Good morning, this is Janet Mills, Governor of the great State of Maine.
Hey, earlier this week, I was so proud to join a group of business people and veterans to recognize the growing number of employers who participated in Maine’s Hire-A-Vet Campaign in the last year.
Maine’s Hire-A-Vet Campaign had such ambitious goals last year, we thought they’d never fulfil them!
100 days, 100 employers, and 100 veterans hired.
Well they not only fulfilled that goal, they far surpassed it.
That contribution to expanding Maine’s workforce, and supporting businesses across the state, and improving the financial wellbeing of our veterans would have been impressive by itself, but the fact that they surpassed those goals to such an extent is nothing short of astounding.
To the 191 different employers across the state who hired more than 286 veterans, including 52 women, in every county of Maine I want to say, thank you. Thank all of you.
Thank you to those employers in every industry, every sector whose names span from A to Z and would take way too long for me to list, from Anthem and Cianbro to Woodford’s and Zajac.
I say thank you to all of them because they did not hire veterans merely out of a sense of charity or obligation.
They hired Maine veterans because they recognized what we all know to be true.
Veterans know what it means to work as a team. Veterans know that they can’t leave anyone behind.
They know how to serve with integrity and commitment to a vision and mission while adapting to dangers that are known and unknown.
Sounds like pretty good employees to me.
According to the Maine Bureau of Veteran’s Services, there are more than 114,000 veterans in Maine. We are one of three states in the nation with the highest percentage of veterans.
That includes thousands of working-age men and women who are ready to learn the skills our businesses need to expand, modernize, and succeed.
With a workforce shortage as we have today and our aging population - those are threats that are still looming over our future - Maine’s Hire-A Vet Campaign is even more critical to making the connection between an army of workers and all available, high-quality jobs.
The average hourly wage of veterans hired thanks to this Maine’s Hire-A-Vet Campaign was $23.05, which is higher than the mean hourly wage of all occupations in Maine in 2018 and which is higher than the minimum livable wage across our state.
These are not make work jobs. These jobs are at the foundation of our economy and the financial well-being of countless Maine people.
You know President F. Kennedy once said, “As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.”
It is not enough to simply say “thank you” and pat ourselves on the back for fulfilling a promise to honor our nation’s veterans.
It is time to do our duty as they have done and to ensure that every Maine veteran has the opportunity that they have earned to live, work and raise a family right here in Maine.
My administration will continue to partner with Maine’s Hire-A-Vet Campaign, and with employers big and small, with nonprofit and private organizations to make that goal a reality.
I look forward to next year’s Campaign and I thank those businesses and those veterans for their hard work and their enduring commitment to our people at large and especially to our veterans.
This is Janet Mills, Governor of the great State of Maine, and thank you for listening.