Brian Stann's Hire Heroes USA Partners with Google for Potential Game Changer

BRIAN STANN'S HIRE HEROES USA PARTNERS WITH GOOGLE FOR POTENTIAL 'GAME CHANGER'
BY JOHN MORGAN ON NOV 28, 2012 AT 9:15 PM ET

Since 2007, UFC middleweight Brian Stann (12-5 MMA, 6-4 UFC) has served as the President and CEO of Hire Heroes USA, a non-profit organization designed to provide military veterans with job-search assistance in their transition back to civilian life.

On Wednesday, he announced a very powerful company is taking up the same cause.

Google, which owns one of the world's most-trafficked websites and boasts more than 55,000 employees around the globe, is partnering with Hire Heroes USA, the Institute for Veterans and Military Families at Syracuse University and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to create a "one-stop shop" for veterans seeking employment at VetNetHQ.com.

"One of the most complex challenges facing the veterans community today that those of us are a part of the community recognize is the sheer volume of resources available to help veterans and military families transition to civilian life," Google Veterans Network's Carrie Laureno said on a conference call to announce the partnership. "While all of those resources are a measure of a very grateful nation and an incredible tribute to those that have served, the most important result that we all hope for is that these individuals and these families are getting the help that they need.

"Our goal is to help our partners do the things they do so incredibly well already but to have them leverage our technology so that they can scale their services to even greater numbers of people in need within the community."

VetNetHQ.com is a collaboration from the four organizations that is powered by the latest technology from Google and uses the expertise of the veterans groups to not only assist with teaching returning military members and their spouses how to best represent themselves for civilian jobs but also help them find where the best opportunities are available. A real-time job map helps veterans locate available positions throughout the country, and live interactive Google hangout sessions along with archived resource libraries provide valuable tips and training to the veterans and spouses.

"The tactical language that we speak in the military is not the same language that's spoken in the civilian world," Stann said. "Most companies when we speak to them on why we haven't hired veterans, most of the time they tell us, 'Well, we didn't understand what their value was via the resume or via the interview.'

"The difference now being powered by Google and this platform is it's not only a resource library of all these tools, tips and the latest and greatest things that we've been able to put together to help veterans gets jobs, but it's also an area now where these veterans can share their experiences and their own personal expertise. It also gives them a means to connect directly with my staff so that they can get personalized attention, which is really what Hire Heroes USA is all about, but we're limited by our staff numbers. Now, with the plumbing, so to say, powered by Google, we can connect to thousands more veterans, and we can personally help thousands more veterans through these hangouts, through YouTube, by helping them prepare these resumes, prepare their interview skills and go out to market to communicate their skillsets."

Retired Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Schmiegel, a 20-year Marine veteran and Executive Director of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Hire Our Heroes program, has already overseen some 370 job fairs in the past 20 months. The sessions have attracted more than 150,000 veterans and military spouses, and more than 14,000 have earned jobs as a result of the program. With this new step, Schmiegel sees a chance for even more progress.

"I am more excited about this than really anything else that I've ever seen in the military or anything we've ever done," Schmiegel said. "I feel by doing this, we can really change the landscape on the issue of unemployment for veterans and military spouses. I do believe this is a game changer, and I don't believe that's overstating. I think it's really about reach.

"It is essentially a high-tech compliment to the high-touch efforts that all of our programs have across the country, and it has the potential not to reach 150,000 or a couple hundred thousand veterans and military spouses – it has the potential to reach millions of veterans and military spouses. It's a sustainable program, and I think it has not only the potential to reach a wider audience but to reach them earlier."

Stann, who left active duty less than five years ago, said the military community is generally considered both technologically savvy and comfortable with social media platforms, and he anticipates they'll easily embrace the technology powering the program. However, he stressed that with some 40,000 different organizations currently promising some type of assistance to military veterans (though not always delivering as planned), his goal was to make sure the new collaboration is providing the absolute best possible content available.

"There have been collaborations before that put together a lot of resources on a website and acted like, 'Hey, this is the solution,'" Stann told MMAjunkie.com. "That is not what we're trying to do here. It's not just a bunch of information put on a website for the veterans to go find it. The content that we're going to be driving and continually updating this site with is meaningful content."

Stann, of course, is a former WEC light heavyweight champion and a 10-time UFC veteran. His most recent fight was at this past September's UFC 152 event, where he suffered a decision loss to Michael Bisping. In addition to his duties at Hire Heroes USA, he also boasts a budding career on television as an MMA analyst. Still, the 32-year-old insists MMA training is still a part of his daily routine, and his charitable work will not stand in the way of his octagon career.

"Absolutely," Stann said when asked if MMA was still a focus for him. "Look, there's a lot of time in the day. If you combine all the time that a fighter spends training, there's a lot of other hours in the day, and for me, there's more things in life that I'm passionate about."