Membership Report For September 2011

Membership Report For September 2011

At the end of September we were 177,829 members strong. Congratulations California and welcome CA-2011. Congratulations Florida and welcome FL-1064. Thank you both for blazing the trail we all are walking on!

Ohio Career Centers gave a great presentation for our newly formed Call of Duty Endowment Career Centers. California, Iowa, Maryland, Missouri, North Carolina, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia were represented at the training. We will learn from the successes demonstrated by Ohio AMVETS.

Returning veterans throughout America will benefit from your hard work. We know its voluntary and coming from the heart. Every state should be looking for career center locations. Soldiers need jobs and the collective experience in AMVETS will help them get jobs. Most of you have traveled the roads these young men and women are on. Show them the way.

The season of giving is approaching. AMVETS National Headquarters reached out to three outstanding servicemembers to reward their service with Life memberships. We will find more.

Each department should look for deserving veterans in their states. Make sure every recruiter in your state knows AMVETS appreciates the service they are providing to our country. Know the veteran in your town serving and show you appreciate their service with an AMVETS gift membership.

Stay connected and ride the digital wave. It gets easier every day.

Go to www.amvets.org , checkout the new video then click on the Facebook link. Your post could have a Facebook page. Hook up with someone to help or call us. Sons of AMVETS, these young patriots travel digital roads every day. Build a bridge.
Each department should have a digital guru slot. Find a wizard, fill the slot and use digital media as a force multiplier.

-Harry Neal,
National Membership Director

Hiring Veterans is the Right Thing to Do

by Edward F. Clemons, SPHR
Senior Vice President, Chief Human Resources & Ethics Officer
The Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company
AMVETS Life Member

Since 9/11 we have been a country at war in places far from home. Unfortunately, there does not seem to be a time in the future when this will not be so. A whole generation of young Americans like you have gone off to war on behalf of America, and the question remains as to what this country will do when you come home.

The average modern veteran of military service is likely to be better educated than veterans of other eras. He or she is also likely to have worked with technologies and advanced systems under extremely stressful conditions. This average veteran also knows the value of teamwork and leadership.

Unfortunately, this veteran also has a good chance of being unemployed.

According to recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate for post-9/11 veterans was 10.9% in April, 2011. That’s a full 2% higher than the overall unemployment rate throughout the United States.

One might argue that these returning veterans are coming back to a country just out of recession and still not creating enough jobs – particularly not enough jobs for young men. Our veterans should not have to return from fighting a war on foreign soil, only to come home and fight another war for a job.

Male non-veterans in the 18-24 age group have an unemployment rate of around 17%. For male veterans in the same age group, the number is 27%.

Have employers lost the sense of obligation to veterans that they had in other eras?

There is no evidence that we have lost our emotional interest in them. We put the bumper stickers on our cars and we welcome them home in parades and town halls all across the country.

In fact, there are structural changes in the economy that make it more difficult for the modern returning veteran. A report to the Congressional Joint Economic Committee said “Prior to the start of the recession, post 9/11 veterans were more likely than non-veterans to be employed in mining, construction, manufacturing, transportation and utilities, information, and professional and business services – all industries that experienced significant drops in employment during 2008-2009.”

Not only did employment in many of these categories drop, there is little doubt that many of these professions will not instantly rebound with the next positive economic news.

It should be that we look at returning veterans not as a set of unwanted skill sets but as character assets. In the insurance industry, character counts as much as hard work, intelligence and contacts. Our business is based on duty, loyalty and nobility of purpose. These are hardly foreign concepts to the returning veteran.

What employers need to do is match those character assets to training programs in their industry that will educate and enable a new generation of professionals.

At Penn Mutual we just made a $2.5 million commitment to The American College to build the nation’s first Center for Veterans Affairs. The American College specializes in training and education for the insurance industry, and returning veterans could very well be part of the new generation that is urgently needed to replace a rapidly graying group of practitioners.

The Center for Veterans Affairs will work with a special panel of active duty and retired military leaders and insurance industry recruiters to create a ‘Mission Roadmap’ for soldiers who are interested in becoming life insurance professionals and financial advisers. It is anticipated that the first soldiers graduating from The College with these designations will be within the next two years.

While we are justifiably proud of our participation in this program, it’s important to remind colleagues that we don’t have any exclusive rights to support for this kind of training. Any company can, and should, participate.

When a veteran comes off a tour of active duty military service, the last thing he or she wants is the opportunity to rest on some well-deserved laurels. What veterans want is challenge, opportunity, a way to provide a future for their families, and the chance to once again serve others honorably as a civilian.

Matching those character assets to an industry always looking for new talent is the right thing to do.

LZ:DC: Video of CODE's Check Presentation to AMVETS

On Saturday, retired Navy Rear Adm. Jim Carey presented AMVETS National Commander Jerry Hotop with a check for $100,000 from Activision's Call of Duty Endowment, or CODE, to support the expansion of AMVETS Career Centers.

Carey made the check presentation during the spring meeting of the AMVETS National Executive Committee as part of LZ:DC.

CODE recently donated $500,000 to worthy veterans' causes to fight veterans' unemployment and selected AMVETS as one of its grant recipients.

AMVETS Department of Ohio launched AMVETS Career Centers as a state program to offer veterans free resources to help complete job-critical certifications and to assist in resume-writing and job-hunting at AMVETS posts across the state.

AMVETS Department of Ohio also offers a veteran-specific job board, Ohio Vets CAN, where companies looking to specifically employ veterans can post available positions.

With thousands of successful placements for Ohio veterans, CODE recognized the value of the program and wanted to provide AMVETS with the requisite funding to implement Ohio's program on a national scale during difficult economic times when veterans' unemployment figures eclipse daunting civilian numbers.

To read CODE's official announcement of the grant, Click Here.

To learn more about CODE, Click Here.

(Image: Retired Navy Rear Adm. Jim Carey from Activision's Call of Duty Endowment presents AMVETS National Commander Jerry Hotop with a check for $100,000 to support AMVETS Career Centers. Photo by Ryan Gallucci.)

Activision's Call of Duty Endowment to Support AMVETS Career Centers

Today, the Call of Duty Endowment, a non-profit organization which is focused on helping veterans transition to civilian careers, awarded $500,000 in grants to five organizations working to train and place returning service members and wounded warriors into the workforce. The organizations that will receive funding include: the USO, AMVETS, Military to Medicine, Student Veterans of America and Veterans Green Jobs.

The announcement comes on the heels of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) yearly Veterans’ Employment Summary, which was released today. According to the new report from BLS, there are currently more than one million veterans who are out of work in the country. The problem is worst for the youngest veterans between the ages of 18-24. Male veterans in that age range experience an unemployment rate of 21.9 percent, and women veterans in the same age range experience an unemployment rate of 15.3 percent.

“It is a great honor to support these organizations that are training and placing our military men and women in 21st century careers,” said Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard, Inc. (NASDAQ: ATVI) “For those who give selflessly to defend our freedom, we must continue to increase the public’s awareness of this problem, and we must work together with businesses around the country to find our heroes fulfilling and sustainable jobs.”

The five grant recipients will each receive $100,000 to assist them in their efforts with career training and job placement throughout the country. The programs chosen each have a different avenue and audience as to how they are combating the unemployment issue.

The USO will provide career support to wounded warriors and their families through the creation of two new facilities at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland and a new medical campus at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. Student Veterans of America works mostly with younger veterans on college campuses, while AMVETS will expand their Career Centers pilot program, which has been helping veterans living in Ohio. Veterans Green Jobs, based out of Colorado, looks to train veterans in the emerging field of sustainable green jobs, and Military to Medicine provides veterans with online healthcare training and employment assistance in the medical field.

Sloan Gibson, president of the USO expressed his gratitude to Activision and Bobby Kotick for the Call of Duty Endowment’s grant, “Considering their character, drive and discipline – our men and women who serve in the Armed Forces - should be seen as ideal candidates to hire for any employer. I hope that more companies will help promote that theme, just as Activision and Bobby Kotick have done through the Call of Duty Endowment.”
Since Activision Blizzard, Inc., the worldwide online and console video game publisher and producer of the Call of Duty® video game, established the Call of Duty Endowment it has delivered more than $500,000 in grants and scholarships to assist veterans gain new careers in the civilian workforce. This past November, Activision committed another $1 million to the Endowment and pledged to find 1,000 jobs for veterans.

To learn more about fighting veterans’ unemployment and the grants announced today, visit www.callofdutyendowment.org

To see the U.S. Department of Labor’s 2010 veterans’ unemployment report, visit http://www.bls.gov/news.release/vet.nr0.htm

About The Call of Duty Endowment:
The Call of Duty Endowment is a non-profit, public benefit corporation created by Activision Blizzard. The organization seeks to help soldiers transitioning to civilian life find work and establish careers and to assist organizations that provide job placement and training. For more information about The Call of Duty Endowment, please visit www.callofdutyendowment.org.

About Activision Publishing, Inc.:
Headquartered in Santa Monica, California, Activision Publishing, Inc. (NASDAQ: ATVI) is a leading worldwide developer, publisher and distributor of interactive entertainment and leisure products. Activision maintains operations in the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Sweden, Spain, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Australia, South Korea, China and the region of Taiwan. More information about Activision and its products can be found on the company's website, www.activision.com.

Call of Duty and Activision are registered trademarks of Activision Publishing, Inc. All other trademarks and trade names are the properties of their respective owners.

(Image: Call of Duty Endowment official logo courtesy of Activision.)