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Crossroads of the Marine Corps

Reservists charged with ‘keeping the faith’ hold annual training at Quantico

21 Aug 2013 | Mike DiCicco Marine Corps Base Quantico

For two weeks, the reservists of the Marine for Life program from across the country convened at Marine Corps Base Quantico to train, update their medical records and fitness tests, and figure out how to best support Marines who are separating from the service.

Walt Lavrinovich, who manages Marine for Life as head of community outreach for the Personal Professional Development Branch under Manpower and Reserve Affairs, said the reservists’ annual training focuses on different job skills each year, and social media is this year’s big push. After all, developing networks is the heart of what they do.

As individual mobilization augmentees, Marine for Life field representatives work 16 hours a month on building connections in their communities, which they use primarily to help Marines continue their transition process and in turn make the connections they desire in employment, education, and entrepreneur interests. In a struggling economy, it’s a job that’s become both more essential and more challenging.

There were 45 field representatives on hand for the training, which ran from Aug. 12 to 24, 2013. It’s a number that Lavrinovich said is unusually low, due to difficulty in finding Marines willing and able to do the work living in the right locations. Normally, Marine for Life includes about 70 reservists.

He said Marine for Life has carried out its reserve training at Quantico since 2009 because the base has all the resources necessary for them to complete their military training and take care of business like health assessments, identification card updates and promotion photos.

“We can access everything easily,” he said. “They can head out from here and go to medical, and it’s much easier than anywhere else.”

The training follows a diverse schedule, including activities like training on the Indoor Simulated Marksmanship Trainer at Camp Upshur to touring the National Museum of the Marine Corps, and from learning about information technology to receiving sales training.

“A lot of what they are going to do is develop local networks of support – such as employers who recognize the value of hiring a Marine,” Lavrinovich explained.

These days, that’s not the most challenging part of the job, said Maj. Joe Punaro, who has been a Washington, D.C.-area field representative for three and a half years. “Everyone wants to hire veterans. It’s the ‘in’ thing,” he said, “but the company’s got to have jobs.”

With the federal government continuing to cut its budgets, particularly in the Department of Defense, he said job openings are now scarce at defense contracting companies that once might have been the first places he would have looked for work for a veteran.

“Large defense contractors are shedding jobs by the thousands,” Punaro said, adding that hiring freezes within the federal government further constrict the job market. “This region is so heavily reliant on the government,” he said. “It’s definitely challenging.”

Gunnery Sgt. Raquel Carlock, another local field representative, said she usually encounters veterans after they’ve been out of the service for a while, as she does most of her work at job fairs, which she noted are plentiful in the area.

“The biggest thing the last few months, as far as job openings, was the information technology field,” she said, adding that the finance sector also provides opportunities, and the technician field has been opening up recently, while security has always been a staple of Marines’ job searches.

Lavrinovich said one challenge Marine for Life is now trying to overcome is that it’s difficult to measure how many people are using its networks and how effective they are.

At a classroom session in Breckinridge Hall on Aug. 21, Col. Lee Ackiss, deputy director of Personal and Professional Development, drove home the point that coming up with these metrics is something the Marines of Marine for Life will need to do to support their fellow Marines in transition, Keep Faith, and make a difference through their billets.

“The kicker for us right now is, in a constrained environment, you’ve got to be able to prove your worth,” he told the reservists.


Marine Corps Base Quantico