Marine veteran Ben Noland installs a solar panel at Flannagan’s bar in Dublin. After an 18-month job hunt, he was hired by a company using only veterans for installations.
By: Andy Brownfield
December 4, 2011
Ben Noland served in the Marine Corps for eight years, then spent 18 months looking for a job. “I’ve probably put my resume in to 300 places in the past year,” said Noland, who is 33. “The farthest I’ve ever got was a phone interview.”
Noland, who lives in the northwestern Ohio town of Kenton, finally landed a job installing solar panels at Tipping Point Renewable Energy, a Columbus-based solar-power company that is hiring only military veterans for its installation crews at a time when unemployment among former service members is higher than among civilians.
Tipping Point’s efforts echo those of companies and groups nationwide to hire veterans in the “green energy” industry. The Denver-based nonprofit organization Veterans Green Jobs is one of the largest, having trained or placed 370 veterans in the past four years. And a pilot program by five of the country’s largest energy providers, called Troops to Energy Jobs, provides training and credentials to veterans, plus college credit for their military training and experience.
About 240,000 veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have returned to the U.S. and are unable to find work. They make up a growing chunk of the 850,000 veterans who are out of work.
Veterans’ unemployment rate in October was 12.1 percent, higher than the overall rate of 9 percent. Among veterans ages 18 to 24, the jobless rate was 30.4 percent.
The renewable-energy industry is growing fast — solar and wind energy have grown more than tenfold in the past decade — and veterans often make good fits for green jobs.
In Ohio, the number of new renewable-energy projects approved by the state in the first 10 months of 2011 was more than triple that in all of 2010.
The idea for Tipping Point’s Solar by Soldiers program, which started in the summer, was inspired in part by chief technical officer Darin Hadinger’s father, a Vietnam War veteran. Hadinger said a clerical error on his father’s honorable discharge made it hard for him to find work.
Tipping Point has hired as many as six veterans for work-site staffs of nine and plans to hire at least 10 more veterans.
Great, I think this would be new revolution development to over come the market fall
ReplyDeletePosted by Ranganathan
I am really glad people are thinking of jobs for the Vets, which are going to be many, but Vets also have abilities and training which can also be useful to other unemployed people. The green jobs can "also" be for the vets, but still, there are enough unemployed non-vets which could fill those jobs. The armed forces have a structure which could also help the civilians.
ReplyDeleteThink bigger.
Posted by STEVEN