Hire America's Heroes engages interested corporations in activities designed to educate, promote and facilitate recognized best-practice processes and success strategies for sourcing, recruiting, hiring, on-boarding, supporting and retaining America's military service members and veterans.

The purpose of this workshop was to support, enhance and increase the mentoring capability in the Puget Sound area supporting transitioned and transitioning military personnel. Participants were provided with an experiential learning forum that included general information about being a mentor, examples of programs that work, and harnessing the power of social media as a viable means of receiving and giving mentoring.

The workshop's ultimate goal was to provide a set of leanings and frameworks that participants can use to help them think through what is needed to be an effective mentor, how to volunteer as a mentor, what to look for in choosing a mentor, and programs available to assist in finding a mentor and/or providing mentorship for service members in the Puget Sound area.

This workshop was presented as a partnership between Hire America's Heroes and Pate Consulting.

Spouses looking for a career they can maintain during moves to duty stations around the country and the world were able to connect with resources to help them at a Military Spouse Career Fair held Wednesday, May 20, 2009.

The career fair, sponsored by the Washington-based nonprofit Hire America's Heroes, was open to the husbands and wives of service members in the Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, Marines, Navy, National Guard or Reserves. It was held from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the American Lake Club at Fort Lewis.

The emphasis at the event was on the portable career fields identified as part of the Military Spouse Career Advancement Account program. Hire America’s Heroes serves the entire military family and recognizes the challenges spouses face as they follow their service member from one duty assignment to another. The Department of Defense reports that military wives on average earn $3 less per hour and experience, unemployment rate three times that of their civilian counterparts. Further, military spouse demographics show a motivated workforce in which 97% of active duty members have a high school diploma.

More than 50 Exhibitors were featured at the event and attendees came from Army, Navy, Air Force, National Guard and Coast Guard. The field of greatest interest to attendees was Healthcare with Business Management and Human Resources also of high interest. Many attendees expressed interest in attending future events sponsored by Hire America’s Heroes and the Fort Lewis Garrison expressed interest in repeating this event in 2010.