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Edge4Vets helps veterans build job-hunting game plan

Herald-Journal - 3/30/2019

March 30-- Mar. 30--Understand what you're worth, and figure out how to sell it to employers.

That's the core message of Tom Murphy, the founder of Edge4Vets, a campaign designed to help military veterans across the country translate the lessons they learned serving the nation into civilian sector jobs.

Nearly three dozen veterans attended the first South Carolina Edge4Vets event Friday, hosted by Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport with support from nearly a dozen local and international employers.

GSP and G2 Secure Staff representatives were there, along with those from FedEx, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the Transportation Security Administration and BMW, among others.

"This is about helping these men and women create an action plan," Murphy said. "What we're trying to do is give veterans what business leaders say they need the most, and that is support to translate their strengths in the military, including their values and skills, into the tools for success in the civilian sector."

Murphy said both the military and civilian sectors prize many of the same attributes -- integrity, the ability to think on the fly and doing the right thing in a tough situation.

There are major cultural differences, though, between military service and the work-a-day world, Murphy said. Veterans sometimes spend years advancing their teams' goals over their own.

"One of the saddest things that happens is a veteran with enormous skills and value ... (doesn't) get a chance to use those to get a career and life that fits their position," Murphy said. "Edge4Vets helps the veterans articulate their strengths in a way that gets civilian employers to say yes to them, and open the door and the world to them."

Lois Oveson, general manager of G2 Secure Staff at GSP, said veterans on the job hunt are met by a world of possibilities. Her employees work to assess airport passengers with disabilities and check-in for Delta Airlines curbside service, among other duties.

She said she's hired three veterans in recent weeks, and just took a call from a fourth.

"For us, they've been a great fit," Oveson said. "You need people who are responsible, with a great work ethic, who can show compassion but above all make safety their top priority. These guys are conscientious, and they put other individuals first."

In return, Oveson said she has the ability to offer them flexible schedules.

Eva Vega, a U.S. Navy aircrew veteran, said she struggled when she first left the service to re-establish her sense of purpose and identity.

"The job I did was very integral to the mission, even though it was behind the scenes," Vega said. "So when I got out, I felt kind of at a loss at times."

When Vega struggled to land a job after the economy crashed in 2008, she said her self-esteem seemed to decline just as much. But she found that sense of purpose in 2012, following her son's autism spectrum disorder diagnosis.

"It was one of the hardest moments of my life, but also where I found my purpose again, where I realized that his health, his life, was going to be directly tied to my ability to succeed," Vega said.

Vega now runs a nonprofit part-time, but she still attends workshops like Edge4Vets to understand the opportunities and challenges veterans like her still face.

"It's awkward putting yourself out there at first, but it's really something that you've got to do," Vega said.

GSP Director of Human Resources Ashley Bruton said the hope behind Edge4Vets at the airport is to spark a conversations among area employers, and perhaps to export the workshop to similar stakeholders across South Carolina.

"I think this is something we're going to hope to see grow again in the future here," Bruton said. "And perhaps get other employers involved, too."

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(c)2019 the Spartanburg Herald-Journal (Spartanburg, S.C.)

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