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A PARTNERSHIP PROVIDING JOBS AND TRAINING TO ARMY RESERVE SOLDIERS, SPOUSES & VETERANS · Go News To Go: More Good News

• 0:04
  Ah right. Paul Szlach is Good News Planet and pauls the World for Peace.
• 0:08
  We're very involved with peace a partnership providing and so is the Army Reserve.
• 0:14
  And I'm very excited because here's a partnership providing jobs and training to Army
• 0:19
  Reserves soldiers, spouses and veterans. And this is very interesting to me.
• 0:24
  I'm interested in this ourselves for our own company. Alisa Grady, Hi,
• 0:29
  how are you today? I'm great, Thank you so much for having me.
• 0:34
  Alisha is the director of Private Public Partnership Office, and it's very interesting
• 0:41
  what they're they are doing and I'm really honored always to do anything with the
• 0:48
  Army Reserve and our armed forces. Tell us what this is and how people
• 0:53
  can get involved with the with the Army Reserve. So we are the employment
• 0:59
  program for the Army Reserve and what that means is my office works with employers
• 1:07
  that want to hire our Army Reserve soldiers and family members. We do partnership
• 1:11
  agreements with them and you know, make sure that we are getting our soldiers
• 1:17
  and family members into good career pathways with these employers. Our soldiers are part
• 1:23
  time in the Army Reserve and what that means is they do their duty one
• 1:26
  weekend a month and two weeks a year for training, and the rest of
• 1:30
  the time they're in need of good employment opportunities. And so we work with
• 1:34
  those employers, and we also work with training programs so that they can you
• 1:38
  know, learn more skills, you know, so that they can upskill those
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  kind of things, certifications that they might need for a particular job, or
• 1:48
  have training programs that are within that employment realm that leads them into those career
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  pathways. Great, So give us an example. Are you able to give
• 1:59
  us a company that is doing this. I actually, I know lots of
• 2:01
  companies right do this and are proud to do this. Yeah, we do.
• 2:07
  Actually, we have over three hundred employer partners and that list continues to
• 2:14
  grow, and I will I'm not going to be specific to a company,
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  but I say the majority of those companies have a built in training program,
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  some as little as two weeks, some up to you know, eight to
• 2:27
  twelve weeks. But these are paid training programs. So employers understand the value
• 2:32
  that our soldiers bring to the table when they're hired, and so they put
• 2:37
  them in a paid training program into that particular role that they're going to within
• 2:42
  the company. It's really incredible. And then we have a lot of partners
• 2:46
  on the training side that will do certain like certifications in IT or project management
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  HR programs and they offer those for free. Our military, our soldiers are
• 3:00
  allowed to utilize those for free, which is just amazing. Here's some examples
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  of types of businesses. We are in twenty industry sectors and so I think
• 3:12
  we have just about all of them covered. We're in manufacturing, IT,
• 3:15
  cyber, transportation, logistics, healthcare, medical, Oh my goodness. Like
• 3:24
  I said, over twenty twenty industry sectors, I also see profit. Well,
• 3:30
  I guess those are more than likely about profit, but I see nonprofit
• 3:36
  and I see academic industry partners. But who are they? Yeah, we
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  have a lot of nonprofit partners and those really are what we would consider a
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  resource partner. So they provide training, they provide assistance with you know,
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  resume writing, interview skills, as well as our employment specialists do that to
• 4:00
  But we have a lot of nonprofit agencies out there that are in a supportive
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  role to make sure that you know, our soldiers and our family members,
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  you know, understand the opportunities. How to utilize the skills that they have,
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  you know, those sorts of things. So, and there's one more,
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  the academic. How does that one? How would that work? We
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  have these people wonderful Army Reserve teaching classes. Well, actually we do.
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  We have quite soldiers that do the Reserve Officer Training Corps and so we hire
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  you know, they will hire them as instructors. But we also have you
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  know, colleges and universities where are you know, soldiers and family members are
• 4:48
  enrolled. We have some uh just a few partners that have and opportunities where
• 4:56
  they can go to complete a four year degree. They can in turn in
• 5:00
  the summer with that company and then once they've completed the degree, their internship
• 5:04
  with the company, then they are placed in the job to which they are
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  you know, getting their degree in. So tell us a little bit about
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  yourself. How how have you been involved in how you guys so fortunate to
• 5:18
  be helping the reserve is I'll call them to do this kind of opportunity.
• 5:28
  So I have been in this role for three years and you know, building
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  this program up to where we have it today. Prior to that, I
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  am an Army civilian and have been for thirty five years, and my entire
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  background has been in military and family programs. And what that means is always
• 5:48
  in a role where assisting our soldiers and our family members, you know,
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  with life skill type things, with financial situations, with employment opportunities, to
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  make sure that they are stable in both their civilian and their military careers.
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  When you were a younger, lady, did you want to to be a
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  human resources kind of a person? Do you think that's part of your DNA?
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  I never thought in my wildest dreams that I would be in this seat
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  today, but I can't think of a better place to be, honestly,
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  because I know that every day I am helping our soldiers and our family members.
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  So do you feel that that Army Reserve helped you to get to this
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  point? The Army, you know, as an Army civilian, we are
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  also offered, you know, a lot of opportunities for training and advancement,
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  and so yes, I you know, obviously it has been very good to
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  me. Otherwise I probably wouldn't have stuck around for thirty five years. Right?
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  What is it? This has known to me the many Army of reserve,
• 6:58
  but at the Army civilian, at that word civilian. Uh. Uh.
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  In with regard to army, what what is an army civilian? So
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  I have I have not served on active duty? Is what that means?
• 7:12
  I am not a soldier. Uh. So we have a lot of roles
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  you know, within the Department of Defense, if you will. So for
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  all the branches of the service that you know, have civilian folks that I
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  guess you could kind of say we're the backbone of making sure that everything is
• 7:32
  you know, runs and is maintained and that there's continuity there. Ah,
• 7:39
  okay, great and thank you. Uh how so how does some how does
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  somebody all right? So we're a nonprofit, we do involvement. We're broadcaster
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  and we're involved with peace and we've been doing concerts for peace and TV shows
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  for a long time twenty aastly fifty years. I'm making these kinds of shows
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  in any case. Uh. And so we could do help and love department.
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  We've got three hundred interns. Uh. And I'm not equating an intern
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  with an Army reserve a person in this regard, but we we'd love to
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  train and especially you know, young people that want a career. You know,
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  I'm broadcasting a big time career entertainment. So so so how does somebody
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  say us or anybody else how to how where do we go? What do
• 8:33
  we do? You come right in me, that's pretty direct. Yeah,
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  I am the one that that has the conversation with those employers that we want
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  to partner with. And the reason I say that is we want to make
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  sure that our employer partners understand what it means when they hire an Army Reserve
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  soldier. Like I said, they're a part time you know, one weekend
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  a month for their duty, few weeks training a year. But when you
• 9:03
  hire an Army Reserve soldier, they are still in the military, so they're
• 9:05
  physically fit, they're drug free, like we talked about, they come to
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  work on time, they have those attributes that they bring to the table that
• 9:13
  companies desperately seek. And becoming a partner there is no cost. And what
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  we do then once you're a partners, we connect you with our employment specialists
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  and then they work with the soldiers and families in their geographical location where our
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  soldiers are located and get them connected directly to you for your employment opportunities.
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  So we basically market your opportunities for you out across our entire footprint, which
• 9:39
  is a website. Is I'm sorry, sorry, go ahead. Yes.
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  Our website is usaar dot Army dot mill and if you go there you can
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  learn all about the Army Reserve and then also click on the Private Public Partnership
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  Office. My contact information is there, so I will be expecting to hear
• 9:58
  from Okay, and I know you have another interview in the next couple of
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  seconds. That's why I'm kind of rushing in the end here. Thank you
• 10:05
  so much. You take care of Miss Grady. Bye bye,