In this episode of Great Question: A Manufacturing Podcast, IndustryWeek's Anna Smith speaks with Scott Gromer, President and CEO at Mesa Power Solutions, about how manufacturers can address skilled trades shortages by recruiting and retaining military veterans. Gromer explains how Mesa Power Solutions built a workforce strategy around veteran hiring, emphasizing military-developed leadership, character and teamwork. He also discusses how the Department of Defense's SkillBridge program helps service members transition into civilian manufacturing careers, and how the company has achieved 100% retention among its SkillBridge participants.

Below is an excerpt from the podcast:

Anna Smith: Welcome to Great Question: A Manufacturing Podcast. I'm IndustryWeek Senior Staff Writer Anna Smith. Today we're joined by Scott Gromer, CEO of Mesa Power Solutions, to discuss how veteran hiring addresses the skilled trade shortages in manufacturing, and how Mesa has successfully recruited and retained veteran employees. Scott, thank you so much for joining us today.

Scott Gromer: Yeah, thank you and I appreciate the time.

AS: So to get started, why do you think veterans are well-suited for careers in manufacturing and the skilled trades? What skills and experiences do veterans gain through military service that translate well to manufacturing and industrial environments?

SG: Yeah, so I think first it's important to talk about what we look for at Mesa and who we're hiring, especially on the technical skills side, we're really hiring for character, not as much experience. We have our own training department, very robust training program. And so we can train someone on how to become a technician and turn them into the right technician. But it's hard to train character. It's hard to teach character. So, we hire for the right character. 

And I think how do veterans fit into that and how do veterans fit in with our organization really comes down to just impeccable character, experience, going through leadership training, the first thing you can do before you lead is knowing how to follow. And anyone that's been through basic training, I'm an army guy, so basic training, the other ones call it boot camp or something like that, but the army one's the one that matters. But anybody that goes through basic training, the first thing you learn how to do is how to follow. And so to become a good leader, you have to know how to follow because everybody has leaders, everybody has bosses. And I think the military does a great job of teaching people how to follow, teaching people how to take orders, teaching people how to think on their own, and then eventually turning them into some of the best leaders in the world. 

So it fits very well with the culture of the company that we've set, the culture of the people that we're looking to hire, and the fact that those people coming out of the military, whether they serve four years, six years, 20 years, 30 years and retire from the military, they've got a great foundation of how to follow, how to lead, how to think on their own. And that expands just beyond the soldier, Marine into that person's family members. So, you know, a spouse of a veteran, a child of a veteran, we think that we treat them, you know, very similar, if not the same as our veterans that we hire because they learn the same thing that their spouse is going through or their dad or mom is going through throughout the military and throughout their career.

AS: So how has Mesa made veteran recruitment a deliberate part of its workforce strategy? How did that initiative get started or has it always been part of the foundation?

SG: It's always been part of the foundation. It was not an accident, but I had retired from the military right before we had started up Mesa. And so I served with a lot of really smart people that I knew I wanted that were in the same boat as me coming up on retirement and that I knew that I wanted to recruit to come work at Mesa. So when we started the company, there was just a few of us and we were all veterans and there were people I served with. And then we reached out and started bringing in people that they had served with and then it just kind of snowballed from there. So, I wouldn't say it was our strategy. We want to be a veteran-type company. It's all we knew and it's what we knew. 

So, I think the strategy became more apparent as we grew the company and went from two employees to 20 to 100 to 500 to nearly 1,000 now. And how we've continued to recruit and retain vets I think is really through probably more word of mouth and veterans that work for the company now recruiting people that they served with in the military that are looking to exit the military either at the end of their commitment or upon retirement. 

We certainly don't hire veterans to get accolades or prizes, but we are very proud of the fact that in 2017 we were awarded the Department of Defense Freedom Award, which is given out to the top 15 employers throughout the country who employ, basically recruit and retain military veterans. That's something that we're very, very proud of. And it's a very prestigious award. Five years later in 2022, we were awarded the follow-up award to that for continuing on. So, what the Department of Defense saw is a lot of folks would work to get that award and then kind of fall off after that. But they actually gave us a special award five years later.

AS: Do you have a current percentage of veteran employees at the company?

SG: Yeah, we're about 20% of the company is veterans right now, which is still a very high percentage, but it's much lower than what it's been. And the reason is, is as we, you know, get the hundreds and 1,000 employees, it's hard to find more veterans because, you know, veterans make up, you know, 2, 3% of the populace. So, you're recruiting from a pretty small base. When we started the company, we were, you know, 100%, we went down, we were about 30% for probably four or five years. But as we've grown over the last two or three years, that percentage is right about 20% today.

AS: So, from what I understand, the company uses the Department of Defense's SkillBridge program as sort of a talent pipeline. Can you just tell me about that and how the company has taken advantage of it?

SG: Yeah, ironically enough, it was actually someone who I had served with in Iraq on one of my deployments, and he was retiring from the military. He reached out to me. He had worked in personnel a lot of his career, and we had an opening in human resources. And so we brought him on, and he actually introduced us to SkillBridge. He got it set up for us. But it's basically the Department of Defense, Department of War's program for service members that are exiting whether again, at the end of their obligation or upon retirement, where we post our positions, open positions that we have throughout the country onto a website, like LinkedIn almost for service members, where those service members can go look at it and say, you know, filter it by location, filter it by job type, filter by name of company, and then they can apply for a position and we get to interview them just like anybody else and we can offer them an internship position, which is basically at the end of their last six months of their obligation to the service. Then they come work for us on an internship while the Department of Defense continues to pay their wages. So, it's great for both of us. 

People would say, well, that's great. You get six months of a free employee. Well, that's true, but it's also great for the service member to integrate back into civilian life. And I think with us having one out of every five people being a veteran, it's one out of every five people within our company have walked in the same combat boots that that person has walked in. And a lot of folks that have recently separated, recently retired from the military or 10 years ago, but it helps them transition into civilian life so we can speak the same language and speak the military language, but then help them transition over into the civilian language. So it's great for us because we can help transition that person into the next stage of their career, but it's also great for the service member to see if Mesa is a company that they want to work for and if it's where they want to start their second career. 

I often tell new people that come to work at Mesa, this is the last company you're ever going to work for because we hire people for a career, not just for a job. And this is the last company you're ever going to work for. Certainly not the last job that you're going to have. You're going to move into other positions, get promoted, lateral moves, but we definitely hire and want people that are going to be here for the rest of their careers. And so it's a great tool for the service member to take several months integrating back into civilian life and having us help translate military into civilian life and then make sure that that person really likes the company and wants to stay with the company. And if we both say yes, then at the end of that six months they become a full-time employee. And it's fairly new for us. We've been doing it for about a year, but It's worked out wonderful for us, and I think worked out wonderful for the people that that we brought into the company through SkillBridge. And you know, very proud of the fact that we've had 100% retention rate with those folks. So 100% of the people that that have come through us through SkillBridge have worked for us for the six months and all of them are still employees today.

AS: Are there any challenges you would say veterans can face when they're transitioning from their military service into civilian employment and how has Mesa helped new veteran employees adjust to those challenges if there are any?

SG: It depends on the veteran, whether they've been out of the service for several years or it depends on where they're coming from, if they're coming off of active duty, if they're coming from the National Guard or Reserves. So it depends. Each person's got their own unique story. Each person has their own unique opportunities. Each person has their own unique challenges, whether there's family, no families. And so I think what helps folks working with us, whether they've been out of the military for a long time or they're just transitioning out of active duty into civilian life, I think it helps that a lot of us have definitely walked a mile in their shoes. 

And we know, you know, we've got folks that were career military, served 20 plus years, and we've got folks that served four years and did their initial commitment and then went into civilian life. And so it's pretty easy to to determine someone that that is leaving the service or was part of the service or as a veteran or a family member of a veteran just based off lingo. You know, it's pretty easy to see who they are and naturally they'll make friends with and align with folks that had similar experiences as they did. And I think that always helps because, we've all had new jobs and you walk in the first day and you don't know where the break room is, you don't know where the time clock is, you don't know where the light switches are. And so having that buddy, that battle buddy that you can quickly find and, has that secret handshake, it definitely helps integrate that person within our family quicker and I think makes that person a stronger member of our family very, very quickly so that that you know they know they're appreciated. They feel they feel appreciated and they appreciate the company that they work for.

AS: I wanted to ask also how Mesa has worked to retain and support veteran employees. Are there any advancement, leadership or mentorship programs that you offer?

SG: We do. Like I said, we have our own, our whole training staff that trains folks from entry-level positions into more senior-level positions. We run our own leadership training. We run special offsite kind leadership of leadership or leaders of leaders training. And so, you know, all of that I think, it was all founded and it was all, you know, embedded in some of the leadership programs that that many of us went through in the military, whether you were an enlisted person becoming a noncommissioned officer or moving from enlisted to becoming a commissioned officer or just entering straight into the military as a commissioned officer out of college. I think we've taken a lot of the similar approaches at different levels of leadership based on one, how long someone's been here, what their experiences are, and then where they're taking their first step or their 10th step into leadership. We've got several programs that can help hone those skills. 

And leadership is definitely a science and an art, but it certainly is a muscle and that muscle has to be exercised. And that muscle has to continue to learn and evolve. And if you ever think you're done learning, then that's the time to retire because we're learning every single day and we continue to exercise those muscles with everybody within the organization, no matter what level of leadership that they are within the organization. So much like the military, junior level leaders up to senior level leaders, we're all learning and we all need to continue to learn so that we can get better to do better for our company, for our customers, our suppliers, our families, our investors. All of that stuff drives what we do on a daily basis.

AS: And lastly, I just wanted to ask, what advice would you give manufacturers or other employers that want to establish a veteran hiring initiative or something like that, but they don't know where to start?

SG: I've talked to a lot of people about this, and it is hard because at any one time, less than 1% of the population is actively serving in the military right now. Maybe 3, 4% of the population is a veteran. So it's definitely hard to find them and it's hard to get that initial push to get some veterans on your staff. But once you get a few and you do the hard work and you go find them and you actively recruit that and you use tools like SkillBridge, you then can start to compound and add in people based on who those folks know. Like I said, when we started the company, we didn't have an initiative like we want to have a lot of veterans or this number percentage of veterans. We all knew each other and we snowballed from there. And still to this day, we'll get someone that comes out of the service or someone that's in the Guard or Reserve who has a civilian job and moves over to us. And then they recruit their fellow veterans, their buddies, their friends to come over. So, it's hard to get that first step. But once you're past that first step, then you'd be surprised at how fast it can snowball and grow from there.

About the Podcast
Great Question: A Manufacturing Podcast offers news and information for the people who make, store and move things and those who manage and maintain the facilities where that work gets done. Manufacturers from chemical producers to automakers to machine shops can listen for critical insights into the technologies, economic conditions and best practices that can influence how to best run facilities to reach operational excellence.

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