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Pathways to in-demand jobs for veterans and military spouses

Work in Progress podcasts: Solutions to workforce challenges facing veterans and their spouses
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Each year, more than 200,000 men and women make the transition from military service to civilian life. Securing employment has always been a major priority—and sometimes challenge—for the recently separated and their spouses. Many veterans have found pathways to work using the skills and grit they acquired in the military.

Still others remain unemployed. To address the issue, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs this summer launched the Veterans Rapid Retraining Assistance Program to help veterans retrain for the skills needed to get a high-demand civilian job or career. VRRAP provides training towards an associate’s degree, non-college degree, or certificate for jobs listed here. It also provides up to 12 months of tuition and fees and a monthly housing allowance based on GI Bill rates for those who qualify for the program.

Over the past year, on the Work in Progress podcast, we’ve talked with thought leaders and program heads about the skills veterans bring to the job, and exploring initiatives that help those who need some retraining transition into the civilian workforce We’ve also looked at programs to help military spouses find work and start their own companies.

Today, as we kick off National Veterans and Military Families Month, we’re sharing some of those podcasts and insights.

Leveraging Higher Education to Help Veterans and Military Families
Michael Haynie, founder and executive director of the Institute for Veterans and Military Families
U.S. Air Force Veteran
REBOOT Camp: Reverse Engineering the Return to Civilian Life
Maurice Wilson, president and co-founder of REBOOT Workshop
U.S. Navy Veteran
Walmart’s Committment to Hiring Veterans and Military Spouses
Brynt Parmeter, Senior Director Military and STEM Programs for Walmart
U.S. Army Veteran
Serving the Country on the Frontlines, at Home and Abroad
Col. Ralph Layman, U.S. Army surgeon and head of trauma at Henrico Doctors’ Hospital
U.S. Army Reservist

WorkingNation chief content officer Joan Lynch saw firsthand how her father was able to use the skills and knowledge he learned in the military to build a successful civilian career. But she also saw other veterans who never got the chance to thrive in a career because hiring managers didn’t understand the value of what they had learned in service to the country.

Joan and her father, U.S. Army veteran James Lynch, discuss the issue in this animated conversation from our digital magazine, Inquire Within: Veterans and Work. Watch it here and then head over to the magazine for more stories about our veteran workforce.

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Dana Beth Ardi

Executive Committee

Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.

Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.

Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.

Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.

Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.

Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.