Welcome to the Business Journal Archives
Search for articles below, or continue to the all new BusinessJournalDaily.com now.
Search
Brown Highlights Veterans Jobs Program
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – During the early 1980s, Pedro Colon Jr. was stationed at the 8th Army Hospital in California, where he served as a medical laboratory specialist assigned to the 7th Infantry.
Colon attended the U.S. Academy of Health Sciences, and received extensive training in patient care and developed a long list of skills that he thought would serve him well in the private sector once his military service ended.
He was wrong.
"The civilian world acted as if those schools did not exist" after he left the military in 1984, Colon said. "Four years of training and work experience meant nothing. In essence, you have to start over."
Colon is the first veteran in the Mahoning Valley to be approved for the Veterans Retraining Assistance Program, or VRAP, made possible through the VOW to Hire Heroes Act, a federal law enacted in November.
The program allows unemployed veterans between the ages of 35 and 60 up to 12 months of job retraining assistance, aimed at positions that are today in high demand in the labor market. The program is co-administered by the Veterans Administration and the U.S. Department of Labor.
Colon said that the program would help him receive the training he needs to find a new job, in this case in the health-care industry. "In essence, I'm being paid to go to school, and the school is being paid for with this grant. It's a life-changing experience and it's a dream," he remarked.
Colon will attend the Mahoning County Career and Technical Center full time in Canfield and is enrolled in its medical assistant program. "I'll be able to work in the emergency room, trauma center, perform EKGs and monitor patient care," he said.
About 45,000 opportunities are available between July 1 and Sept. 30 nationwide. Funding would be available for another 54,000 unemployed veterans between Oct. 1, 2012, and March 31, 2014.
To date, about 27,000 veterans have applied for the program, said U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, a cosponsor of the Vow to Hire Heroes Act. Brown was in Youngstown Monday touting the benefits of the program.
"Older veterans have pretty much been left out of the retraining veterans assistance programs, "Brown said as he addressed a small group at Oakhill Renaissance Place. "They served us in the military -- it's time we serve them."
He said that the program is bound to make a difference in these veterans' lives, allowing them a "whole host of opportunities" to become trained in career centers and community colleges. The training programs focus on sectors and careers where there is the most demand for workers.
"We're hoping that the thousands of Ohioans and hundreds in the Valley who apply for it, qualify for it," Brown said. "We'll measure at the end of the year how many of these veterans succeeded in their courses and how many found jobs."
Barry Landgraver, head of the Mahoning County Veterans Service Commission, said that between a dozen and two-dozen local veterans have applied for the program. "We've got about 15 of them done," he reported. Before veterans fill out an application, he said it's beneficial to already have some sort of a career plan in place.
"You've got to make some decisions," Landgraver said. "What we're trying to do is encourage them to apply and if you don't have these decisions made, make them before they call you back. You have to know where you want to go and what you want to do."
In order to qualify, in addition to the 35-60 are requirement, a veteran must be unemployed, ineligible for other Veterans Administration education benefits, not be receiving VA compensation and not be enrolled in a federal or state job-training program.
Once the program is assessed, a decision would be made whether to continue it, Brown said. "We're serving those who served our country. As the first senator from Ohio to serve a full term on the veterans committee, that's really important to our state."
Copyright 2012 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.