Over the last 15 months, Camo2Commerce (C2C) has provided employment preparation and placement services for over 620 service members. Nearly 89% exiting the program, are employed in important regional sectors such as Advanced Manufacturing, Health Care, IT, Transportation/Logistics, and many others. Through the end of 2015, Camo2Commerce expects to enroll at least another 300 servicemembers, and place total of at least 756 service members into employment throughout the state.
Begun in January 2014, Camo2Commerce received an initial allocation of $2,888,266 of a total $5.56 mil award to provide services for service members exiting from installations in Washington state and primarily from Joint Base Lewis McChord. JBLM has an extensive and nationally recognized model for transition to civilian life.
“This is great news for so many brave men and women who fought for our country and are now ready to transition to civilian work,” said Senator Patty Murray. “I have seen the work that JBLM and the Pacific Mountain Workforce Development are doing with Camo2Commerce, and I am going to keep fighting in the other Washington to make sure this community has the resources it needs to help our servicemembers transition back into civilian life and succeed in the workforce.”
This most recent release means the total amount has been awarded, allowing C2C and its strong coalition of partners to continue their work through the end of 2015. Headquartered at Joint Base Lewis-McChord (JBLM), this National Emergency Grant funded pilot program has continued to develop and refine how servicemembers can be connected to high demand, high growth fields by the public workforce system.
“The ongoing results of Camo2Commerce is much more than just a feel good government program helping our nations heroes,” said Cheryl Fambles, CEO of Pacific Mountain Workforce Development, the lead agency for Camo2Commerce. “The theories behind Camo2Commerce and results of the program are proving how the well-established public workforce system can be strategically positioned to ramp up and down when needed to connect this dynamic workforce with our economic and industry demands.”
