At American Veterans Group (AVG), we leverage our expertise as broker-dealers to help military service members and their families make the often-difficult transition to civilian life. 

We fulfill our social mission by providing direct financial support from our charitable foundation to veteran-focused nonprofits that provide job training and placement, career counseling and mental health services to veterans.  We direct our philanthropy to organizations that are important to our clients thus broadening the impact our clients have on the veterans in their communities. 

In honor of this coming Veterans Day we thought we would tell the transition stories of a few of the veterans who have benefited from AVG’s philanthropy.  We’ve aligned with our client, Bank of America, on their mission to support Hiring Our Heroes, a U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation.  The veterans we are profiling have all participated in the Hiring Our Heroes corporate fellowship program.  Here’s Major Robert Buck’s story. 

Transition Story of Major Robert Buck

U.S. Marine Corps Major Robert Buck, helicopter pilot and Naval Academy graduate knows all too well the challenges of transitioning from the military to the civilian workforce.  After a distinguished 24-year career including five combat tours, two to Iraq and three to Afghanistan, Robert decided to look at his post service options for employment more than a year before his retirement. Robert was serving his last tour of duty as the Air Operations Officer aboard the USS Iwo Jima LHD-7 which is based in Norfolk, Virginia.  A few months into the process of researching opportunities Robert was connected with an organization that offers coaching to senior level military personnel called Commit Foundation.  It was through his coach there that he learned about Hiring Our Heroes. 

After applying for and being awarded a corporate internship with Deloitte, Robert said the hardest part of the process was getting his command to agree to the extended time off to participate.   

“They're very hesitant to let people go because your position may be needed to actually work until the very end (of your duty),'' Robert says. “If something were to happen and we were called to war, I would need to go. But, with the ship in the shipyard I knew there wouldn’t be anything for me to do, which gave me a clear runway to do the corporate fellowship program.” 

Robert studied engineering at the academy and with his background in aviation, he thought he’d try something completely different. He started applying for a fellowship in the Fall of 2021 and was awarded the internship in May of 2022 on Deloitte's finance and enterprise performance team. 

“My goal for the fellowship was to practice doing everything,” adds Robert. “I wanted to practice getting my resume together, practice interviewing and obtain that practice in the civilian world.” 

Not only did Robert achieve his goals, he also was offered a job with the finance and enterprise performance team at the end of his internship in July 2022.  However, through the process, Robert discovered that he really wanted to do something more aviation centric. 

“Deloitte has been very supportive, and during my internship I had been doing a lot of networking on the government and public services side of the business,” shared Robert. 

Robert’s networking paid off and just before his internship wrapped up, he received an offer from the government services side of Deloitte and will be working with the Navy again doing modeling for aircraft maintenance upon the completion of his service with the Marine Corps. 

There is undoubtedly a lot of uncertainty in transitioning from military service to the civilian workforce, but Robert credits his positive transition experience a lot in part to HOH. 

“Some of my peers have been going through a really tough time and I credit (my success) to Hiring Our Heroes and the corporate fellowship program,” Robert says. “I didn't realize how good of an opportunity it was and just how well designed it was in terms of matching veterans with prospective employers and the added benefit of a sort of try before you buy on both sides. The contrast between trying to go and apply on job boards versus this sort of bespoke process meant to match employers with veterans is just incredible.”