This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Help a vet?
Sign us up, agreed Jason and Tricia Crook, owners of a Logan welding and machinist shop, when they saw an icon on the Utah Department of Workforce Services' jobs page touting the Utah Patriot Partnership program.
The program does not provide any financial incentives to hire a vet. It simply calls upon employers who might be looking to expand payrolls to make it a priority to hire one as society's way of saying "thank you" for protecting the country.
"We're appealing to their altruistic sensibilities," department spokesman Curt Stewart said Monday after Gov. Gary Herbert signed a proclamation making June "Utah Patriot Partnership Month."
That's all it took to motivate the Crooks to be Utah's first company to join the partnership. For their alacrity, they were special guests at Herbert's proclamation-signing ceremony in the Gold Room at the state Capitol. They also received an American flag, folded into a triangle, enclosed within a wooden frame sporting a small plaque lauding their participation.
"We absolutely have to make sure when veterans come home that they have an opportunity for gainful employment," Herbert said.
Jason Crook believes in veterans because he is one.
The Idaho native originally was on active duty with the Navy. He later served in the Air Force Reserve, rising to the rank of master sergeant. He knows that, with a veteran, an employer is likely to get "somebody a little more down to earth, able to take orders."
Crook already has been able to advance the cause, hiring two veterans as he expands a business, Mountain West Machine and Welding, which he started after being among hundreds laid off in recent years by Alliant Techsystems.
Looking to add a machinist to the 15 names on Mountain West's payroll, Tricia Crook went to the Workforce Services website to post a job notice when the icon for the Utah Patriot Partnership caught her eye. She clicked it, started answering questions posed and, voila, the Crooks were the inaugural backers of the hiring campaign.
Helping out is important, and not just for the veterans, she noted. "We all know that sacrifices are shared by spouses."
Unemployment is not a particularly severe problem statistically for veterans of what is known as Gulf War Era II, largely the post-September 2001 military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In mid-March, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the 2010 average unemployment rate for veterans in that group was 11.5 percent, compared with 9.4 percent for nonveterans. For veterans as a whole, including people who served in World War II, Korea and Vietnam, the rate was 8.7 percent.
Among the largest demographic group of Gulf War Era II veterans, males ages 18 to 24, the unemployment rate was 21.9 percent in 2010; the rate for young male nonveterans was 19.7 percent.
To the Bureau of Labor Statistics, these numbers "were not statistically different."
Still, Herbert said Utahns should stand up and help veterans whenever possible.
"We are a very patriotic state," he said. "We can't say enough thanks to our veterans, people who come back with skills and capabilities."
Hiring vets
O Get information about the Utah Patriot Partnership.
> jobs.utah.gov