What do we do at VTRNgroup? We help you achieve success.
Veteran Career Initiatives
Many consultants and firms can assist you to comply with guidance from the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) for veteran recruitment. VTRNgroup is focused on far more than compliance. We help you connect to top veteran talent, to the programs focused in making them even better, and after you hire, to retain veterans in your teams. We do that through helping you establish effective veteran outreach programs, demonstrating your commitment to veterans seeking opportunities to join your teams, and understanding the veteran talent opportunity – including their motivations and goals, who are the excellent prospective team members you want to hire, and keep, and more.
Not a federal contractor? Then connecting to top veteran talent through our expertise is even more important for you. Federal contractors are working on meeting their 7% benchmark goal for veterans in their companies, so competition for the best is even more important for your recruiters and hiring managers.
Retaining the most talented veterans is critical – why hire them if you don’t understand what motivates them and keeps them in your company? The best veteran employees have a need to continue to serve – their communities, their colleagues, their companies, as well as non-profits, and others. While money is important, the right opportunity to use their skills, to achieve career growth, to make a difference, are all critical as well.
If you’re a small company with a need for outside assistance to connect to the right prospective employees, and you don’t have an in-house recruiting and hiring team, we can help. We establish ties to veterans who are seeking career opportunities across the nation, and help them find your opportunities. Don’t know much about veteran talent? We can share what we know with you quickly, or do in depth training and education.
Are you a big company that wants to learn from the best? We can help connect you to your peers, deliver our expertise, and help you achieve your compliance goals and more importantly your business goals. Bottom line? We’ll help you tie into the most important sources of veteran talent in the nation, and they’ll impact your top and bottom lines, they’ll improve your teams, and they’ll enhance your competitiveness in the marketplace.
Veteran-Owned Businesses
Need business advising? VTRNgroup does that! We focus on veteran and family-owned firms, particularly those that supply goods and services to other firms. We can help you understand how to do business with private sector companies who want to buy from veteran-owned firms.
Higher Education Careers
Many institutions of higher education can benefit from access to top veteran talent, just like other sectors. But, most institutions of higher education don’t yet think about veterans as employees, even though most have employed veterans, and many veterans became researchers, scientists, and faculty members after their service. Most veterans, as they continue through their careers, are exposed to education and training both as student participants and as instructors. Military members also teach in service academies, in education programs for senior officers, and more, and do this jointly with the most experienced faculty in the nation at institutions of higher education. We help higher education recruiters and HR managers access this talent pool, and can help higher education create career initiatives, employee resource groups, paths to the professoriate and more, that echo other efforts to recruit talented women, minorities, first generation college students and others to careers in higher education.
In addition to faculty roles, veterans often have experience in technical roles that enhance their skills to serve in research, experimental and lab roles. They are administrators and leaders who can transfer those skills into higher education administration. And in roles that require compliance with safety and related standards, veterans are ideally suited to ensure the safety of your critical operations, including reporting and inspections.
Why VTRNgroup?
So, why VTRNgroup? Because we’re connected with the most impactful veteran and family-focused career and education initiatives in the country. We know what works because we’ve been involved in what works for the past five years in the veteran space, and longer in other categories of inclusion and talent. We know how to help veterans into the right training and education paths. How to connect them to the companies in the business and industry sector that understand and value them. How to support them in your communities by connecting them to the organizations they serve and that serve them.
Who is VTRNgroup?
VTRNgroup LLC, is a team of people focused on connecting veterans into the workforce, with an emphasis on veteran women, veterans from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds, ethnic minorities, and veterans who have disabilities, whether sustained in or out of service. We help universities recruit and hire veterans, and understand the high potential they represent for institutions of higher education. We have experience building student pipelines into elite universities from underrepresented backgrounds, and working with them in careers.
VTRNgroup was formed when the entrepreneurship bug bit CEO and founder James Schmeling as a result of teaching, training, and advising veteran and family entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs about business ownership. James taught human resources, team building, and related topics to the budding entrepreneurs, connecting his experience with veteran career initiatives. James was involved in building and founding several university-based centers and institutes and their teams, as well as leading non-profits as an executive director, and contributing to other organizations as a board member or as a volunteer executive. He became fascinated by the entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship research and practices in both universities and the private sector, and by their impact in communities.
James is a nationally-recognized executive leader who was responsible for leading the most impactful career, entrepreneurship, and education initiatives and programs for veterans and families in the nation. James collaboratively wrote, won, and implemented over $90 million in grant funding across these three institutes and centers to conduct research, outreach, education, and training, reaching over 44,000 individuals from 2011 through 2015 by collaborating with government agencies and private sector organizations. James personally developed partnerships and collaborations with many of the largest and most innovative business, industry, government, non-profit, and academic organizations in the nation focused on disability, veterans, and inclusion for competitive advantage. He lead several others, and has a strong need to continue serving others through his work.
Eugenia Hernandez is a successful corporate attorney who has Fortune 500 corporate legal experience for business operations in the U.S., Latin America and the Caribbean, across Europe, Asia, and Africa, including South Africa, Portugal, Japan, China, Korea, and many other places, including conducting legal work in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. She has extensive experience working with globally-distributed teams and contractors, and business management experience supervising attorneys, outside counsel, hearing representatives, paralegal, and clerical staff, with responsibility for regional office management in a statewide insurance organization, across multiple business units of a global technology company, and in her most recent role for a privately held global leader in retailing. She has extensive experience managing outside counsel with general and subject matter-specific expertise, directing depositions, hearings, and appellate work, reviewing work product, billing, and outcome records. At VTRNgroup she is a business-focused executive leader who can identify your needs for outside advice and counsel, as well as apply her international experience with U.S. and globally-focused businesses.
VTRNgroup Core Competencies
- Entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial startups
- Project planning and implementation
- Grant writing
- Building and leading distributed teams
- Business and industry engagement
- Multi-institution collaboration
- Government partnerships
- Building and running convening events
- Entrepreneurship
- Diversity and inclusion
- Workforce participation
- Veteran and family-member careers
- USERRA , VEVRAA, ADA, and OFCCP compliance
- Corporate law
- Compliance
- Enterprise risk management
- International human resource and employment law
- Antitrust
- Internet security, data privacy, general contract law
- Advertising and marketing materials, sweepstakes, and product labeling
- Litigation management
- Foreign Corrupt Practices Act
- Import/export
- Mergers and acquisition
- Ethics
In addition to this core team, we partner with other subject matter experts to support your goals, whether in public relations and marketing, organizational behavior, or other areas of need.