Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Washington Post
February 25, 2008
Pg. D2
Suffering from his third back injury, Army Cpl. Mayo Van Dyck was walking through Walter Reed Army Medical Center last year feeling he couldn't give the service his all anymore. But he didn't want to stop supporting the government.
So the 10-year serviceman, a satellite communications specialist who had served in Kosovo, was happy to hear an announcement that Arlington government contractor CACI International had a new program targeting service-disabled veterans. He attended a CACI briefing at Walter Reed and soon after joined the company. He is now a quality assurance manager on a classified project.
"People think we don't have a skill set that translates well," said Van Dyck, 37, who suffers bouts of numbness and pain in his back, arms and legs. "My primary job was to work as a communications soldier. My secondary job was to carry a gun."
Disabled veterans in recent years have faced increasing barriers to employment. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 14.8 percent of service-disabled veterans discharged from 2002 to 2005 are unemployed, compared with 9.8 percent of veterans without a disability. That's far above the same categories from the 1990s.
The CACI program, "Deployed Talent, Creating Careers," looks for service-disabled veterans at job fairs, on message boards and in military hospitals. Less than a year since starting the effort, it has hired 18 service-disabled veterans -- some with a lost limb, others with hearing loss, almost all working directly with clients.
The program is the brain child of Paul Cofoni, who took over as CACI's chief executive last summer. He became interested in the issues of the disabled when he was head of the federal unit at Computer Sciences Corp. There, he urged the human resources department to hire 30 disabled people in one year -- a small number, he thought, since CSC had 90,000 employees. "They looked at me startled," he said, and it took a year and a half.
"I ended up directing the program," Cofoni said. "There's a fear [by the recruiters] that they're taking a risk that if it doesn't work out it could be hard to release them."
Upon becoming CACI's chief, Cofoni immediately instituted a program to hire disabled vets. He said he was mindful of the lack of resources many Vietnam veterans suffered when they returned from the war.
"If we all do our bit here, we won't have another generation of displaced veterans out there in the society," Cofoni said.
--Zachary A. Goldfarb
February 25, 2008
Pg. D2
Suffering from his third back injury, Army Cpl. Mayo Van Dyck was walking through Walter Reed Army Medical Center last year feeling he couldn't give the service his all anymore. But he didn't want to stop supporting the government.
So the 10-year serviceman, a satellite communications specialist who had served in Kosovo, was happy to hear an announcement that Arlington government contractor CACI International had a new program targeting service-disabled veterans. He attended a CACI briefing at Walter Reed and soon after joined the company. He is now a quality assurance manager on a classified project.
"People think we don't have a skill set that translates well," said Van Dyck, 37, who suffers bouts of numbness and pain in his back, arms and legs. "My primary job was to work as a communications soldier. My secondary job was to carry a gun."
Disabled veterans in recent years have faced increasing barriers to employment. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 14.8 percent of service-disabled veterans discharged from 2002 to 2005 are unemployed, compared with 9.8 percent of veterans without a disability. That's far above the same categories from the 1990s.
The CACI program, "Deployed Talent, Creating Careers," looks for service-disabled veterans at job fairs, on message boards and in military hospitals. Less than a year since starting the effort, it has hired 18 service-disabled veterans -- some with a lost limb, others with hearing loss, almost all working directly with clients.
The program is the brain child of Paul Cofoni, who took over as CACI's chief executive last summer. He became interested in the issues of the disabled when he was head of the federal unit at Computer Sciences Corp. There, he urged the human resources department to hire 30 disabled people in one year -- a small number, he thought, since CSC had 90,000 employees. "They looked at me startled," he said, and it took a year and a half.
"I ended up directing the program," Cofoni said. "There's a fear [by the recruiters] that they're taking a risk that if it doesn't work out it could be hard to release them."
Upon becoming CACI's chief, Cofoni immediately instituted a program to hire disabled vets. He said he was mindful of the lack of resources many Vietnam veterans suffered when they returned from the war.
"If we all do our bit here, we won't have another generation of displaced veterans out there in the society," Cofoni said.
--Zachary A. Goldfarb