Sentinels of Freedom Proudly Hires The First Sentinel They Helped

Sentinels of Freedom launches its new Career Development Internship Program and hires a Graduated Sentinel Jake Brown to fill the first position as a Systems Project Manager.

Sentinels of Freedom is headquartered in the Bishop Ranch Business Park of San Ramon California and is a nationally recognized veterans support organization.

Today Sentinels of Freedom proudly announces it has hired the very first Sentinel, a veteran it helped in 2002.

US Army Jake Brown, 22, was undergoing combat training in Graffenwoer, Germany in February 2002 when the Humvee he was driving collided head-on with a 75-ton tank. The crash left him in a coma for almost two weeks. His body was mangled, his wrist and leg were shattered, and he had a crushed spleen.

When Jake returned home, he became the first veteran that Sentinels of Freedom assisted with its program. He became the model for the support the Sentinel Program would offer going forward. Now, after nearly two decades, Sentinels of Freedom has assisted over 650 severely wounded and injured veterans nationwide.

The Sentinels of Freedom Program, started by Mike Conklin of San Ramon California, was initially focused on helping only those veterans from the Tri-Valley towns of Danville and San Ramon who had been wounded or injured while serving in the U.S. military and returning home medically retired (meaning unable to continue serving in the military due to their medical condition). In subsequent years that scope was broadened. In 2007 Sentinels of Freedom took its program to a national footing. Today, it continues to provide scholarships to severely wounded and injured Post-9/11 veterans of all military branches, and it continues to evolve.

The Sentinels of Freedom’s new 2-Year Career Development Internship Program was conceived in response to the many corporations and companies that support Sentinels of Freedom’s mission asking how they can hire more veterans to fill open positions in their organizations. After many conversations with corporate leaders across the nation, we decided we would develop a new program at Sentinels of Freedom that could accelerate the onboarding of new veteran hires. “This is a process that can be used by any company to attract and retain veteran employees. It only seemed reasonable that we pilot the process within our team” Conklin said.

By verified DOD reports 200,000 veterans will end their enlistments or retire from military service in 2020. Some 16,000 of these veterans will have been medically retired and will now be looking to reenter civilian life with various levels of impairment. They all need support to acquire higher education, job training, and opportunity for gainful employment and careers needed to transition to the civilian world in this “Coronavirus Economy”.

All these Post-9/11 veterans represent a huge opportunity for corporations to gain from the military experience and mature work ethic these individuals possess.

Sentinels of Freedom 2-Year Career Development Internship Program (OJT)

• A company provides a Post-9/11 veteran college graduate or certificate program graduate an employment opportunity to join their organization as a 2-year paid intern on a contract basis.
• The company designs the internship to allow the veteran the flexibility to move within their varied business functions and units to become fully vested and knowledgeable of its corporate culture and operations.
• At the end of the 2-year internship corporate leadership and HR discuss future opportunities with the veteran regarding best fit and opportunities leading to possible permanent hire status.
• In simple terms this is a Test Drive for both parties leading to a possible opportunity win-win for both. It also takes an equal investment from both parties.

Jake Brown is our model for the 2-Year Sentinels of Freedom Career Development Internship Program. Since returning after his military service he’s graduated college with a business degree and a Master’s Business Degree from St Mary’s College in Moraga California. He’s worked at UPS, SAP, and Tesla in various positions. By coming to work at Sentinels of Freedom as a Systems Project Manager he can deploy his education and prior military/business experience in a variety of assignments and be in a position to make leadership decisions. Something that might normally take many years in a corporation to attain.

In two years, we will sit down with Jake and analyze the best fit for him going forward at Sentinels of Freedom or recommend him to other great companies within our corporate network.

This is the basic methodology for the 2-Year Sentinels of Freedom Career Development Internship Program opportunity that we are promoting to corporations to work directly with us in developing in their corporate veteran hiring efforts.

If your corporation or company would like to explore the 2-Year Sentinels of Freedom Career Development Internship Program, please contact Mike Conklin at 925-380-6342 or mconklin@sentinelsoffreedom.org for a personal presentation.

Thank you, Mike Conklin,

Chairman and CEO of Sentinels of Freedom

To help support severely wounded post-9/11 veterans, like Jake Brown, complete their higher education go to www.SentinelsOfFreedom.org/donate.