Veterans Employment Committee

January 15, 2020: 10:00 AM
Frances Perkins Rm, 45 Commerce Dr., Augusta, ME

Meeting Minutes from SWB Veterans Employment Committee MDOL, Commerce Center, Frances Perkins Room January 15, 2020 (10:00am - 12:30pm)

Member and Interested Party Attendees: Josh Brown, Performance and Accounting Program Manager, BES, MDOL, Mark Cater, Vice President of Branding and Engagement, Military Talent Source, Leo Deon, LVER, Lewiston CareerCenter, Aaron Dombroski, Coordinator, TRiO Veterans upward Bound, USM, Adjutant General Douglas Farnham, DVEM, Jonathan Farr, SWB VEC Chair, J.R. Farr Handyman, Nicole Frydrych, Community Coordinator, VOANNE, Jen Fullmer, Board Chair, Boots2Roots, Chaplain/COL Andy Gibson, Director, Deployment Cycle Support, MEARNG, Jennifer Giroux, GPD Case Manager, VOANNE, Mike Gray, HVRP Project Coordinator and Military and Veterans Services Director, Easterseals Maine, Adria Horn, VP Workforce, Tilson, Debbie Kelly, Maine Director, Veterans Employment and Trainings Services (VETS), Bethanie Mazzaro, Volunteer Supt Technician, ESGR, Joe Reagan, Senior Director of Development, Easterseals Maine, Nate Russell, Public Relations Manager, Maine Student Veterans Alliance, Sarah Sherman, Director of Strategic Partnerships, MBVS, Alley Smith-Morrissey, Assistant Coordinator of Veterans Services, USM, Joe Tatem, Program Support Specialist, National Guard Employment and Support Program

Guests: Denise Garland, Deputy Director, DECD

Staff: Auta Main, MDOL BES Veterans' Program Manager

SWB Staff: Chris Quint, Director, State Workforce Board, Cheryl Moran, Labor Program Specialist, State Workforce Board

SWB VEC Chair, Jonathan Farr: Welcome & Opening Remarks

SWB VEC Chair, Jonathan Farr: Round the room introductions.

SWB VEC Chair, Jonathan Farr: Approval of notes from November 20, 2019.

Guest Speaker(s): Denise Garland, Deputy Director, DECD and SWB Board Member - Maines Strategic Plan and Implications for Veterans This is the first Maine Strategic Plan in 2 decades! The plan focuses on Metrix THREE OVERARCHING GOALS:
1. Grow the average annual wage by 10 percent 2. Increase the value of products sold per workers by 10 percent 3. Attract 75,000 people to Maines talent pool The plan then outlines seven core strategies across all sectors in Maine to target our resources in high impact areas to achieve those overarching goals. These include: 1. Grow local talent 2. Attract new talent 3. Promote innovations 4. Support ubiquitous connectivity 5. Provide support infrastructure 6. Maintain stable business environment 7. Promote hubs of excellence Denises primary involvement has been with the Workforce Attraction committee and Growing Maines local talent DECD and Department of Tourism do a great job attracting people to Maine. Our current population is about 1.3 million. You can add 36 million to that each year - tourists who visit Maine seasonally. We also know that people who visit Maine, come back! Message is that Maine is a great place to visit and to live year round Goal is to attract folks to Maine to STAY! Not lots of money in the plan for attracting folks to Maine or for any of the other goals Office of tourism falls under DECD umbrella and they have marketing funds for outreach DECD has a contract with Live+Work in Maine to assist with outreach activities Maines 529 is not as successful as others around the country what can be done? Efforts in place to retain students who go to school in Maine Efforts in place to improve connectivity around the state Other states offering larger incentives to move there, for example, Chaplain COL Gibson shared that his son was pulled in by Iowas outreach efforts to pay for his student loans if he moved there. His son is a doctor, and this was a huge bonus for him and his family. In addition, Iowa offered the highest salary! Other states, such as Vermont are also paying people to move to their states While salaries in Maine are somewhat lower than many states, if you look at real estate prices around the state, these salaries can work pretty well. The same cannot be said for Southern Maine where housing costs have gone through the roof. Even with higher wages, housing has become unaffordable. Maine has many benefits that are attracting veterans here to include: Veterans preference in state hiring, no taxes on veteran pension, Togus VA rated one of top in the country, free passes to state parks, free education for NG members, Maine Hire-A-Vet Campaign and more... The SkillBridge Internship is another option for bringing/attracting military members to Maine. While still on active duty, they can intern in a job and get permission for TDY up to 120 days prior to separation. More details see Mark Cater and Adria Horn. So much more see the TEN-YEAR PLAN FACT SHEET attached. Great presentation Denise!

Guest Speaker(s): Chris Quint, Director, State Workforce Board WIOA State Plan Chris hosted several brainstorming sessions with groups around the state in the fall of 2019 and early 2020. These were information sessions about what is working in Maines workforce, what could be better, what strategies should we keep, what needs to change etc. Highlights of the feedback from these brainstorming sessions and highlights of Maines 10-year Strategic Plan, were incorporated in the draft 4-year WIOA State Plan, which was open for public comment on January 27, 2020.
Chris will provide another update at the SWB VEC meeting on March 18, 2020.

UPDATES - GOALS/PRIORITIES 2019-2020

a. Marketing to Veterans and Employers
i. Outreach to Veterans: 1. MBVS reported that the DOC is creating a welcome page for Veterans and will soon be hosting another re-entry resource fair. 2. Joe Tatem shared that the National Guard members will be gathering (around the state) on weekends early in 2020 for their healthcare assessments/PHA. Joe is working with CareerCenter Vet Reps to coordinate mini job fairs at each of these events, where they anticipate 200+ national guard members will be participating. Members are required to get their checklists punched off, including employment tables. Employers will be busy! Thee mini hiring fair in Brunswick the first weekend in January 2020 was very successful. Another is planned for the first weekend in February and first weekend in March 2020. 3. NG in collaboration with Vet2Tech and MDOL, will host a larger job fair on May 1 and 2, 2020 at the Augusta Armory. They are planning for 60+ employers and 15+ resource tables and 300-500 high school students, NG members and veterans. ii. Outreach to Employers: The Maine Hire-A-Vet Campaign ended in mid-December with a total of 248 employers and 283 veteran hires!
iii. A Hiring Veterans for Employers training, held on December 5th at USM in Portland, attracted 30+ employers. The feedback was excellent! b. Education Employers i. Veteran Hiring for Employers Basic Training Leo and Mark (Cafiso) conducted the Hiring Veterans for Employers training at USM on December 5th (above). Very positive feedback again. Outline includes: Military service, culture, ranking, skills, myths, why hire vets, recruitment, interview questions specifically designed for veterans, decoding of DD214, military skills translation, USERRA basics, CareerCenter services, and information about additional resources.
ii. This training was submitted as a workshop proposal for the National Association of Workforce Agencys (NASWA) Veterans Conference in August 2020. We are hopeful it will be approved! c. National Guard E3 Collaboration with Maine Dept of Labor and the Veterans Team i. E3: Enlist, Educate, Employ. Maine Army National Guard reached out to MDOL to collaborate on the EMPLOYMENT piece. With the tight job market, recruitment, hiring and retention are more challenging for all employers, including the National Guard. Also, many younger guard members are underemployed working in the trades, for example in the guard, but working at McDonalds in civilian life. With the partnership, the Guard aims to improve numbers for all three Es! MDOL is happy to introduce National Guard members to the CareerCenter system and to the Vet Team and hopes these relationships will continue throughout the guard members/ veterans career. d. Education Veterans i. The committee did not meet in January. The notes (below) are from the November meeting but we kept them here, as a reminder. FYI. Nothing has changed. ii. The Civilian 101 Training veteran sub-committee met in November and fleshed out the following details for taking next steps. Joe Tatem led the conversation at our SWB VEC meeting in November, presenting a PowerPoint with training highlights. SWB VEC members working on this include: Josh Brown, Mark Cater, Mark Cafiso, Joe Tatem, Auta Main, Camden Ege, Leo Deon, Debbie Kelly, Bethanie Mazzaro, Cheryl Moran, Josh Howe, Nate Russell, and Aaron Dombroski. After reviewing the Dale Carnegie Training outline, we concluded that the following topics should be included in a 1- or 2-day workshop for veterans. iii. Transition, Soft Skills, Resume, Networking and Interview Skills TRANSITION Putting stress into perspective, discovering ways to prepare for and address the challenges of making a career change, develop more flexibility, be open to change and opportunity SOFT SKILLS Increase self-confidence, capitalize on your military successes to market yourself and build your future, be more approachable, apply time-tested principles to demonstrate the qualities of creditability, competence and likeability RESUME Present credentials of success, break the hidden code of job announcements, understand the importance of proper formatting, effectively translate military experience into civilian skill-sets so that employers understand what you have done, focus experience on employer needs NETWORKING Communicate well under pressure, speak confidently, diplomatically and tactfully, gain cooperation, use proven people skills to network with and motivate others, network to open career doors, improve your skills in building productive relationships, build your network of people who can assist you. INTERVIEW SKILLS Energize communications, become more animated to energize and engage others, make your ideas clear and relevant, translate knowledge to communicate military experience and skills to potential employers, deliver a verbal resume, brand yourself as a marketable entity and leverage your resume to standout, interview for results, prepare for many types of interviews, apply tactics to stand out Next steps will be to turn each of these topics into exercises and activities for trainees. Several of the SWB VEC Committee members are interested in serving as instructors for the training. e. Veteran Friendly Employer Award i. This SWB VEC subcommittee met in November and determined that at this time, we will not take next steps to develop another veteran employer award in Maine. The landscape is full at the moment with Maine Hire-A-Vet Campaign awards, ESGR awards, and the USDOL HIRE Vets Medallion award. ii. The subcommittee included: Auta Main, Josh Howe, Cheryl Moran, Bethanie Mazzaro, Andy Gibson, Mark Cafiso, Nate Russell and Debbie Kelly. f. Seeking Funding for SWB Committees & SWB Special Initiatives *Did not address this at the November meeting. g. SWB VEC Membership i. The updated list was shared at the January 2020 meeting see attached. *Suggestions were made to reach out to the following to inquire if they might be interested in joining SWB VEC 2019/2020. Lets discuss at our January meeting. - VA VR&E, David Young Auta to reach out - Cianbro, Kaleb Roy Debbie Kelly to reach out - Ashley Pringle, SWB Board Member, Vice President Operations at Maine & Co. and a Veteran - BIW Staff/Rep Who to reach out? h. Future Agenda Items - Case Managing Services At Risk of Losing Housing - Financial Literacy A new Coordinator of Financial Literacy will be hired soon at MEARNG - We will ask that person to speak at one of our meetings once hired

Mark Your Calendars for SWB VEC Meetings 2020 March 18, May 20, July 15, Sept 16, December 2 2020!

The meeting adjourned at 12:30pm

Attachments