New Program Offers Support For Unemployed Oklahoma Guardsmen

Unemployed and underemployed airmen and soldiers of the Oklahoma National Guard have a new place to go for help, thanks to the Oklahoma National Guard Employment Coordination Program.

The program opened January 1st.  Lt. Col. Warren Griffis, the director, said his office's mission is to match employers with guardsmen possessing skills and training in need.

The program should be in high demand as more than 3,000 soldiers of the 45th Infantry Brigade Combat Team return from deployments to Afghanistan and Kuwait over the next several months.

The Oklahoma National Guard leadership felt responsible to help the soldiers seek civilian employment.

So far only about 30 percent of the infantry's soldiers have gone through the demobilization process at Camp Shelby, Mississippi, but the employment surveys among the soldiers so far show 35-40 percent unemployment average across the brigade.

"Soldiers leaving active-duty may have three or four months to find employment," Griffis said. "Guardsmen may have 30 days of leave or less following a deployment to find a job."

He said an unemployed service member might spend his or her entire accumulated leave from the deployment searching for a job instead of spending time with loved ones or decompressing from time spent in a combat zone.

"I think a lot of these unemployed folks aren't going to have time to do those things they need for themselves and their families," Griffis said.

The Employment Coordination Program will help review résumés from guardsmen and then match those to potential employers looking for particular skills and training.

"[Our goal is] to try to get them an interview rather than just dropping a résumé into a website," Griffis said.

A website for the office will be available at a later date through the Oklahoma National Guard's public site.  The Guard set up a page on Facebook with more information and is available at www.facebook.com/OKNGECP.