Veterans Employment Committee

March 18, 2020: 10:00 AM
Frances Perkins Rm, 45 Commerce Dr., Augusta, ME

Meeting Minutes from SWB Veterans Employment Committee ZOOM Session Via UMA March 18, 2020 (10:00am - 12:30pm)

Members and Interested Party Attendees: Bill Benson, Director, Boots2Roots, 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, Nicole Frydrych, Community Coordinator, VOANNE, Jen Fullmer, Board Chair, Boots2Roots, 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, Dave Richmond, Director, Maine Bureau of Veterans Services, Easterseals Maine, Nate Russell, Veteran, Joe Tatem, Program Support Specialist, National Guard Employment and Support Program

Guests: Dr. Henry Felch, Associate Professor of Cyber Security and Computer Information Systems, UMA and a Veterans, Michele Weymouth, Manager, Cyber Security and Computer Technology, UMA

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 Acting Chair, Auta Main: Welcome & Opening Remarks

SWB VEC Acting Chair, Auta Main: Round the room introductions.

SWB VEC Acting Chair, Auta Main: Approval of notes from January 15, 2020.

Guest Speaker(s): Chris Quint, Director, State Workforce Board - Chris referenced the Maine Economic Development Plan and the specific areas of focus for the SWB and its committees. These 3 areas are: o Grow Local Talent: Grow the average annual wage by developing a workforce with the knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs) to deliver value-added products. o Promote Innovation: Build a more robust and recession resistant Maine economy by steadily investing in programs that increase the value of products sold per worker. o Attract New Talent: Provide the needed resources to support GDP growth by attracting 75,000 people to Maines talent pool. Increase participation of existing Maine residents by deploying new processes that attract and enable their engagement. Attract talent by building an infrastructure that supports both communities and their local economies. - SWB VEC can certainly take pride in supporting all 3 of these goals, with a focus on growing local veteran talent and attracting veterans to Maine. The Maine Hire-A-Vet Campaign, a partnership that includes many members of SWB VEC, is a key strategy for moving these goals forward, annually. Both Military Talent Source and Boots2Roots support this goal on an ongoing basis, as do several other MHAV partners. - See attached docs FMI

Guest Speaker(s): Dr. Henry Felch, Associate Professor, Cyber Security and Computer Technology, UMA - Cyber-attacks have continued to grow in both frequency and complexity o Half of all Cyber-attacks are targeted at small businesses o Cyber-attacks are the primary reason for around 60% of small companies to go out of business. o Estimated $6 trillion in damages by 2021 o $76 billion of illegal activities involves bitcoin o Only 10% of cybercrimes are reported in the U.S each year o Ransomware attack every 14 seconds o It takes 5 minutes to hack an IoT device o Become a hacker with $1 o Every day, around 230,000 malware samples are created by hackers. ... o A typical data breach remains unnoticed by the concerned organizations for up to 6 months and even the major IT players are on the list of such organizations o A successful cyber-attack costs over $5 million or $301 per employee - Employment of information security analysts is projected to grow 32 percent from 2018 to 2028, much faster than the average for all occupations o The median annual wage for information security analysts was $98,350 in May 2018 o Banks and financial institutions, as well as other types of corporations, will need to increase their information security capabilities in the face of growing cybersecurity threats o As the healthcare industry expands its use of electronic medical records, ensuring patients privacy and protecting personal data are becoming more important. - Cyber Security Analyst Position Details o Responsible for maintaining the security and integrity of data. o Must possess knowledge of every aspect of information security within the company. o Main job is to analyze the security measures of a company and determine how effective they are. o The security analyst is also responsible for creating documentation to help the company in case there are any breaches. o Responsible for protecting all sensitive information within a company. o Responsible for insuring all networks have adequate security to prevent unauthorized access o Ensure that all security systems are current with any software or hardware changes in the company. o They must plan and document all security information in the company including physical and Internet security. - 15-week immersive program o Ability to take anyone interested in cybersecurity with little or no knowledge and provide a trained entry level cybersecurity analyst o Focus is on combining theory/knowledge with hands on training o Students will be prepared to take the following industry standard certifications o CompTIA Linux + o CompTIA Network+ o CompTIA Security+ o CompTIA CySA+ o Upon completion students will be certified as a Tier 1 Cybersecurity Analyst o Written knowledge test o Individual skills test o Team evaluation

o Students can apply for the UMA Cyber Operations Certificate

• • Cyber Security Certificate Program UMA o CIS 101 Introduction to Computer Science (3) o CIS 110 Programming Fundamentals (3) o CIS 240 Networking Concepts (3) o CIS 221 Linux (3) o CIS 440 Network Security (3) o ISS 210 Introduction to Information Security (3) o ISS 232 Introduction to Cyber Forensics (3) o ISS 282 Cyber Operations (3) o ISS 320 Security Monitoring (3) o ISS 360 Incident Response (3) o ISS 385 Malware Analysis (3) o ISS 410 Cybersecurity I (3)

UPDATES - GOALS/PRIORITIES 2019-2020

a. Marketing to Veterans and Employers
i. Outreach to Veterans Nobody is sure how COVID-19 will Impact Outreach and our Services at this point: 1. Boots2Roots/Bill Benson reported that some of the veterans they are working with are accepting positions 3 months prior to their arrival in Maine. Boots2Roots, by virtue of its mission, is attracting veterans and their families to Maine on a daily basis. 2. Tilson Technologies/Adria Horn reported that their construction workers are still working, but they have laid off some of their white-collar workers. They are partnering successfully with the skill bridge internship program, to hire and engage veterans (in Maine and other states) before they separate from the military. 3. Military Talent Source/Mark Cater expressed the same success with the career skill bridge program and attracting veterans to Maine. 4. MDOL actively conducts outreach every week to veterans who have been laid off. When a veteran enters their (un)employment information into our unemployment data base, they are immediately added to the weekly veterans prospect list and one of our Vet Reps follows up with them. Sometimes the outreach is within a few hours of when a veteran enters the system.
ii. Outreach to Employers: The Maine Hire-A-Vet Campaign ended in mid-December with a total of 254 employers and 283 veteran hires, 51 of whom were women vets. Planning MHAV 2020 Kick-Off for August 27, 2020. Not sure yet if it will be in-person or virtual! b. Education Employers i. Several committee members (Leo/Lewiston CareerCenter, Bethanie/ESGR, Robin/Northern Light Health shared that they are canceling group events/activities and considering if these can be done virtually. Still a work in progress. ii. SHRMs HR Conference is still on but has shifted to a virtual platform. COL Andy Gibson and Commissioner Randy Liberty will be presenting a workshop 'what you get when you hire a vet. The workshop is scheduled for May 12th, 2020.
iii. Leo Deons workshop, Hiring Veterans for Employers, was selected for the National Association of Workforce Agencys (NASWA) Veterans Conference in August 2020. He is waiting to hear if it will be go live or shift to virtual. 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. ii. Together we have scheduled a Career Fair Kick-Off of the E3 Program for May 1 and 2, 2020 targeting High School students, National Guard members and other jobseekers. This may be canceled or postponed due to COVID-19. TBD. d. Education Veterans i. The committee did not meet in March. 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.

g. SWB VEC Membership iii. The updated list was shared at the March 2020 meeting see attached. *Suggestions had been made to reach out to the following to inquire if they might be interested in joining SWB VEC 2019/2020. - VA VR&E, David Young Auta reached out and David said hed like to join. - Cianbro, Kaleb Roy Debbie Kelly reached out to Kaleb and he said hed like to join, as well.
Still need to reach out to the following: Ashley Pringle, SWB Board Member, Vice President Operations at Maine & Co. and a Veteran and BIW Staff/Rep. Auta will reach out to Jon Mason at BIW. Who to reach out to Ashley? 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 May 20, July 15, Sept 16, December 2 2020!

The meeting adjourned at 12:30pm

Attachments