Joining Forces Blog

Helping Veterans 'Get Skills to Work'

It’s hard to believe that we will soon celebrate the one year anniversary of the President’s unveiling of the Veterans Jobs Bank, hosted at the NationalResourceDirectory.gov. In one short year, more than 5,000 employers posted more than 1 million Veteran friendly jobs. But statistics only tell part of the story.

The combined commitment of the private sector, teamed with the government to serve our returning Veterans, tells the rest.

I was honored to travel to New York City this week to participate in the announcement of a unique private sector coalition that aims to help 15,000 Veterans translate their military experience to advanced manufacturing opportunities. And 15,000 is just the beginning, with significant planned expansion over the next several years.

When I was first approached by General Electric, the leader of this “Get Skills to Work” coalition, about participating I thought to myself, “Let’s see, a training program that will make the U.S. more competitive and gives our transitioning Service members and Veterans the additional technical skills they need to succeed in this sector of the economy? That’s brilliant!”

The GE “Get Skills to Work” coalition entails three main components: an accelerated skills training program; translation of military experience to civilian manufacturing job opportunities through an online “badging system”; and partnership with the Institute for Veterans and Military Families to create an employer toolkit for expanded hiring, developing, and mentoring of Veterans. Through a blend of business, digital, academic, and not-for-profit partners, “Get Skills to Work” aims to close the advanced manufacturing gap, bolster the talent pipeline, and enhance American competitiveness.

Joining Forces to Train Teachers to Serve Military Children

Dr. Jill Biden and Chief of Staff of the Army General Ray Odierno laugh during a Joining Forces event celebrating the more than 100 colleges and universities that have signed on to “Operation Educate the Educators” at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., Oct. 3, 2012. (Official White House Photo by David Lienemann)

This afternoon, I was so honored to meet two of our nation’s youngest heroes – 11-year-old twin sisters Felicity and Abigail. The 7th graders love to read and play sports, and, like many of our nation’s 1.3 million school-age military children, their current school is not their first school. 

Felicity and Abigail have attended five different schools in four states in the past seven years.  They have left old friends and met new ones, transferred school records, left old soccer fields to join new teammates and coaches, and weathered their father’s many deployments. Their dad missed birthdays four, seven, eight, nine and 10.

But they are resilient and strong young ladies who are fiercely proud to be Army kids.  I am proud of them, too.

I am also proud that today, more than 100 colleges of teacher education have signed on to Operation Educate the Educators, a partnership between the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education and the Military Child Education Coalition. Last year, the partners set a Joining Forces goal of getting 100 colleges of education to commit to raising awareness on their campuses about military children in their classrooms, and to help better prepare teachers to support them.