one would be to have your veterans' representatives at the workforce centers, what they call elvers and dvops. i just assume you understand what they are. local veteran employment rep and -- >> i speak that language now. i've been on the committee for six years. >> having more of them familiar with what goes on -- i'm a little outspoken. i'm not politically correct. but madam, you've got a lot of people in the d.o.l. who are the classic bureaucrats. they have a wonderful job if it weren't for all these damn people coming in wanting help. and they don't take the initiative. and i'll give you a real good example. we had a veteran down there in georgia who needed a job. he's in his 50s. and he'd been sitting over at the d.o.l. office for three days, trying to get help to get a job. and each day he'd go in they'd

say oh, we have you in the system now. welcome back. you're in our system now. you're in the system now. he didn't give a damn about being in the system. he wanted a job. so someone had him give us a call, and we found out where he was living. he didn't have a car. did a google search of his apartment and found a public supermarket, a target, and a walmart all within walking distance of his apartment complex. we called the managers of those three stores, and all three of them said send him over, interviews him. two of them made him a job offer. he took one of them. he went with target because they paid more than the others. but the -- we did all that inside of 20 minutes. why can't you have this $50,000 a year bureaucrat sitting on their butt in a nice air-conditioned office do the same thing? because there's no penalty and there's no incentive to go out and do it. and i know that's not politically correct, but that is

the brute reality. and we deal with that day in and day out down at our office. but having them better educated as to what the real resources are for their local area, because all employment's on a local level -- >> right. >> -- and being able to direct someone as to what are the good sites -- we put out a listing of what we consider to be all the legitimate job boards on the internet because there are so many ripoff sites, especially targeting veterans and their spouses. you that that would be a big move forward if they would do that. >> well, i think we've got to figure out a way to try to remove as much of this as possible from the federal government and put it in the state and local offices where -- because frankly, they're going to be the ones that are going to have their best ears to the ground. >> yes, ma'am. >> let me ask about both booz

allen and mantech. you have great records. both of you told us the reporting requirements were not burdensome on your companies. i'm not sure that they're providing much value, but you did say they weren't burdensome. let me ask you this about the national guard problem. are the majority of the people you're hiring actually those that are leaving active service as opposed to national guard? >> -- statistics. i know that we capture those. and i could probably look through my files here and see what those numbers are. but we -- i was thinking about congressional mandate programs. and one of the congressionally mandated programs that we absolutely love and we know it has a high impact and it does make a difference, and it has to do with those who are in the process of separating from the military. and that's that tap program. >> transition? transition and assistance program? >> in the army they call it acat. they may call it a little different. but this is where you can really, you know, work with them and help them think through how

to write a resume. you know, how to -- so i'll look through our numbers, and i may not be able to comment here, but i don't think that the majority of them are national guard or reserves. they're typically ones who are separating from the military. >> if you would get those numbers, that would be helpful. how about miss hardy? i assume those things are probably true for booz allen, that the majority are those separating from active service? >> correct. and about 11% of our 30% hires have identified as having recently separated. representing, one, the highest overall diversity constituency group within the firm. but also indicating that these individuals are coming directly from the military, from active duty to booz allen as a first stop. i do not have the numbers for the reserveists. but we do capture them and

certainly can provide them to the subcommittee. >> i think it would be really important to get those numbers. and let me ask you, mr. suleyman. i think this national guard situation is a crisis. i think it's something we are kind of sweeping under the rug and not paying close attention to. when i was the elected prosecutor in kansas city, i remember looking at resumes and thinking the national guard was a really good thing. now, that was before it became an operational reserve. and i think the testimony that was given here today demonstrates the problem. you know, these companies aren't hiring people just because they want to hire a veteran. they're hiring them because they need them for their ongoing business operations. and you can't blame them for not wanting to hire someone and train them, thinking they're going to be gone four or five times over a six or seven-year

period or four or five times over a seven or eight-year period or even four or five times over a ten-year period. now, i know we are drawing down in afghanistan and obviously we have drawn down in iraq. but i think that we have permanently injured the ability of national guard -- the national guard to get employment in our country. by the way we have made these changes. and i don't think they were well thought out. i get it. we didn't have enough boots. we had to do it because our ground force wasn't big enough. but what i don't think they anticipated, that there was going to be this problem. and i think it's one of the reasons that we've had some of the problems with suicides and some of the other issues that we're seeing in our military. what would you recommend that we could do short of convincing our military leadership that they need to go back to the old way in terms of utilizing the guard and the reserve? what could we do that could help

this problem? >> well, ma'am, i mean, you really hit on the big crux of the matter, that the national guard and the reserves have been used in unprecedented fashion in the conflicts in iraq and afghanistan. they've been used as an operational reserve. and i know that in briefings that i've been to at the pentagon the army has talked about their force generation model they refer to as r4-gen. envisions guard and reserve units activating at least once -- or they say once every five years. so out of every five-year period you can expect to be deployed out of the national guard or reserve. and more often if you're switching units, you know, and you happen to catch the unit at the right or the wrong time, depending on your opinion, in the cycle. and that's going to be a continued issue, particularly with smaller employers who can stand to absorb that loss less

well. i know that there are -- you know, what we've heard from our membership somewhat anecdotally is that they're not getting hired because they're in the guard or reserve and that employers have -- it's one of the questions that they're often asked. are you in the guard or reserve? are you anticipating deploying anytime soon? and that there are some bills both in the house and the senate that are designed at strengthening userra protections and make that law a little bit tougher. >> and userra protections are protection that's were put into the law that prohibit the discrimination against members of the guard and reserve in connection with their military service? >> yes, ma'am. so having those employment and reemployment rights a little bit stronger we believe is always a good thing. but we think that incentivizing

employers, it's better to dangle the carrot than break out the stick. and we believe that most employers want to hire veterans. it's just like you said, those concerns of missing out on an employee who you anticipate having, especially if you're a small or medium-size business. it's really a tough question we've been trying to work with employers through our smart job fares to convince them that here's the value of a guard or reservist. and that they may be gone for a year out of a five-year period but their skills as managers and leaders are going to be sharper. i deployed with a reserve unit to iraq. it was a light armored reconnaissance unit. we had obviously heavily mechanical. and we had a lot of mechanics in the civilian world who i would say that after the nine months we were deployed tearing engines out and tearing them apart and rebuilding them in a foot and a

half of moon dust sand in the iraqi desert without any electricity, without any water, without any lifts, you know, basically improvising all this, you know, the cummins diesel engines and transmissions, detroit diesel engines that were on the trucks that they repaired back in their civilian lives, that that made them much better and more efficient at their jobs once they returned home. and that's really a job of selling that to potential employers because the army, as you said, and the marine corps, which is i understand going to operate on a similar force generation model along with reserves are not going to change that because of the operational commitments we have and what they need to fulfill. >> let me turn to senator begich for some questions. >> thank you very much, madam chair. first, i appreciate you all being here and giving us some insight on what we need to do about our employment for

veterans. you know, my state has about 11%, 12% of the population are veterans. highest per capita in the nation. so we have a lot of need and, as you can imagine, a lot of issues that come up. you know, when i was mayor, just to follow up on the guard issue, the esgr, we always signed up on it because we wanted to make sure people were taken care of no matter where they were. is there an -- let me just throw an idea, and i have a couple questions more specific. i'll start with you, ramsey, if that's okay. to create an incentive for the businesses to -- they know they're going to be gone for a period of time. the question is how long can you keep those kind of jobs open? is there a -- through tax policy is there an opportunity to create incentives to incentivize them not only to hire them but to keep that space open and creating flex schedules? i don't know who wants to answer. >> i'll answer that, sir. i've testified about this

several times in the past. tax incentives, while niece and a feel-good from a political standpoint, isn't a driver to get people hired. and what i hear from employers is they would -- they love getting the people off active duty, but if they would be more than willing to support members of the national guard and reserve if they were compensated for when their employee's taken away. so if simon works for me and he gets called up, i want a direct cash stipend so that i can hire a contractor to do this job till he gets back. that's the cost of doing business. i can't spend the tax credit. and one of the big problems with a lot of tax credits is that once the department of labor lays out all the tracking requirements, i may be getting $9,600 back but it maybe costing me $11,000 for all the reporting and tracking. >> just to keep track of that.

>> and i'm not going to make it up in volume. >> so the better approach, at least from your view, is if there's an opportunity to do a differential, a cash differential for the period of time deployed so you can at least keep the work flow moving. >> yes. but see, you've got a bigger problem. it's a systemic problem. userra was written for when people are gone on the weekend or maybe two-week active -- it wasn't designed for people going away for 12, 18, or 24 months. so it's out of -- it's an anachronism. the -- what's happening now, and we documented this when the iowa brigade was called up. they had 750 people that were unemployed. a little over 30% of the brigade. they did not lose their jobs when they were over in afghanistan. they lost their jobs before they left. because it was announced 160 from mobilization day.

and most of them lost their jobs from day 150 down to day 90 because the employers realized if i let you off under the guise of the recession i'm not subject to userra because i'm not subject to userra till you have your orders in hand. >> got you. >> now, if you say we're going to make userra effective the moment you announce a unit nobody will hire a member of the national guard. >> right. >> you have a systemic problem. it's the way the guard and reserve are being used. and until you fix that problem, everything else is just going to be a band-aid. >> very good. >> sir, i agree in large part with what mr. daywalt said. but you know, one of the things that also has to be considered is that less than 1% of the population has served in these conflicts. >> that's right. >> so this isn't a situation where -- like a world war ii where you had i think 11% is the figure. so everybody had a brother or cousin or husband or wife or, you know, sister or, you know --

there was a relative or a neighbor, somebody was close to you. so everybody had sacrifice. i mean, there was rationing of sugar and gas stamps. my grandmother -- my grandfather went away and all his brothers, and it's interesting to hear my grandmother talking about silk stockin stockings, not being able to have stockings during world war ii. and i think, that's just weird. you know, it's just something that isn't in -- and i've been in the marine corps for 14 years. you know, and that's something that just doesn't enter my mind. but i think employers have to understand that there's a sacrifice associated with the wars that have been fought and that, you know, while tax incentives or direct stipends -- you know, if those are the carrots that we come to understand are the best solutions and that we can afford to do, you know, that would be

great, but it's also a matter of the country's shared sacrifice. >> it's a moral obligation. >> yes, sir. it's a moral obligation. the reserveists that i took over, you know, a lot of them, as mr. daywalt said, lost their jobs before we left. oh, hard economic times. your job's gone. you know, we don't -- and under userra if the job disappears you don't have to find another position. so employers understanding that this is part of the shared sacrifice. and hopefully as afghanistan winds down this becomes less and less of a problem. but as senator mccaskill pointed out, with the unprecedented use and the army force generation model that i was talking about, you know, it remains to be seen exactly what effect that's going to have in the future. continuing an operational reserve. so we really feel at i.v.a. that it's a moral obligation. it's a small percentage of the population that's been doing a lot of the fighting in multiple

deployments. >> let me hold you there. only because i want to -- i have one quick question left here, and that is it's a big question but kind of -- january '11 gao reported how many different employment training programs there are. i think it's 40, 5. between department of labor, department of veterans affairs, and all these other miscellaneous -- i'm coming more and more to the feeling that maybe we consolidate these, put them all in the department of veterans, focus in that arena. give me a couple quick thoughts. my time is pretty close to being out here. but i just think we have so many department of labor tries. bless their soul. but veterans understand veterans, and it seems like we should just shift it all, streamline it, and focus on what we should be doing. and that is employing and retraining and have the veterans administration do it in concert with their veterans benefit programs and all these other things they do. thoughts from folks? >> yes, sir.

there's a -- >> take your time. you don't need to hurry. >> there's ledge slaugs in the house that's currently working its way through. i think it's hr-472. >> right. >> which i.v.a. supports and is designed to take department of labor and vets program and transfer it wholesale to the v.a. we subscribe to the same thinking that you have, sir, that veterans affairs is what a veteran thinks of when -- where do i go for help? i'm going to the v.a. and the fact that the legislation is written to just basically make an address change is a good thing because it's not diminishing any of the functions of the vets' program. >> it seems like if you're a vet you're coming in, you're trying to figure out do i need some more education if i want to be in this job, and do i need any medical assistance with some of the issues i might have had or

might not have? seems like you want to do that in one place. >> yes, sir. and d.o.l. vets has employment outreach. and v.a. has employment outreach. so having d.o.l. vets move and become v.a. vets and do the employment for veterans at v.a. to us makes sense because it removes some of that duplicative effort over at v.a. and it centralizes it all. it's a little bit that i talked about in my testimony here. with the numbers in the outreach for veterans small business we feel that d.o.l. -- or v.a. should be a conduit, that d.o.l. should be a conduit. if veterans come to d.o.l. or v.a. looking for small business help and advice they should go to the veterans outreach over at sba because those are the experts. and that's the same thing that we feel with d.o.l. vets moving to v.a. >> can i ask ted, were you about to say something to that issue? oh, okay. i appreciate. let me just end there. you actually answered my second

question, which was on the small business. you got right to it. because i think the same thing, that we want to make sure it's as streamlined as possible. i know there are some good efforts being done with tap and trying to move entrepreneurship. i still don't -- the tap has a lot of work to be done. i think the mind of a soldier gone into and trying to figure out how to take that program -- they're not focused on that. they're focused on thank god i'm out doing x, y, z. i've got to go to where now for what? and i think the more we can improve that. but also entrepreneurs, seem like a huge opportunities for veterans. i just met some in alaska something, small companies. all veterans. incredible work they're doing. worldwide operations now. small little manufacturing business. but very precise. they took their skill, turned it into a business that struggled getting their business together but because enough of them banded together they had some capital and, you know, just seems like that's an incredible track for veterans as someone

who comes from the small business world. seems like this is a huge opportunity for their innovation. >> i'd like to add to what you just said, senator. i'm on the small business council of the u.s. chamber. i've submit 1d 1 different ideas of how to help the national guard and reserve, and one of which is for the government to put up a pool of money. and this would only help maybe 12%, 14%, people in the national guard. but a pool of money where they can draw no interest or low interest notes so they can buy a franchise. there's a lot of advantages to that because veterans tend to hire other veterans. everybody in vet jobs is either in the military, married to the military, or child of the military. don't tell d.o.l. that. they'll say i'm discriminating. but we do. and if they're in the guard, you can't file a userra complaint against yourself. and while they're gone, their family can be running it while

they're deployed and when they come back there's no loss of benefits no, loss of income. but it would only help 10% to 14% of them. and there's a lot of other things that help the others. but entrepreneurship, veterans, study after study -- booz has done a great study on that. shows that some of our best entrepreneurs are prior military because they have that all-important quality called leadership and they can understand risk. because if i made a mistake out there it costs some of my troops their lives. so you can make a decision very quickly. and so entrepreneurship would be a big part. there is no silver bullet. i'm always fascinated when i come up here because everybody's looking for the one silver bullet that's going to solve all the problems. there is no one silver bullet. you're going to have to do 11, 12, 13 things. and none of them are cheap. >> right. i'll just end this comment -- thank you, madam chair, for the chance to ask a couple questions. again, thank you all for doing what you're doing. but you're right on the franchise piece.

i have seen some good reports. and franchisers, which i've looked into many times in my years, the veteran component, they look for because of just what you just said. because they know when you say okay, build five stores, here's the -- it's like a mission. and they're on it. and they figure out how to move through it. but their issue is capital. it's always because of -- you do a franchise, there's no $5,000 issue. it's a $50,000 to $250,000 -- >> or more. >> -- or more depending on the franchise you get. >> international fran shooiz association sponsors a group k5u8d vet fran. we're part of that. they have a big initiative this summer. the vfw and some of the other vsos are getting involved with it now. we think that's a good solution. >> it's a piece. >> that's it. it's a piece of the puzzle. >> thank you, madam chair. >> maybe we could do away with some of the bureaucracies around this issue and take that savings and put it into a fund that could -- for low-interest loans. >> combine the department of labor with vets, take that

savings, put it into -- >> it's more than just the department of labor. >> oh, yeah, it is. >> there's something touching veterans in almost every agency of government. all for the right reason. because people wanted to help veterans. but what we've done is we've spawned -- and what this hearing today has showed, one piece of that that we've exposed is this report that everybody's supposed to file. you guys are doing a great job. they don't even have your data. one of the data they had showed that somebody you hired, you weren't here, senator, but the committee got data from the department of labor that showed the one company hired 400% veterans more than they employed. in their total employees. so clearly -- the data is like a joke. it's like a bad joke. let me ask the certification of -- you knnoe know, this is something that was scandalous that the sba had to deal with, where it was discovered that somebody was claiming to be a

veteran, was getting the advantages of being a veteran and was not a veteran. and even worse, i believe the example that brought this to light was they were claiming a service-disabled veteran and they weren't even a veteran. so first, how can we certify veterans for advantages that we try to put into the law for them in a way that doesn't hinder the entrepreneurialship of them as they move into the business world? and second, what about fronting? how many veterans are being hired to front for companies to get the benefits that are associated with a veteran-owned business? and how -- in your experience have you all seen that and if so do you think the government even dents the surface of getting at fronting? >> well, ma'am, i can tell you that i've heard of fronting. we have not heard anything anecdotally. and i've talked to folks that s

and d.o.l. on those issues a couple of times. the process that the v.a. goes through right now to certify veteran contractors, veteran businesses, is apparently -- it's statutorily mandated, and i understand the intent was to eliminate some of those issues and abuses. but it's also made it very difficult for veteran-owned companies, whether they're small, whether they're service-disabled veteran-owned businesses or just veteran-owned businesses to get into the system. and you were talking about some of the bureaucracy. if you look at -- you know, there's vetbiz.gov, which is the v.a.'s site. and there's the -- there are multiple touchpoints and i think that makes it difficult for veterans to understand where they need to go and what they need to do. anecdotally on that point i've

heard several veterans who have gone through the v.a.'s credentialing process and think, okay, now i can do business with the federal government, only to find out that they never had to go through that process to do business with the other arms of the federal government. and we certainly have heard not necessarily from our membership but through the media in news about instances like sba and veterans either fronting or companies claiming to be sdvos or veteran-owned businesses that aren't. and sba, talking to the veterans outreach focus over there, they said that historically the rate is very low. so we think that the self-certification that is used by sba is probably the way to go. but maybe add some small barriers. you know, you've got to produce a certificate of incorporation. you've got to produce incorporation documents that show a veteran and, you know, the veteran's dd-214.

something that's a little bit more than self-certifying. what exactly that would be and how best that would be done, i couldn't say off the top of my head. but i think adding some small hurdles while still allowing that small business to have a low barrier tone triinto business with the federal government is probably the way to go. and i think you would weed out most of that. fronting i think really at that point just taking somebody to the woodshed judicially speaking is probably the way to end that. >> i just wonder if we're even doing the oversight that's necessary to find the fronting. what this hearing has taught me is that we're not really paying attention. we are passing laws and then we're not paying attention. and that's why we're going to try to stay on this from a contracting standpoint. and try to continue to pay attention to see if we can't --

i just dollar bet you a dime that it's going on out there but it has not been uncovered. in any way. let me ask you, mr. kympton. i have fascinated by your organization. it is a win-win win-win win-win win. and i assume that all this is being done with charitable donations. are there any government funds that are involved in your organization whatsoever? >> madam chairman, there are no government funds at this time, no. >> and what is the amount of stipend -- i mean, if someone is on a fellowship with your organization, how many can you do a year and how big is your organization's budget? because we should -- this is a great example of where the private sector does -- the not for profit sector does aw much better job than government in trying to assist not only the veterans but t