In the military, service members put service above self, which can result in veterans having a hard time learning to make themselves stand out from other job applicants when transitioning to the private sector. It's a challenge Derek Blumke, who has transitioned from airman to student to executive and back again, knows well.
Now Blumke is using the leadership skills he learned in the Air Force as the vice president of veterans and military programs at The Fullbridge Program. The first program they will offer is the Fullbridge Concordia Graduate Certificate, which provides service members and veterans with training to help ease the military-to-corporation transition.
As a student veteran, Blumke co-founded Student Veterans of America, a national nonprofit that now boasts more than 1,000 chapters across the country. Blumke brings that entrepreneurial spirit to his new job. His firsthand experience enables him to guide fellow veterans into the private sector through the organization's career acceleration programs designed in partnership with Harvard Business School.
"Fullbridge has built an absolutely transformative program, and I'm excited to have the opportunity to expand its reach to transitioning service members and veterans who need it the most," Blumke said.
With a rigorous and team-oriented schedule, the Fullbridge Concordia Graduate Certificate is structured much like military training. Participants will receive training in project management, strategic marketing and financial analysis, among other critical areas. Job seekers need these key skills, which are either missing or difficult to translate directly from military experience, to be successful in the corporate world.
Blumke recently went through the program himself.
"As a student, the program taught me more about the basic fundamentals of accounting, finance and running a business than I ever got from my several years of experience in the workforce," Blumke said. "I'm excited to make this program available for other vets, as I know they too, will gain the same practical benefits from the program that I did."
The team of Fullbridge coaches has experience in core business skills, startups and global business, and they guide and mentor veterans with personalized feedback. In the classroom, they serve as practice bosses, creating a collaborative environment that allows veterans to enhance their business skills while leveraging their military experience.
"The coaches are invaluable. Their background, their expertise, the fact that they, too, were in the military and have served, provided great insight on how to communicate with us and direct our learning to a point where we fully understood it and could apply it to the real world," said Jeffrey Park, a Fullbridge Program graduate.
The Fullbridge Concordia Graduate Certificate program is a full-time, lecture-free, hands-on, immersive boot camp combining collaborative learning with challenging business exercises and dynamic e-learning modules. Eligible veterans and family members may use GI Bill benefits to fund tuition and housing while earning 15 graduate school credits and a graduate certificate.
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