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In October 2011, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) made final changes (for 2012) to the Post 9/11 GI Bill designating educational benefits for veterans of the U.S. armed forces who served on active duty after September 10, 2001. The program greatly expands the post-secondary educational benefits available to those veterans. In the midst of staggering unemployment figures experts are concerned about the adequacy of the future U.S. engineering and science workforce.

President Obama continues to call for major investments in attracting students to science and engineering, because science is now “more essential for our prosperity, our security, our health, our environment, and our quality of life than it has ever been before.” The post-9/11 veterans educational benefit creates an opportunity for the United States to expand its technical workforce while serving those who served.

President Obama also just recently announced the draw down and return of approximately 40,000 troops from Iraq, adding to the aproximate 2.2 million veterans that have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. What will await these heroes and their families when they come home will remain to be seen however housing, continuing ED, workforce development and subsequent jobs will become integral components of a seamless transition back to civilian life for these heroes.

Post-9/11 veterans include a diverse and qualified pool of future talent for the nation’s engineering and science employers. Ushering them into technical fields as work-force ready engineers and scientists will require a community of partnerships among the veterans themselves, the nation’s educational institutions, technology firms, the government’s technical and scientific organizations, and others.

The STEM2Veterans program will help form those partnerships and engage participation of post-9/11 veterans to use the new ED benefits to define STEM education opportunities and ultimately STEM related career paths for these deserving individuals.

The primary focus of STEM2Veterans is to create an education/career development program focused on getting veterans into science and technology careers. The National Science Foundation (NSF) and other federal agencies have long experience sponsoring education research and activities. NSF already has grant programs that fund students’ research experiences’. The cost to expand and enrich such programs is a small fraction of the cost of the post-9/11 veterans educational benefit. Yet by expanding it, the community could engage a significant number of veterans with the potential to pursue careers in fields of science and technology.

Veterans Services of America, Inc. is commited to providing turnkey solutions that includes Veterans housing, continuing ED, entrepreneurship education, workforce development, and subsequent jobs by maintaining and growing a diverse community of engaged Colleges and Universities, housing communities, employer groups, federal, state and local agencies along with corporate citizenship alliances that will enable our veterans to succeed and fill the many STEM related career opportunties now presenting in the marketplace.