by Mike Ososki, PMP, Public Relations Committee
The perfect theme for Veteran’s Day holiday was celebrated last Monday at the PMI Dunwoody Dinner. Veterans Mike Williams, Dave Harrington, and Craig Bergwall made their persuasive presentation to consider vets as perhaps one of the better PM hiring choices for industry. Also presenting by video was Vanessa Richardson, owner of Cygnal Consulting, sharing her great transitional success story.
Last year, PMI joined with the Dept. of Defense’s Defense Acquisition University (DAU) to support and aid the DoD/DAU’s “...Acquisition, Technology and Logistics workforce with a professional career path and consistency of training content and opportunity.” (www.dau.mil) The variety of PMI certification specializations (BA, Project, Program, Portfolio, Risk, Agile, Schedule, Org. Maturity) translate especially well to the various military specializations.
We are now in the middle of a massive planned military RIF (Reduction-in-Force): 1.2 million personnel exiting service between 2012-2017. How will they transition? What will they do as civilians? No one argues that ex-Army, Marine, Air Force and Navy are generally well-trained in discipline, leadership, motivation, and a wide variety of valuable practical skills—and these can include project management.
Other inherent, desirable characteristics are flexibility to relocate, diversity, adaptability, high performance under pressure, security clearances / drug-free, quick learning, educated, tech-savvy, strong ability to read situations, and the famously positive can-do attitude. Here in Atlanta, we are proud that Coca-Cola and Home Depot know the value, and routinely hire veterans. Many IT industry headquarters are here, too, and may do well to implement the same practice.
1. What has been your favorite or most rewarding volunteer experience with PMI Atlanta?
