Shownotes
Whether you’re a veteran, an employer, or someone who wants to support veterans in your community, this episode is packed with practical advice and up-to-date resources to help ensure our veterans thrive after service.
Welcome to another episode of "Looking Forward Our Way." This time, we’re putting the spotlight on the unique challenges faced by military veterans as they re-enter the civilian workforce. Joining hosts Carol Ventresca and Brett Johnson is Ryan Blackburn, Senior Manager for Military and Federal Programs at Jobs Ohio and a veteran himself.
Together, they explain the realities behind veteran employment, from overcoming resume roadblocks and translating military skills, to the vital support services Ohio offers. You’ll learn what’s working, where gaps still exist, and how local employers can play a pivotal role in creating meaningful job opportunities for those who have served.
If you like this episode, please let us know. We appreciate the feed back, and your support of offset costs of producing the podcast!
Moments
00:00 "Advancing Veteran Workforce in Ohio"
03:36 Supporting Veterans Through Education
08:57 "Veteran Hiring Resources in Ohio"
12:23 Helping Veterans Highlight Individual Contributions
13:16 Translating Military Skills for Jobs
16:48 Veteran Job Transition Challenges
20:02 Guiding Veterans in Corporate Growth
23:17 "Ohio Jobs for Veterans"
26:24 Military Transition Support Conversations
32:40 DoD SkillBridge: Transition Internship Program
35:34 Ohio's Economic and Military Development
39:44 "County Veteran Services: First Stop"
40:55 Shoutout to Murphy, Air Force
Top takeaways for professionals, employers, and anyone passionate about supporting veterans:
• Bridging the Employment Gap: Veterans often struggle to translate their military skills into civilian resumes. Programs like OhioMeansJobs Centers and Jobs Ohio’s "Find Your Ohio" initiative are connecting veterans with job resources and employers—sometimes before they even separate from the service.
• Supporting Underemployed Veterans: While veteran unemployment rates are typically low, underemployment remains a concern. Employers and workforce agencies are collaborating to ensure vets find roles that match their skill sets and leadership experience—not just a quick paycheck.
• Empowering Through Local & National Resources: Ohio offers veteran services offices in every county, and there’s an abundance of government and nonprofit support for veterans and their families. The key? Knowing where to look and leveraging those resources—from federal Small Business Administration support to local mentorship and networking programs.
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Recorded in Studio C at 511 Studios. A production of Circle 270 Media® Podcast Consultants.
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/
Copyright 2026 Carol Ventresca and Brett Johnson
Mentioned in this episode:
Listener Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed by the experts interviewed on this podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the podcast hosts or any affiliated organizations. The information provided in these interviews is for general informational purposes only and should not be considered as professional advice. Listeners are encouraged to consult with qualified professionals for specific advice or information related to their individual circumstances. The podcast host and producers do not endorse or guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of any information provided by the experts interviewed. Listener discretion is advised.
Transcripts
We are looking forward our way. Hi, this is Brett. Each year we honor our military veterans during November. Today we're going to explore the challenges veterans face as they re enter civilian employment and the programs that support their efforts, as well as local employers. Have we made progress and what is still needed to ensure veterans have the employment opportunities deserved after their service to the nation. We're happy to have Ryan Blackburn, senior manager for Military and Federal Programs for Jobs Ohio, return to the studio and give us an update on the progress made. Ryan, thanks for joining us again today.
Ryan Blackburn [:Yeah, thanks for the opportunity again, Brett. It's good to see everyone.
Carol Ventresca [:Yeah, it is good to see you. We were just saying it's been a few years since you were here.
Ryan Blackburn [:It has been a few. Things have changed since then, but we're all still striving to make Ohio the most military friendly state in the nation. So excited to talk about it.
Carol Ventresca [:Wonderful. Thank you so much for joining us and giving us your expertise and knowledge and what's going on today in our economy here in Ohio and how the state really does have an incredible outreach for our veterans. And you're also working, I think, with current military so that you're preparing people for those different career stages. So this is gonna be a lot of fun. To get more information, Ryan, your own career journey followed through various positions that have focused on veterans employment. You're now supporting military and federal installations throughout Ohio. I didn't realize that all of those entities make up about 6% of our Ohio economy. That's a good chunk of very important dollars coming into our state.
Carol Ventresca [:But let's first reintroduce you to our audience and give us an overview of your career path in assisting veterans and what you're currently tasked to accomplish at Jobs Ohio.
Brett Johnson [:Sure.
Ryan Blackburn [:I'm a, you know, a central Ohio native. I've lived here all my life, minus six years of active duty Air Force. I was an intelligence analyst from 2004 to 2010. Came back to central Ohio, utilized my, you know, GI bill benefits to, to pursue a degree at Ohio State. And I was all ready to go into the world of real estate investing. Hmm. I got involved in veterans employment while actually at Ohio State. So Ohio State has a great veterans office and I began working there just volunteering some time, helping veterans transition from the military to a school, you know, with 50,000 students that are much younger than them.
Ryan Blackburn [:You know, that's a big transition too.
Carol Ventresca [:Oh, huge.
Ryan Blackburn [:So from there I kind of got pulled into this whole world of veteran services. And my first job, I took after graduating was with the state Department of Veterans Services. And I spent six years there and workforce development, really helping Ohio's employers connect with the veterans here and understand, you know, what a veteran resume looks like, what challenges veterans have in the hiring space. And then three years ago, I transitioned that over to my current role at Jobs Ohio, which is the state's private economic development arm. But we have a focus on protecting our military installations, creating jobs there and then connecting with veterans and transitioning military members as well. As we create all these great jobs, we need a skilled workforce to fill them in. Veterans often fill that space for us. And you know, like I said at the beginning, from the governor's office to the Ohio Department of Veterans Services to Jobs Ohio, we all kind of share that same goal of really just making Ohio as military friendly as, as we can.
Ryan Blackburn [:And I think we'll talk through some of that today.
Carol Ventresca [:Right. You know, I have mentioned this in the past. When I was at Ohio State, I spent a long number of years in continuing education and it was the Soc office, the, the Servicemen Opportunity center, which is the place where military veterans could come in and go to school because we dealt with adult students on campus, which is a huge change for an adult to be in a 30 year old, to be in a classroom of 18 year olds and wide eyed and naive. But that was when I first saw the issues of our veterans and then had some students who were called up while I was at continuing ed. And so all of the issues and transitions that they go through, going to service, possibly coming back to the campus. Yeah, it's complicated. And I'm excited to reintroduce this topic on the issues of our veterans because the more employers who hear it, the better it is for our, our veterans all over the state.
Ryan Blackburn [:Yep, I agree. You know, certainly veterans can do a lot to, you know, sharpen up their resumes, but if we can help on the employer side too, I think that's where we can really alleviate some of those challenges for both parties, right?
Carol Ventresca [:Absolutely.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah. When we focus on veterans leaving active duty and moving into the civilian labor force, many believe it's a seamless transition far from reality. We covered that when you were here before a few years ago, and it was eye opening for me as well too. You don't know until somebody peels the layers back. There are challenges and barriers that stem from the specificity of military jobs as well as the cultural changes veterans undergo. Let's begin talking through the lens of a new vet. I mean, why isn't their resume working in the job search process. And why aren't the credentials and educational credit they receive in the military begin considered as legitimate training?
Ryan Blackburn [:Yep, great question. And you know, we hit on this a few years ago. I like to think that we're getting better. I think we are. There's a lot of programs out there to help support transition now. But as you really look into the problem, it's really, it varies so much from individual veteran to individual veteran. A lot of times as you're transitioning out of the military, you're required to take a transition course within 12 months of separating. A lot of people take it 12 months out, forget all about it, and then transition out.
Ryan Blackburn [:And, you know, you're in the real world now and you're not prepared. There's different programs now to help kind of alleviate that. Some things that we're doing at Jobs Ohio to try to connect with that population. But like I said, so for my personal example, I was deployed to Afghanistan the year I got out. I came back in June, and then I came back to Ohio in August from Afghanistan. So I had zero time to do a job hunt to work on my resume. And if you get a lot of these veterans who have been in for 20 years or so, you haven't done a job interview in 20 years, you don't know what a job interview looks like anymore.
Brett Johnson [:If you haven't in five years, you.
Ryan Blackburn [:Don'T know what it looks like.
Brett Johnson [:It's changed that and it has changing that fast.
Ryan Blackburn [:Yeah. So for me to get promoted in the military, I took a test and that's how I got my promotion. You stay out of trouble and you pass the test and you're going to get promoted up through most of the ranks to a certain level.
Carol Ventresca [:That sounds like life in general.
Ryan Blackburn [:Yeah, that's very true. Very true. So I think there's some programs out there and we'll hit on a few specific ones here in a bit. But we're trying, we're trying to get better at it. Certain states are doing different things. The military themselves, I think, are getting better at providing tools to transitioning military. But you just get, you know, you already have a family. You know, there's so many circumstances that play into that when it comes to credentials.
Ryan Blackburn [:You know, that's a big problem when, when you're getting out, you know, if you're doing it in the military, a lot of that doesn't translate to it. And the outside world, the military branches and DoD have recognized this and they're starting to get a little better at certifications for that translate outside of the military. But, you know, I got out as an intelligence analyst. I thought when I got out I could be an intelligence analyst and that was it. I didn't realize I had public speaking skills. I had, you know, analytics. I had Microsoft Excel background. I mean, you know, a lot of the tools use in the military are a lot of the same ones we use in the real world.
Ryan Blackburn [:It's just hard to decipher that sometimes from military lingo to civilian lingo.
Carol Ventresca [:So, you know, I think the most important thing we do with this podcast is to let our audience realize there are services out there, whether they need it or a family member or a friend. And the bottom line is to ask questions till you get the answers you need. And so audience, just as a reminder, we always put resources and Ryan helps us put together a great list of information for veterans or active military who are getting ready to retire, that there is a lot out there, but you've got to find it in your local area and utilize it, bottom line.
Ryan Blackburn [:And when it comes to the veteran community, it's great because there's so many resources out there. But it also becomes a problem because you don't really know what resource to use or if it's the right resource to use. So, you know, if you're an employer, I can't, you know, brag enough on the Ohio Department of Veterans Services and their workforce team. But there's a team of veterans at the Ohio Department of Veterans Services that their sole job is to work on the employer side of veteran hiring. They'll train you on what a resume looks like, on how to translate skills for the roles you're hiring for, how to support the veterans already in there. And then at Jobs Ohio, we've created a website, Ohiomilitaryfriendly.com super easy to remember, but there's about a 20 page guide of just benefits for military members, veterans and families and spouses. Some are specific to Ohio, some are federal, but it's kind of a one stop shop to connect a veteran to the resources that they've earned here in Ohio.
Carol Ventresca [:And there is a veteran's office in every county in Ohio, correct?
Ryan Blackburn [:Yeah. And that's really, you don't see that across the country. And it's huge because a lot of veterans will go back to where they grew up. So maybe it's in a rural county, but now you have that one stop shop. Whether it's financial assistance, you're looking for employment, you need to file a claim with the VA Every single county has that support structure and they're all kind of independent of one another, so they can kind of shape their needs and resources to what the community in their specific county needs. So, yep, you can find that on the Ohio Department of Veterans Services website too, the contact information for each county. But another just great benefit to Ohio's veterans.
Carol Ventresca [:Right? So we do want to give a shout out to all of the folks at the state level and the county level for all the work they're doing. And hopefully they're going to push, push out this podcast to folks so that you can hear that there are resources available.
Ryan Blackburn [:We will certainly do that.
Carol Ventresca [:So. And those resources are needed because bottom line, when a vet does hit home, there are issues and challenges for them, but it's not always very evident. There could be physical issues that may be more evident, could be mental issues. We've all heard about what our veterans are facing. As you mentioned, culture shock. Going back to school at 30 when you're with 18 year olds has got to be crazy. The other thing that I found in working with veterans, not only at Ohio State, but also when I was working with older adult veterans, is that notion of changing from a team focus to an, you know, from as a military unit, then create resumes and applications and all of your job search materials to focus on yourself. And that is huge for a veteran to do.
Carol Ventresca [:Give us some examples of these situations and how we help our civilians to better understand those differences and contradictions.
Ryan Blackburn [:Yeah, that's a great question and a good point too, because a lot of veterans, you know, like I said earlier, they haven't done this in 5, 10, 20 years. They don't know what they're supposed to put on a resume. And everything you talk about in the military is based around the team. So we see a lot of that on military resumes. You know, my team did this. I did this for the team. My team got this award. You know, that's how we write performance reviews in the military too.
Ryan Blackburn [:That's a lot of team focus. So we see a lot of that and we try to work with veterans on opening up and, you know, what did you do? What was your part in the team to get that on a resume. But that really, you know, we try to work with employers to understand that as well, to ask the right questions during an interview, you know, to get a veteran to kind of open up and talk more about themselves. So we. There's some training online at the Department of Veterans Services that, you know, has a list of interview questions that an employer could ask that are kind of geared more towards, you know, how to get a veteran to open up, talk about themselves a little less about the team. I mean, talking about a team isn't bad, right? But, you know, an employer wants to know what you've done. So there, there are resources out there for the employers to kind of ask those right questions that kind of decipher the resume a little bit. You know, there's skills translators online.
Ryan Blackburn [:They can help. That's not kind of, you know, you're not going to plug in a job code in the military and get exactly what they can do on the outside. But it gives you a, you know, I always, I would always tell an employer to, you know, look at the veteran's resume, plug that job into a skills translator, a military skills translator, see what comes up. Because then you can kind of draft some questions from that. Don't live off of those results because it's not going to be, you know, everything that, that, that, that individual did. But it's a great spot to say, hey, you know, I plugged your job code in here. It says that you might have a background in this. Can you explain that a little bit? And you start unlocking some of those things that you, even the veteran or applicant themselves may not even realize was important to talk about in the job interview.
Ryan Blackburn [:So, yeah, there's, you know, we're working both ends of it. We're working with veterans coming out through the transition programs that they're going through and some nonprofit organizations, and we're working the employer side, too, to kind of better understand why a resume looks that way. You know, it's hard to find workers nowadays. We don't want an employer just to put a resume on the bottom of the pile because they didn't understand it when it could have been a great fit and a great hire for the company, and it could have been a great role for that transitioning service member. So we're trying to work both sides of it to kind of alleviate some of those issues.
Carol Ventresca [:You brought up a good point, too, because over and above all, the resources for veterans through the government, we have an amazing number of nonprofits with qualified career counselors, and many times those services are free to any individual. I can remember sitting back doing a lot of resumes with veterans, and I would ask them questions like, well, what leadership role did you have? This was a person who was likely in charge of their unit. And when I said, what leadership role did you have? What did you accomplish? They could never do it from an individual standpoint. Now it. It's a testament to the military that they could create that. However, that doesn't always translate very well in the civilian workforce. So again, we will also include those nonprofit organizations perfect in our resources.
Ryan Blackburn [:And every Ohiomeans job center in every county has veteran workforce specialists too. So if you're a veteran, you can go into the county. Ohio means job center. You get priority of service. And all of them, they can do resume reviews, they can do mock interviews, which are huge too, like you mentioned, to kind of be prepared to answer questions like that. So those resources are out there. There's some great nonprofits as well. So it's just finding some of those resources sometimes.
Ryan Blackburn [:So we'll get that list together.
Brett Johnson [:Cooper Many assume veterans are able to gain a higher level of employment in the civilian services. But in actuality, moving from active military service to. To civilian employment could become a financial hardship for a vet and their family. What's creating this contradiction?
Ryan Blackburn [:Yeah, so, you know, it goes back to that transition, right, of just maybe not being prepared so much for the transition as you should be. But a lot of the times it's not that veterans are unemployed. Usually veteran unemployment is lower than the regular national average of non veterans. It's the underemployment that becomes the issue. I'll take my specific case, for example. I came back to Ohio, I wasn't prepared to transition. I took a job I got offered just because I had to pay my rent. And, you know, a lot of these folks have families they have to feed.
Ryan Blackburn [:So a lot of people will take a first job to find their first job outside of the military. So there's a stat, it's a little bit dated, but almost 50% of transitioning military members leave their first job within the first year after the military. And a lot of it's due to that transition. Some of it's on the employer side that they, you know, hire a veteran, they don't understand the skill set, and they immediately become underemployed. They're not fully utilizing those leadership skills or some of the other skills that they've had in the military. And then, you know, they're not happy where they are and they end up, you know, leaving for another job eventually too. So a lot of factors go into it. But underemployment seems to be where we put a lot of focus on, you know, veterans can find jobs, but are they the right ones? Are they going to be the career jobs, the right paying jobs for the skills? So we do a lot of Work on that again, on the veteran side, but also on the employer side too, because an employer doesn't want to, you know, underemploy a veteran if they're going to lose them in six months because of that.
Ryan Blackburn [:You know, the cost of turnover is a real problem as well. So we're working with employers, and that could.
Brett Johnson [:That could hasten the employer to want to hire another vet as well. I would think.
Ryan Blackburn [:Absolutely.
Brett Johnson [:That it kind of has that stigma with it. I mean, maybe not the first time, but if you do it three or four times.
Ryan Blackburn [:Yep.
Brett Johnson [:Though you would think as an employer, you'd kind of take a look at yourself as well, going, okay, what is the problem here? I know it's. It's not. It's just there's a disconnect, you hope, you know, but I could see it happening now.
Carol Ventresca [:They could. They could be doing that in general with all of their employees sort of under utilizing and therefore underpaying. But I think, and I saw this with older adults who were going back into the workforce after the recession in the early 2000s, where it was such a shock to be back in underutilized, underpaid from what the positions they'd had in the past. Not really. People really not understanding that, that whole culture shock. But with our military, it's even more critical because they have literally left their family, their military family, and if they don't find a good niche in civilian force, a whole lot of other things could go wrong. And you want to get somebody on the right path.
Ryan Blackburn [:Absolutely. And, you know, we're talking about the employer side, too. There's a veteran side, too, where, you know, maybe you don't have a degree yet, you don't have a certification yet, but you think, you know, I was in the military, I'm gonna get out. You know, I let a unit, I can go run this Fortune 500 company now. We get a lot of that, too. So we got. We have to manage expectations on that side, too. But, you know, they get put in this business, corporate environment right to where they just came from, the military with this huge chain, chain of command, a hierarchy.
Ryan Blackburn [:You know, you're going to get promoted every two years. If you pass the test, you get to the civilian world and, you know, you're kind of lower ranking again. You're kind of starting over. Right. But employers need to help paint that picture of. Because the corporate ladder is not always as clear. In the military, it's crystal clear. On the corporate side, it's not.
Ryan Blackburn [:So if employers can kind of help, say, you know what we're hiring into this role. But in two years, if you do X, Y and Z, you know, here's how you make it to the managerial role. We hired a veteran last year and look where this he or she is at now. So I think employers can do a good job at that of kind of painting that corporate ladder picture a little bit because we're coming out of the military completely blind when we're coming into a corporate world because we don't understand, well, what do I have to do to get promoted? What's the next level above this? Who's my boss, who's my boss's boss, know, in the military. That's all very clear. So I think employers can do a better job at kind of easing that burden. And you're going to keep a lot more employees that way too.
Brett Johnson [:Sometimes employers can't even answer that question.
Ryan Blackburn [:That's very true too. Yeah. Depending on what employer, they don't have.
Carol Ventresca [:Their choice or they don't want to.
Brett Johnson [:Right, exactly. No, I mean, and that's jokingly the truth, you know. Yeah, yeah.
Carol Ventresca [:Ryan, as a sort of an off question here, because veterans have difficulty going into the civilian workforce. Do they have a lot of success creating their own businesses as small businessmen?
Ryan Blackburn [:They do. And it's something that's encouraged quite a bit, actually. I think last time I heard, and don't quote me on this stat, but I think there's about 90,000 veteran owned businesses in the state of Ohio alone. There's great resources for veterans that want to start business. So through the federal Small Business Administration, they have their own kind of workshops on how to start a business, how to get financing, and they do a little roadshow with it. In fact, Ohio just last year, you know, if veterans wanted to take part of this in Ohio, they'd have to go up to Michigan to the regional office. But Ohio just got their own veteran business outreach center through the sba and it's housed at Wright State University now, just opened last fall. A great resource for, for veterans looking to start their own business.
Ryan Blackburn [:Now we have a local shop here too, but we see a lot of great success stories with veterans starting businesses again in their hometowns. You know, in the larger cities it really varies, but there's, there's a wide array of veteran owned businesses. It also helps that our Secretary ofState Frank LaRose is a former Army Ranger, so he does a lot with, trying to connect with veteran owned businesses as well in his role. So, yeah, we see a lot of great success and there's a lot of great resources out there for it.
Carol Ventresca [:Okay, that's great. That's good to know. And again, we'll have more of that on our resources list.
Ryan Blackburn [:This list is getting big.
Carol Ventresca [:I know.
Ryan Blackburn [:That's good.
Carol Ventresca [:It just keeps growing. I keep regurgitating what we had before and adding to it. So we've brought those issues to the table. Let's highlight some of those programs and services that correct these unfair situations for veterans. You've mentioned some, but give us a little bit more of an overview on programs here in Ohio that provide that direct job search services to our veterans and employers.
Brett Johnson [:Sure.
Ryan Blackburn [:Yeah. I think the Ohio Means Job center we already touched on. You know, they have veterans specifically working in there to help veterans in all these different counties. So that should be your first kind of reference point. At Jobs Ohio, we have a great program. You know, we've been talking about connecting with the transitioning military members. Right. And trying to get them plugged in with employment.
Ryan Blackburn [:You know, the sooner the better before they separate. We don't want veterans coming back here like I did and look around for a job. We want that already to be done. So through Jobs Ohio, we have a program called Find your Ohio. This isn't specific to the military, but it's been very successful with the military. So this is a program designed to find the folks that, you know, used to live in Ohio and bring them back here to work, whether they left for a job or for college to connect to that out of state talent and that out of state workforce that has a connection to Ohio. What we started doing through that program a few years ago is going to military bases to meet with. With transition offices and the transitioning military members that are getting out in six to 12 months and getting them connected with employment opportunities then so they can start talking to the employers here in Ohio.
Ryan Blackburn [:So that way, when they do transition out in 12 months, they step foot in Ohio and there's their job already lined up and ready to go. So we've been to 12 military installations I think this year because it was always hard for us. Even when I worked at the state, we don't know who's coming back. We don't know that you're a veteran coming back to OHIO until maybe six to 12 months after when your discharge paperwork makes it up to the state. And even then, you know, a lot of people put their mil. Email. Email address on there that's no longer active. So we have no idea how to get a hold of you.
Ryan Blackburn [:So we figured it out. You have to go to where they're transitioning out from. You have to go find them, the folks that are coming back to Ohio or even folks that don't know where they want to go. And highlighting Ohio is a great opportunity because of our employment, our great military benefits. So we're doing that all throughout the year. In fact, I'll be in San Antonio two weeks from now, big military base down there, connecting with the folks that are, you know, from Ohio, coming back to Ohio and getting them plugged in. So that's the find you'd Ohio program. And that's a great one to connect.
Ryan Blackburn [:And even if you're a veteran in Ohio looking for work, you know, you can still utilize that program. And it's great because you don't have to go on there and fill out 10 applications and write 10 different resumes for 10 different jobs. You fill out once, tell us what you want to do, and then we kind of do the matchmaking behind the scenes, too.
Carol Ventresca [:Oh, nice. That's good. Because a lot of times that is, it's one of the other. You're either sending out a million resumes or you're sending out one. And it goes into sort of the black hole of the Internet.
Ryan Blackburn [:Correct.
Carol Ventresca [:And so having somebody in their processing is good.
Ryan Blackburn [:Yep. And it's a great database too, because most of the employers that are in there that we work with know that they're looking for transitioning military members. They know how to read the resumes already. They're skilled and ready to go find those transitioning military members in there. And it's free. It's free for employers, it's free for job seekers. A great resource.
Carol Ventresca [:Do active military members have to give a certain amount of time notice to their superiors that they're going to be leaving? Is there a period of time where can they just like, oh, I'm gone tomorrow?
Ryan Blackburn [:No, it's usually the six to 12 months out that they're gonn know that they're, you know, they haven't resigned and they're, they're going to be heading out the door type of thing. So.
Carol Ventresca [:Okay, so that, that, that's critical that six to 12 months to find, to capture that population.
Ryan Blackburn [:Yeah. And you know, we go to these events and I that's probably the average of the six to 12 months. Sometimes we'll talk to people that know they're getting out in two and a half years and they're coming to talk to us. Already some people are getting out in two and a half days and you know, we need to get them plugged in as well. So it really varies. And again, it's circumstance, you know, maybe they're deployed right now and they can't do the job hunt or, you know, at a training and they can't do be at that specific transition event. So we're trying to talk to as many folks as possible to kind of alleviate some of those problems that go back to our underemployment talk. So, you know, they're having the conversations while they're still in the military.
Ryan Blackburn [:They got six months to have these conversations, find that right job that's going to be meaningful, that's going to not put them in that bucket of being underemployed.
Brett Johnson [:Gotcha. So there's also many national programs, not only from the Department of Defense and Veterans affairs, but also from the Departments of Labor, Education and more. Which programs should veterans be sure to utilize for their job search? I'm going to throw one more question there too, that I think kind of aligns in there. That's kind of off script of our questions, but is there a veteran to veteran mentorship program that exists?
Ryan Blackburn [:Yeah, great question. So there is, and I like to leave it up to the local employers too, to create that veteran employee resource group that can be so beneficial to have a veteran kind of mentor, a veteran coming on board like, hey, here's how I did it. Here's the things you should know, here's what you should wear. All those are all questions that veterans have coming out.
Brett Johnson [:I could see a cup of coffee happen instantly.
Ryan Blackburn [:Yeah. In that situation, the big thing I, because when I was getting out, a lot of the transition office I worked with was, well, you need to start networking, build your network. And I said, how do everybody I know is in the military? I'm in Utah, I'm not even in Ohio.
Brett Johnson [:What a moronic answer to that or suggestion, quite Frankly. Yeah.
Ryan Blackburn [:But LinkedIn is something that has been really powerful to the military community and something I preach a lot. So LinkedIn will actually give veterans a free year of premium access too. And military spouses.
Carol Ventresca [:Nice.
Ryan Blackburn [:So you can get a free year. I tell veterans all the time, if you know you're coming back to work, you want to work for Company X or Company y, get on LinkedIn, find company X and Company Y and search veteran. Find a veteran employee there and say, hey, can we have a cup of coffee? Can we meet over a zoom? You know, I applied for this role and I'd like to learn more about the organization that can be huge for both veterans. And again the employers, too. So a lot of employers now have veteran employee resource groups. You know, they're all called something different, but it's a great way to kind of provide that mentoring to kind of get you connected.
Carol Ventresca [:There were a couple of organizations in Columbus that did mentoring, job search, mentoring for veterans. I haven't really been in contact with them for quite a while now. We'll have to look them up again.
Brett Johnson [:And I'm sure we've talked about them and just kind of got them and.
Carol Ventresca [:Going get them on our list.
Ryan Blackburn [:You know, I think you change and.
Brett Johnson [:Get better and go that way.
Ryan Blackburn [:I think the one that I highlighted last time was the Overwatch partnership.
Carol Ventresca [:Right.
Ryan Blackburn [:I think you even had Eric.
Brett Johnson [:That was it.
Carol Ventresca [:Yeah.
Ryan Blackburn [:Or someone on the podcast. So they are still going strong. In fact, they're growing. So the Overwatch partnership is really great because there's a group of veteran volunteers kind of in their pool. So when a veteran contacts them and says, hey, I'm, I'm graduating from Ohio State, I don't know what to do. Or, you know, this is my background. This is what I'm looking to do. They'll pair them with a mentor of kind of a similar background.
Ryan Blackburn [:Get them, you know, they meet monthly to go over, okay, here's your resume. Here's some job openings that might fit what you're looking for. But then they have non veteran HR partners, too, that volunteer their time, that come in and do all the resume stuff and the interviewing. You know, these are real HR talent acquisition people at companies here in central Ohio that are here volunteering their time to do mock interviews and work on their resumes and say, from my seat at this company, this is what I see. These are the questions I asked. This is what you need to know. So it's a great kind of way to connect with fellow veterans and non veterans to get sharpened up for the job search.
Carol Ventresca [:Employers are begging for good, qualified skilled workers. So it's a good time to be in this pool of candidates. And Ohio is a lot cheaper place to live than many, many of the other states where these big military installations are located. So there are advantages to coming back to Ohio. So if regardless of audience, regardless of where you are living, if you are a vet or you know of a vet, or you have a family member that's a vet, check out the opportunities that we have here in Ohio.
Ryan Blackburn [:Yep. And that's something we're constantly marketing as well, is the cost of living, the affordability, the resources to start a business. I was in Norfolk, Virginia last week and when I talk cost of living and price of housing, that was a big selling point for Ohio. One of the big things, too, about Ohio is we don't tax military retirement income. So if you're retired from the military, there's a few states out there that still tax it, Virginia being one of them. That will tax your military pension. We don't do that here in Ohio. So if you have a military pension, it's tax free.
Ryan Blackburn [:So that's what we're trying. We're trying to tell that story. You know, we're connecting to the folks that are from Ohio, they're from here, they know they're coming back here. We talk to the folks that, you know, they. They're from Texas, they're going back to Texas. There's nothing we can do. But there's this big pool of transitioning military that, you know, I don't want to go home, I don't want to stay here. It's too expensive.
Ryan Blackburn [:So we're trying to highlight those opportunities to veterans all over the world.
Carol Ventresca [:So let's look at issues with employers. Again, the one component to make this all successful is an employer who's willing to do the work, bottom line, willing to talk to the individual, meet the individual, understand the resumes. There is a lot of support for employers who are interested in being veteran friendly in their recruitment. The Department of Defense specifically has a Skill Bridge program that you've told us some about. We want to hear more about that. And, and also I think that the U.S. chamber of Commerce has a hire a hero program. There are ways that an employer can not only hire a vet, but it's to their economic advantage to do so.
Ryan Blackburn [:Yep, that's absolutely correct. And the DOD Skillbridge program is a really unique one, and it really, really strives to bridge that gap between the transition. So what the DoD skill bridge program is, it's basically an internship for an active duty service member. So if they're within six months, I think it's six months within, with within getting out of military service, they can actually apply through their unit, and it has to be approved by their commander. They can't just go on an internship and leave military duty. But if it's able to be done, the military member can actually go do an internship for 8, 10, 12 weeks with the company to kind of test the waters. Here's my skills, you know, bridge that gap. And that way, hopefully when that internship's done, they go back to their unit, process out, come back, there's that job that they've already worked for 12 months on an internship for.
Ryan Blackburn [:And it's free for an employer to utilize because they're still on active duty. So they're still getting their military paycheck. They're just taking a temporary duty assignment. Through this DoD Skillbridge program, employers can go on the website, there's checklists on how to be approved and you know, you have to report back to the unit, you know how many hours they're doing and things like that. But it's really grown over the last few years and you hear so many success stories from it of being able to connect with, you know, have a 12 week intern, kind of learn the ropes, move them around the company a little bit, find work. Yes. Find their, their niche of, you know, kind of within the company of what they're going to be good at. Go back, process out and then boom, there's their job.
Ryan Blackburn [:So that's a really great one. Through the DOD Skillbridge program, the US Chamber of Commerce Hiring Our Heroes program has a lot. They do career fairs that we try to attend. So when I said I was in Norfolk and I'm going to San Antonio, those are hiring our Hero transition career events. Employers can register to go. They're free for employers. You obviously got to pay your travel. But if, you know you're a healthcare employer, maybe go down to San Antonio because there's a huge military health care spot.
Ryan Blackburn [:If you're, you know, we just announced a project that's going to need nuclear technicians. The Navy has a lot of those, so maybe go to a naval base. But that's what we're trying to get to. And employers can go and utilize the Hiring Our Heroes resources as well. It's not just the career fairs. There's corporate fellowship programs. So again, veterans going through an internship type program that employers can kind of tap into there as well. So that's just a few of many, but those are some of the ones we lean on heavily here in Ohio.
Carol Ventresca [:Wonderful.
Brett Johnson [:Earlier we mentioned the Jobs Ohio program that you manage, which supports military and federal employers here in Ohio as well as those we are promoting for our state. Can you give us more details on your own work? Sure.
Ryan Blackburn [:So I mentioned Jobs Ohio is the private economic development army of the state of Ohio. So our job is to bring jobs, bring investment into the state of Ohio. The way we do that was through nine sectors, whether it's agriculture, manufacturing. Ohio has a big manufacturing state, technology like intel, things like that. In 2020, we created a 10th sector and that is our military and federal sector because we said we need to protect and expand some of the military and federal assets we have here as well. Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton is a huge economic driver, but here in Columbus, we have, you know, a Defense Logistics Agency by the airport, we have a National Guard base. So my job is to really protect and expand those missions and support the military members that are here in the state as well. So we do that through a program we call Hometown Heroes.
Ryan Blackburn [:This was started a couple decades ago outside of Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton to support the men and women that were stationed there. Right. With free concert tickets or a night out at the Dayton Dragons ballpark, something like that. Again, in 2020, we said, why aren't we doing this? Across the state, we have, you know, the assets here in Columbus, we have a tank plant in Lima, we have. We're flying F16s out of Toledo. So now we, we do that statewide. We try to do about 15 events every year. Everything from a Columbus Crew game to a Cleveland Guardians game to concerts, minor league baseball at the Chillicothe VA and give free tickets and things out to military families and veterans.
Ryan Blackburn [:So again, that all goes back to that one goal of really making Ohio the most military friendly state. And we do that through that program and then the find your Ohio program to try to connect to those transitioning military members. So that's kind of the work I do now. We have a lot of partners in it, and I think we're making headway.
Carol Ventresca [:Ryan, I mentioned at the top that military installations provide about 6% of our workforce. What kind of numbers are we talking about when you're looking at all these installations of active military members and then veterans coming into the civilian workforce?
Ryan Blackburn [:Yeah, so when we did that economic impact study, we looked at Department of Defense. So you're looking at your contractors, active duty personnel, NASA. A lot of people don't realize there's a NASA facility in Ohio and that's up in Cleveland, which is a huge workforce. The Department of Veterans affairs, we have five major VA medical facilities throughout the state and then Department of Homeland Security, because we have Coast Guard in Ohio, again, do you think? Ohio and Coast Guard. But there's a district headquarters in Cleveland that covers the entire international border of the Great Lakes. So we tried to tie all of that in, and what it equaled was about 6% of the state's economy. And it has about a $55 billion economic impact annually across the state. And it equals almost 420,000 jobs as well throughout the state.
Ryan Blackburn [:So that's why we put an emphasis on it. That's why we're trying to protect it and grow it as well, because it is a huge economic driver for the state of Ohio.
Carol Ventresca [:We kind of blow through this podcast each time you come to talk to us about it. There's so much information, and I think that it's really hard for folks who have either never had to help a veteran or been an employer, an HR person who's seen the situation come up. It's really hard to imagine there's a problem, but there are situations and challenges that our veterans, many of them are young folks that we really need to support. So thank you, you know, for coming and sharing all this with us. If our listeners, they may not be a vet, but they may have a family member or friend who has served and really in need of assistance. Before we end this podcast, can you provide our listeners with a few tips to help them ensure that our veterans really are able to take advantage of these incredible resources?
Ryan Blackburn [:Yep. And it goes back to that county office that we would certainly refer everybody to as the first stop, because that's going to be local. It's going to be probably fitting your needs of that specific individual in that specific location. So we really try to harp on having those county Veterans services office up to speed on all these different resources and needs. So my advice would be first to contact that county Veteran Service office whether, you know, you're trying to help a veteran file a VA claim, look for work, maybe they have a hardship and need financial assistance. That's all things that a county Veteran Service office is set up to do here in Ohio. So that would be my first stop. And then take a look at the list of resources that we're going to put together here today, because there's a lot that's, you know, I mentioned it earlier.
Ryan Blackburn [:It's great that there's a lot, but it's also hard to kind of siphon through it sometimes to find exactly what you're looking for and what's going to be most effective.
Carol Ventresca [:It can be overwhelming if. If somebody doesn't really have somebody help them.
Ryan Blackburn [:Absolutely. So that's where those county offices can come into play, too. There might be, I'm sure there's nonprofits out there in Ohio right now that I have no idea exist. But those county offices are going to know that, and they're going to be able to provide that support.
Carol Ventresca [:You know, before we end this, I have a young cousin who is in the military, who's in the Air Force right now, California. And every year that we do our veterans programs, I always send them a text and go, murphy, this is what we're talking about. And he is always amazed that anybody is interested in veterans. And he hasn't been in that long. So he's got a while in front of him. But I'm going to send him the link to this. So I'm shouting out to Murphy and thank you for all of this information, Ryan.
Ryan Blackburn [:You're welcome.
Brett Johnson [:Yeah. Well, many thanks to our expert guest, Ryan Blackburn, senior manager, military and federal programs at Jobs Ohio, for joining us today. And listeners, thank you for joining us here. You're going to find the contact information and resources we discussed in the podcast Show Notes on our website@lookingforwardarway.com we are looking forward to hearing your feedback on this or any of our other podcast episodes.
