When we finished up our contracts in Afghanistan and Kuwait, providing logistics services to military contractors that needed to transfer their materials into places like Bagram, Kandahar, Leatherneck, Shindand, Shank, Arifjan and countless smaller forward operating bases; we came home and regrouped and our domestic business continued as usual.
As private contractors, we left these US Bases and jumped right back into our civilian roles rather easily. However, our veterans often times have difficulty doing just this. US companies are hesitant to hire veterans because they most often have trouble seeing how the specific skills that veterans possess will translate into the civilian world. A veteran that repaired, serviced and armed Apache Helicopters for six years, ends his service, comes back home and finds that the skills he perfected have little value here.
While spending time in the Middle East, we developed an appreciation for our young soldiers that went beyond the typical admiration most of us have. We saw these boys in their own domain, took notice of how they related to each other, how they worked as a team, how respect was earned and how the power of having a single goal (to win a war, ‘us against them’) drove every soldier in the same direction. We enjoyed their conversations and shared meals with them. We learned so much interacting with our military and we brought that knowledge home with us.
When we decided to create “RedBin” and enter the space called “storage on-demand”, we decided that this new enterprise could benefit from hiring veterans. Not because it “ looks good”, not because “it’s the right thing to do”, not because we might get a small tax credit or anything like that. We decided to hire veterans because we wanted a high quality workforce. We wanted those same boys that we spent time with in the Middle East to work with us here in New York City; and we got it!
We have found that by building a team with veterans we now have a workforce that learns quickly, is tech savvy, polite and have invaluable camaraderie which has benefited our company tremendously. We hope that other companies can see the benefit and reach out to our returning veterans too.