In their tenure with the LAVC, Lisa Anderson and Maggie Cutler have developed innovative new solutions to increase access to career assistance services for veterans in Los Angeles County.

California is home to the nation’s largest veteran population. Each year, as service members transition out of the military, approximately 12,000 veterans settle in Los Angeles County, joining the rich and diverse veteran population that currently resides here.

Transitioning from active duty to civilian life in Los Angeles can come with challenges as veterans seek new career options. Though there are a number of Los Angeles-based organizations that provide career training and services, veterans may feel overwhelmed or unsure of which service providers will best meet their needs. To centralize services and increase  access to resources for veterans, the Los Angeles Veterans Collaborative (LAVC) was formed.

The Role of LAVC and the Career Advancement Working Group

The LAVC is made up of a group of organizations, in sectors ranging from government and labor to business and nonprofits, that come together to develop new ways to meaningfully serve veterans in Los Angeles County and increase access to critical resources to aid in the process of transitioning out of the military.

Since 2012, the USC Center for Innovation and Research on Veterans & Military Families (CIR), part of the Military and Veterans Programs at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work, has overseen and directed the social services agencies that participate in the collaborative. Together, they work to remove barriers to the financial, social, legal and career resources that can improve the quality of life of military veterans.

As co-chairs of the LAVC’s Career Advancement Working Group, Lisa Anderson and Maggie Cutler have volunteered their time and efforts to the development of strategies and technological resources that can help veterans build meaningful career paths and achieve financial security. As both Anderson and Cutler prepare to pass on their leadership duties, they reflect on their time with the LAVC.

Meet Lisa Anderson

Lisa Anderson has served as the director of community integration services for the southern California division of the Salvation Army since 2010. With a master’s degree in career and education counseling and a bachelor’s degree in business, Anderson spent much of her career in recruiting and human resources prior to joining the Salvation Army.

After attending the inaugural LAVC meeting at USC, she’s found a great deal of personal satisfaction in remaining actively involved in the organization. “As I began to see just how much a good career can not only provide financial security for veterans, but can also offer them a true sense of purpose, I became more dedicated to serving veterans through career assistance,” Anderson said.

Soon enough, Anderson was appointed co-chair of the Career Advancement Working Group. She has been a part of this group since its inception, helping to develop its mission statement and vision. The group’s collective brainstorming led to the creation of the USC Veterans Survey, now one of the state’s most comprehensive veterans’ data collection tools.

“It’s certainly been challenging—executing projects that involve a large number of people who are all participating on a volunteer basis can take a long time,” she said. “But it’s also been incredibly exciting to see so many organizations come together and set aside their need to compete in order to better serve our veterans.”

In her tenure as co-chair, Anderson has played an instrumental role in developing a new digital platform that will serve as both a collaboration tool for members of the Career Advancement Working Group and as a resource hub for veterans seeking career services in Los Angeles.

“Ultimately, we want to make it easier for veterans to navigate the many career services options in the area and connect with real people who can guide them through the transition process all the way through to completion,” Anderson said. The pilot program currently includes six of the county’s premier veteran career services providers and has received funding from a number of investors, including the Nonprofit Sustainability Initiative (NSI).

Meet Maggie Cutler

Maggie Cutler is an employee relations and talent specialist at the U.S. Vets Career Network, a branch of the U.S. Vets nonprofit organization. As an MSW student at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School for Social Work, she interned with CIR, where she managed a pilot program called Text2Vet, a transition-assistance service in which military veterans interact directly with veteran peer navigators who connect them with education, employment, legal, medical and housing resources.

“It was through CIR that I began managing logistics at LAVC meetings,” Cutler said. After graduating with her MSW and securing her current position, Cutler was recommended for the co-chair role with the Career Advancement Working Group.

“It was a natural fit,” she said. “I grew up around military culture—my parents were both Army officers and today, many of my friends are veterans. I feel very connected to veterans for these reasons.”

Cutler is proud of the work she has done in organizing LAVC meetings and leading the group to launch several new initiatives. She cited some of the same challenges as Anderson: “It can be difficult to create unity and alignment around goals in a purely volunteer-based group, since there is no guarantee that the same members will attend or that participants will always follow through.”

By creating a unique agenda structured around one central question for every LAVC meeting, Cutler saw the development of more viable solutions. Most notably, she has planned a corporate engagement and training event with Marshall Thomas, a California State, Long Beach professor who specializes in culture training within universities and corporations. Like Thomas, Cutler believes that by deepening their understanding of military culture, corporations can boost their veteran employee retention rates and veterans can enjoy more fulfilling careers. The event is scheduled to take place early next year.