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5th Annual Veterans Job Fair

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Employment opportunities for everyone.

The Rio West Mall was once again host to the 5th Annual Veterans Job Fair June 21, in hopes of finding employment not only for local veterans, but as well to the public. The event was held from 10 am to 3 pm with over 26 employers on hand with local businesses showing their support for veterans.

Veterans Helping Veterans, organized the event along with help from, the Rio West Mall, Small Business Development Center, Millennium Media, Inc., Safeway, Comfort Suites, Walmart, Basha’s, Gurley Motor, Albertson, Rico Auto Complex, and many others.

Brothers in Arms dba Veterans Helping Veterans, a non-profit organization, began as a group of veterans who wanted to give back to the veteran community. David Cuellar of Veterans Helping Veterans, was quite pleased with the turn-out this year in hopes of helping veterans find jobs and to non-veterans.

“I think it’s a good turn-out, a lot of veterans here and employers too. We’re getting a steady stream of veterans and non-veterans looking for jobs,” Cuellar said. “It’s good to see all these employers come out and show support for our veterans.”

Lending a hand in this smooth operating job fair in Director Cynthia Jarvison. She helped in gathering employers from around the Gallup area and outside the area as well. She says the overall response of employers wanting to show their support for the veterans has been overwhelming.

“The Gallup SBDC was responsible for taking all the registrations for the employers who are set up here today,” she said. “The response has been very well from the employers here and hopefully we will do that with the job seekers too.”

Part of the Veterans Helping Veterans organization, Stephen Tobey, an Army vet himself got the idea while in Albuquerque, visiting a similar job fair. He said that he thought it would be nice to offer this in the Gallup area, not only for job opportunities, but to show support to veterans.

“I was with, Dan Sanchez, formally of SBDC, and we both loved the idea of bringing it here to Gallup,” Tobey said, “The response for the job fair seems to be really good, we have a lot of good employers here.”

Employers from Hilton Garden Inn were ready to talk to potential applicants. Hilton Food & Beverage Manager Addie Montoya said the fair makes her job easy in finding applicants to enter the hospitality business. She hopes to hire as well as letting the public know about the fairly new hotel.

“Well I’m hoping to spread awareness of our hotel, maybe get some more people coming in,” she said. “I’m looking to hire right now for bartenders, banquet food staff. Our banquet staff we utilize all year long, so we sometimes have banquets up to over 180 people, so it’s good to have a banquet staff. So far we passed out a lot of applications and hopefully we get some good applicants.”

Kiva Munn, a corporate recruiter for Laguna Development Corp., said it’s always a pleasure to come out and support events like this. She hopes to hire more job seekers for Route 66 Casino and Dancing Eagle Casino.

“We had three hires last year so we’re back again, hoping to double that number this year at least,” Munn said. “We also love to support the veterans as well.”

United States Army Staff Sergent Brendan R. Lee says this fair gives him the opportunity to recruit applicants with the same mind-set of the veterans.

“I’m responsible for recruiting in the Gallup area, so if folks are looking to join the Army I’m the guy to talk to,” Lee said. “I already have a couple of applicants. Primary things to consider if joining ... you have to be physically fit of course, medically fit, also morally fit, and basically, you can’t have a lot of law violations. We offer over 150 jobs depending on your scores from tests to find out what you’re qualified for … so come check us out.”

For more information on Veterans Helping Veterans contact David Cuellar (505) 879-3333.

By Dee Velasco
For the Sun