Veterans to Energy Careers -VTEC
Abstract
This proposal seeks to leverage the Office of Naval Researchs (ONR) previous award to California State University San Marcos (CSUSM ) for the Veterans to Energy Careers Program (VTEC) to facilitate national outreach using our successful program to expand the focus and engage veterans in Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) careers with government and industry partners coast-to-coast. The U.S. is facing a shortage of skilled professionals at both the technician and professional degree level to fill positions in th e energy industry. Transitioning veterans are looking for viable, sustainable careers that utilize their skills and education. Many veterans are ideally suited to careers in the energy industrya rapidly changing industry with a high demand for technical/operation al experience and acumen. Most veterans joined the military immediately following high school graduation, therefore they have not wo rked in sustainable careers beyond the military and their knowledge of potential career paths following military service is limited. Often veterans do not understand how their skill set, knowledge, and training might translate into the skills required in a success ful civilian career.This project proposes a Veterans to Energy Careers Program (VTEC) to facilitate the transition of veterans into energy related careers across the country. The program will be supported by a collaboration between higher education, industry, and government, leveraging the resources provided by CSUSM. The intent is to provide student veteran interns with hands-on experience an d introduce students to real world laboratory work that supplements and compliments the education the students receive in their cour sework. The understanding is that each veteran has the opportunity to spend valuable time with mentors within the host organization who take on the responsibility of developing and coaching the student veterans. The veterans are exposed to the lives and work of sc ientists and engineers working within the government and industry partners. The project outlined here leverages existing resources a nd years of experience on college campuses thereby avoiding duplication of services where adequate resources already exist and are s erving the veteran population well.The proposed project period is three years and the budgetary request is $500,000 annually. The go al is to annually engage at least 20 transitioning veterans, or active duty military, planning to transition into energy related car eers while attending higher education. CSUSM will coordinate outreach, recruitment, training, education, and administrative support of individuals engaged in the program. CSUSM intends to expand to national existing programs to collaborate and facilitate double th e intern participation from previous years.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Aug 20, 2021
- Source ID
- N000142112794
Entities
People
- Scott Gross
Organizations
- California State University San Marcos
- Office of Naval Research
- United States Navy