Private Public Partnership supports veterans at CSTX

Photo By Capt. Fernando Ochoa | Second Lt. John West, 650th Regional Support Group human resource specialist, talks with John Thase, Private Public Partnership Army career employment specialist, at the Reception Staging Onward-Movement Integration station, where Thase helped veterans find employment opportunities at the Combat Support Training Exercise at Fort McCoy, Wis., June 6.  

FORT MCCOY, WI, UNITED STATES

06.06.2015

Story by Capt. Fernando Ochoa 

311th Expeditionary Sustainment Command   

FORT MCCOY, Wis. – The Private Public Partnership, an organization that helps veterans find employment opportunities, worked with the 650th Regional Support Group at the Reception Staging Onward-Movement Integration station, where Soldiers enter the Combat Support Training Exercise at Fort McCoy, Wisconsin, June 2.

The RSOI is a very important function of the exercise. Before troops can enter the cantonment zone, they must be processed for accountability. More than 4,000 Soldiers from across the country will eventually begin and end their training at this way station.

The Private Public Partnership group is a service or private business venture which is funded and operated through a partnership of government and one or more private sector companies.

“Our main purpose is to assist Reserve Soldiers and their families to make a easy transition into civilian life with a successful employment search,” said John Thase, Private Public Partnership Army career employment specialist. “We are here to personally interact with the Soldiers, which gives us a more hands on approach.”

The PPP involves a contract between a public sector authority and a private party, in which the private party provides a public service or project and assumes substantial financial, technical and operational risk in the project.

In projects that are aimed at creating public goods like in the infrastructure sector, the government may provide a capital subsidy in the form of a one-time grant, so as to make it more attractive to the private investors. In some other cases, the government may support the project by providing revenue subsidies, including tax breaks or by removing guaranteed annual revenues for a fixed time period.

“I got involved with the Private Public Partnership program because I know what is like to be unemployed,” said Kay Miller, Private Public Partnership Army career employment specialist. “My motivation is to help Soldiers not have to go through that turmoil.”

Second Lt. John West, 650th Regional Support Group human resource specialist, works at the RSOI, where the Soldiers who attend the CSTX will learn how to integrate into the exercises Fort McCoy.

“I think it is a good service that the Private Public Partnership program is providing,” said West. “Making the transition from the military to civilian life is not always an easy one.”

The Army Reserve partnership teams with six organizations to accomplish shared objectives to achieve unit, leader and individual readiness. The PPP is a bold and innovative program that views employees as assets with quantifiable value and transformed how the Army Reserve and corporate American attract, develop and retain talent, focusing on fostering long-term partnerships with for-profit and not-for-profit leaders to develop staffing solutions that meet American's production demands, tackle the issue of workforce preparedness and reinvigorate America's human capital to remain competitive in the global market.

“Over the last year, the Army Reserve Private Public Partnership Office has helped connect nearly 2,000 Soldiers to jobs,” said Lt. Col. Alex A. McCullough, incoming operations officer for PPP, located at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. “Most recently, The Private Public Partnership has brought together leaders of industry and academia with lawmakers on Capitol Hill to address a critical skills shortage in the cyber field.”

Mutually advantageous, PPP provides employers and the Army Reserve a highly capable Soldier-Employee, who makes immediate and meaningful contributions in the civilian workplace and serves the Army Reserve in critically understaffed military occupational specialties. Together, the partners share and enhance the skills of one individual who contributes to both a robust national economy and to the defense of the nation.

This year's CSTX will be conducted over six FOBs and will serve more than four thousand Soldiers from U.S. Army Reserve units from around the country. Those Soldiers have also been given opportunities through the Private Public Partnership.

• Date Taken: 06.06.2015
• Date Posted: 06.07.2015 23:41
• Story ID: 165808
• Location: FORT MCCOY, WI, US