Businesses Shift Focus to Veterans’ Needs

Christy Valdez

Christy Valdez, President and CEO, ReForm Spine & Injury Care Center

As U.S. troops withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan, the military’s focus is moving from international hot spots to hospitals and veterans centers at home. Images of service men and women striving to function with the loss of limbs stir compassion, but no images adequately portray the pain of those struggling to reintegrate into families and communities or those suffering from the debilitating effects of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Nearly one of five recently returning veterans describes symptoms of PTSD. For Vietnam vets, the statistics are more alarming; 25 years after a 1988 study of Vietnam Continue reading

Veterans Get Help in Business

 

Lloyd Calderon, Director, New Mexico Veterans’ Business Resource Center, and Director, VBOC

When Freedom Construction of Edgewood was hired by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to upgrade the electrical system at Conchas Dam, the job was the first federal contract the company had been awarded. One of the reasons Freedom’s owners, Mark Beasley and Steven Tenorio, got the $1.1 million job is because they know what many veteran-owners of businesses do not: Federal laws set aside 3 percent of federal contracts for businesses owned by veterans who were disabled during the course of their military service.

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