Labor Secretary Discusses Workforce Development With Reston Firm

RESTON, VA — With just three weeks on the job, Labor Secretary Marty Walsh visited Reston Friday morning to talk about President Biden's jobs plan and how it could help recent veterans and others transition back into the workforce.

Walsh met with representatives of Vantage Point Consulting, a small business that specializes in helping people plan for their careers.

"This is a veteran-owned business and we have a vets office inside the D.O.L, trying to do more with the American Jobs Plan in some of the apprenticeship programs and workforce development plans," Walsh said.

Friday's discussion focused on ways to create workforce opportunities, not just for veterans but for others seeking to advance their careers or those reentering the job force in the aftermath of the pandemic.

"We have to get it right," Walsh said. "We have to make sure that when we're training workers, when we're training veterans returning from service and returning to civilian life that we're making an investment. It's an investment in their life and we have to make sure that the investment is not just an investment in training. It's an investment in getting a career and moving forward. That's loaded throughout the jobs plan."

Walsh added that it was important to visit companies like Vantage Point that are helping veterans transition back into civilian life after service.

"Most of our veterans today have seen active duty," he said. "So they have challenges that they have to overcome."

Vantage Point's mission is to focus on career readiness, not just for veterans but also K-12 students and adult learners.

"We're using data, design, application development, bringing those things together to give information to people about what are the career options available and what do I need to get ready for careers, and then help them make smart decisions about those investments," Vantage Point's Executive Vice President Jeff Carpenter said.

Vantage Point works with the American Council on Education on a product to help people receive credit for their prior learning experience, so they don't have to spend as much college. The company is also developing a tool with a Department of Education grant to help K-12 students with skill building.

"It helps people look at career pathways based on some self-assessments and skills they gain — even from babysitting or after school jobs — and shows them what skills they still need. It helps show skill-building activities, even as an eighth-grader, that they can do," Carpenter said.

Cristina Carpenter, Vantage Point's president and Jeff's wife, started the company in 2006. She was a Navy reservist who'd just finished her mobilization for Enduring Freedom. Vantage Point's first contract was a mentoring program for service members trying to get their college degree.

In the beginning, Vantage Point was a consulting firm and a subcontractor, but in the last four years it's grown to be a full-service company, doing its own design, big data analytics, software application development, and project management.

"All those key things you need to operate," Jeff Carpenter said. "But we put all of that in the space of career readiness, workforce development, and education."

As to how the Secretary of Labor ended up in their offices on Friday, Jeff Carpenter said the company had applied to the Department of Labor a year ago to receive recognition for hiring and valuing veterans in their workforce. Out of that, Vantage Point was named one of the recipients of the "Vets Get Hired" medallion.

"It was neat for us, because we're not just a group that hires veterans, we're very much aligned with the whole mission of the Department of Labor in advancing career readiness for workers," he said.

Vantage Point's award recognition got the attention of Walsh's team, who decided to schedule Friday's visit.

"For our employees, we don't get this kind of spotlight on the work that we do every day," Jeff Carpenter said. "So the fact that he would take the time out of his schedule and come here and ask questions about what we're doing everyday is hugely motivational, particularly given the work we do."

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