Published date: June 20, 2025
Help Us Explore a New Veterans Committee at APWA Washington
The APWA Washington Chapter is exploring the formation of a Veterans Committee — and we’d like to hear from you.
👉 If you are a veteran and would like to help shape this effort, please contact Dale Clark at
📧 dale.clark@turntown.com
We welcome your ideas and participation as we explore this exciting opportunity.
The proposed committee would connect veterans across the public and private sectors and provide valuable outreach and resources, including:
- Sharing public works career opportunities with transitioning active duty service members
- Promoting the benefits of hiring veterans to employers and agencies
- Connecting veterans in A/E/C industry and agency leadership roles to APWA
- Serving as a liaison to the Society of American Military Engineers (SAME)
- Supporting veteran-owned businesses and fellow veterans in APWA
Veterans have unique experiences and insights. This committee would create space for shared support, peer-to-peer connection, and service to the broader APWA community.
Why We Think Forming a Veterans Committee will be Valuable
The purpose of the Committee is to provide specific benefits to APWA, public and private sector owners, and to the individual members of the Veterans Committee. The intended benefits and principle aim of the Committee:
- Provide outreach to active-duty personnel about opportunities in public works: Committee members will provide information about employment opportunities in public works to local active-duty members of the armed services that are transitioning to civilian life. This information will be provided at outreach events hosted by Department of Defense sponsored organizations. Veteran to veteran outreach is an effective way to provide employment information to active duty personnel. It is also an effective way to serve public and private owners by attracting highly trained candidates for employment at a time when many public and private sector employees are approaching retirement.
- Provide information to the Washington APWA Chapter about the benefits of hiring veterans: Hiring veterans is another way for employers to further diversify their workforces and to gain skilled and highly trained employees. The Committee can provide information to public owners about the benefits of hiring veterans and the free employment transition services available through Hiring Our Heroes SkillBridge Fellowships, the United Services Organization Transition Program, and other organizations. These and other services provide benefits to both career transitioning veterans and to employers.
- Outreach to veterans employed in public works: Peer-to-peer outreach to veterans working for public owners about the benefits of participating in APWA. Examples of veterans serving in public works includes the Director of Engineering at the Port of Seattle, an Acting Program Executive at Sound Transit, the Assistant Vice President of Capital and Operations at Washington State University, and the Director of Capital Projects at King County. Outreach to these senior level staff members could result in their organizations becoming more involved in APWA.
- Serve as a liaison to the Society of American Military Engineers (SAME): Committee members can also be liaisons to Society of American Military Engineers (SAME) Posts in Seattle, Tacoma, and Spokane, and the Portland Post that serves southwest Washington. There are overlapping priorities and interests between APWA and SAME to include public works, emergency management, and technical skills training. For example, each January the SAME Seattle and Tacoma Posts host Meet-the-Agencies, a well-attended forum for public owners to inform the A/E/C community about upcoming projects. This forum could be an outreach opportunity for APWA. Committee members can also introduce APWA to the uniformed service members of SAME, many of whom are approaching career transitions.
- Peer-to-peer outreach to veteran owned businesses in public works: Members of the Veterans Committee can conduct peer-to-peer outreach to veteran owned businesses about the benefits of participating in APWA.
- Serve as a resource for APWA members who are veterans: Members of the committee can conduct peer-to-peer outreach to veteran owned businesses about the benefits of participating in APWA. They can also serve as a resource for APWA members who are veterans. Less than one-half of one percent of the U.S. population is currently serving in the armed forces. Veterans have unique life experiences that are often best understood by other veterans. Veterans can help one another with the transition to civilian life and help each other to know about, and understand, the ever changing availability and access to veteran’s benefits.
- Service to APWA: Finally, working together, the members of this committee will consider additional ways to benefit APWA and one another.