Bones, Michigan, Army strong. I think we need to really go ahead and try to small mistake and power service officers to notify, because you'll be amazed at the number of veterans who don't want to file disability claims because of the job that they currently have. Because they think something's going to happen to them and I get it with law enforcement, personnel veterans, mainly law enforcement, to be honest with you. But a lot of them they say, well, I got a great job and if I follow disability claims, especially with that disability claim deals with PTSD, they think they're going to be discriminated against or they think something's going to happen. And then my retort to that is the bottom line is you've been doing your job for 8, 10, 12, 15 years. You haven't had an issue based on your disability. Only thing you're doing now is getting that disability recognized by the VA. So if you're a job besides discriminating against you now, you have every right to follow some type of, you know, get legal assistance or whatever. So we just got to get the word out to veterans that it's okay to file a claim and not be discriminated against when you do it, especially when you're already employed. For sure. And I think education is the biggest thing that needs to happen. Educate the veteran or the spouse about the importance of filing disability claims. I mean, DAB, I mean, that's why we're such a prolific service organization. It's because we are the subject matter experts. But then also educating employers as well. So they understand that, hey, you know, I'm disabled, I'm not broken, like Julian had indicated. So I think that's vitally important. I understand there's just one more question. We are going to wrap up. We can't talk some more up here. There's another seminar that is incoming, but we can't talk some more offline up here. But again, thank you for everybody's time. Please visit jobs.dav.org. Our contact information is on the screen up here and you can reach out to us. Thank you.