Photo By Stephen Baack | Joel Rodriguez, supervisory civil engineer and chief of the Contract Administration...... read more read more
ANAHEIM, Calif. — A team with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was on hand Nov. 1 and 2 at the Anaheim Convention Center reaching out to new talent during the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers National Convention.
The convention, which just celebrated 50 years, serves as the nation’s largest annual gathering of Hispanic students and professionals in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics – better known as STEM. The convention itself took place this year from Oct. 30 through Nov. 3, with the day-and-a-half career fair hosting hundreds of hiring companies and agencies.
Participation at the event was part of USACE’s continuing effort to attract and recruit a diverse pool of talent for its mission of “delivering vital engineering solutions, in collaboration with our partners, to secure our nation, energize our economy and reduce disaster risk.”
“I was extremely excited to be part of the team that represented the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers at the hiring event,” said Chris Rainwater, Los Angeles District chief of safety. “The opportunity to attract bright new minds and talent to the Corps ensures that we can fulfill our important mission and do our best for the American people. To do that, of course, we need great team members.”
The USACE hiring effort, led by its Talent Acquisition Center of Excellence and conducted in partnership with the Army Civilian Career Management Agency, brought together hiring managers with a diverse set of backgrounds.
“We need people who want to serve their nation and want to give back and have the talents to serve in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,” Rainwater said. “These hiring events give us a way to reach out to them, introduce our organization to them, ensure they know what it is we do and really, truly the nobility of our mission.”
Joel Rodriguez, supervisory civil engineer and chief of the Contract Administration Branch for the LA District’s Construction Division, said he encountered “a tremendous amount of interest” in USACE from event attendees, even if not everyone knows at first what USACE’s mission entails.
“It was interesting to see how many have yet to understand what our great organization does for our nation and the opportunities it has to offer,” Rodriguez said. “Once we started showing them all information that was provided at the career fair, like in the brochures and through the QR codes, they were very surprised at to hear that we had our fingerprint on a lot of our infrastructure, such as in the Civil Works Program, Veterans Affairs hospitals, military construction and that we are spread out all over the country and beyond. They were very intrigued to hear that.”
Stephen Wheeler, team leader for the USACE Talent Acquisition Center of Excellence, said participating hiring managers were able to make two offers at the event, with more applications they were still working through.
Whether the USACE representatives at these kinds of events are attracting new team members or spreading the story of USACE’s mission, Rainwater said interacting with the public in person and in real-time is where it starts.
“Getting out there and representing the organization at these hiring events is critical to mission success,” Rainwater said.
USACE offers professional, technical and even non-STEM assignments that include paid summer positions, student internships, entry-level and mid-career opportunities. Learn more at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4og_Xekazas.
For more information on current vacancies and to submit your resume, visit https://www.usace.army.mil/Careers/Career-Fairs/.
| Date Taken: | 11.01.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 11.22.2024 18:09 |
| Story ID: | 486006 |
| Location: | ANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA, US |
| Web Views: | 49 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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