The Next Chapter in a Life of Service: Veterans in Transit 

The Next Chapter in a Life of Service: Veterans in Transit 

Key Takeaways

  • This case study explores three examples of how transit agencies have developed intentional recruitment pipelines and career pathways for veterans, and the benefits these efforts have generated for each agency.
  • Veterans often bring to transit jobs a commitment to public service, the ability to work under sometimes stressful conditions, and highly relevant technical skills.
  • Each featured agency has taken a unique approach to recruiting veterans, but partnerships have been a key feature in all three locations.

For some members of the armed forces, a military career is lifelong. But for others, a second career comes after, and transit agencies have benefitted from recruiting veterans into varied positions. About 200,000 service members transition into civilian life each year and begin looking for the next meaningful step in their careers. While the overall unemployment rate among veterans is low, many feel underutilized in the jobs they find after leaving military service, with 67% of veteran respondents in the 2019 Military Families Lifestyle Survey reporting they did not have a job equal to their skills and qualifications in place when they left the military. In another survey conducted by Military.com, 62% of respondents felt that hiring managers and recruiters do not understand their skills and experience. 

Enter the transit industry, offering dynamic, challenging occupations that serve the community and experiencing an acute need for skilled workers. Transit occupations’ skill requirements often match closely the qualifications exiting servicemembers already have. This case study explores three examples of how transit agencies have developed intentional recruitment pipelines and career pathways for veterans, and the benefits these efforts have generated for each agency.

WMATA—Washington, D.C. 

Since 2012, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) has operated “Mission Metro,” a broad initiative to recruit military veterans for positions across the agency. The program began with focus groups of WMATA employees who were veterans. The goal was to better understand their experiences transitioning into civilian life and what they prioritized when searching for jobs. The results of those focus groups led to Mission Metro. In 2024 alone, WMATA hired approximately 100 veterans, bringing its total number of veteran employees to approximately 2,000, or 12% of its workforce. 

This initiative is led by Maurice Blue, Senior Sourcing Officer, who is himself a veteran with a background in Army recruiting. Blue’s personal career story has helped him build rapport with prospective veteran jobseekers. “What’s unique about veterans is the intangibles. Commitment to duty, attention to detail, camaraderie and team spirit, and the ability to work under stressful conditions and follow directions with little oversight are all commonplace characteristics in veterans,” he said. 

Mission Metro includes a number of efforts. Blue visits military bases and installations; partners with state veteran employment representatives in the D.C., Maryland, and Virginia region; and presents at information sessions and events for veterans. He also uses the RecruitMilitary platform to send welcome letters to potential job candidates and access job fairs. Military occupational skills have been embedded into some WMATA job descriptions to help jobseekers understand how to align their military competencies with the requirements of postings. Sometimes certain requirements can be waived if the veteran has similar military credentials (for example, the Automotive Service Excellence [ASE] test for mechanics). This flexibility has been a major asset to WMATA’s recruitment efforts.

WMATA has won numerous awards for its military recruitment efforts, including being named the first quasi-government entity to earn both Military-Friendly Employer and Military Spouse Friendly designations from Victory Media. “WMATA has found real value in recruiting military veterans, which is why it has dedicated resources in actively pursuing them for open positions. Time and again, they are seeing a smart return on their investment,” Blue said.

Check out Mission Metro’s sample veteran career stories

CapMetro—Austin, TX

Stressed by a pandemic-era workforce shortage, like so many transit agencies, CapMetro set out to expand its recruitment activities, and a piece of this renewed effort involved targeted recruitment of veterans. Program Manager for Workforce Development Adam Rosenfield started making in-person journeys to varied veteran-serving organizations to talk about transit jobs and how CapMetro could collaborate as an employer partner. These partners now include, among others: 

These new partners have yielded new streams of candidates with relevant skill sets. “I don’t know of any role in the military that doesn’t require moving people,” said Olivia Jones, CapMetro’s Director of Operations Control Center, who herself is an army veteran and a military spouse. “It’s a pretty clear handoff.” As of March 2025, 10.3% of CapMetro’s frontline workforce and 12.2% of its corporate staff were veterans. 

Slide from CapMetro presentation on hiring veterans at Making Connections 2024 conference 
Slide from CapMetro presentation on hiring veterans at Making Connections 2024 conference 

Why veterans? Transit is a public service, and CapMetro has found that veteran job candidates bring a sense of discipline and purpose that matches transit’s culture. According to Rosenfield’s presentation at TWC’s Making Connections 2024 conference, veterans are also accustomed to a 24/7 environment, alert to security issues in their surroundings, are comfortable with transit’s structure and schedules, and often have a good understanding of varied federal regulations. According to Rosenfield, “veterans are a natural fit for public transit careers.” 

Los Angeles Metro

LA Metro’s leadership feels it is important to make a concerted effort to reach out to returning servicemembers. LA Metro has twice met the required thresholds for the Department of Labor’s Hire Vets Medallion Program. The agency has found its veteran employees to be punctual, positive, and leadership-oriented. 

Like CapMetro and WMATA, LA Metro works with a wide range of partners to recruit veterans, including the LA Veterans Advisory Commission, the Los Angeles Veterans Collaborative, local VA offices, national guard units, and other faith-based and community-based organizations that are veteran-focused. An annual, agency-wide celebration event honors former servicemembers working at LA Metro, of which there were 540 as of March 2025. 

A challenge to hiring veterans has been that veterans’ resumés are sometimes written in “military speak;” for a civilian layperson examining job applications, it can be difficult to immediately interpret the candidate’s skills and level of expertise. To address this challenge, LA Metro hosts on their website a link to Military.com’s Military Skills Translator, which enables veterans to match their existing professional background to civilian job opportunities. LA Metro has also conducted resumé and interview preparation classes for prospective applicants, to enhance understanding of how applicant tracking systems work, how resumés should be formatted, and how to explain existing skills in the context of transit job descriptions. Applicants, including veterans, also have the opportunity to do a two-week job readiness training at Los Angeles Trade Technical College. Though the training period is not paid, graduates have a guaranteed job offer with LA Metro upon completion. 

There remains room to do more, LA Metro recruitment staff noted. “Much of the work of building out transit infrastructure is currently happening in the private sector through construction contracts,” said Miguel Cabral, Senior Executive Officer for Talent Development. “This is why Metro incentivizes the private sector to hire veterans through contract language that amplifies the efforts of the transit agency itself,” a step he encouraged other agencies to consider. 

For more information, contact: 

Related Transit Industry Resources

Troops to Transit: A Resource for Recruiting and Developing Veterans for Public Transportation Careers 

South West Transit Association Veteran Resources 

Why Vets Should Be a Key Part of Your Workforce 

Funding Sources to Support Veterans in Transit 

  • Veterans eligible for G.I. Bill Benefits can receive a tax-free housing stipend that offsets costs for veterans while they’re starting an apprenticeship or other on-the-job training program. Transit agencies just need to have their programs approved by their state Veterans Affairs office. These certifications are helpful to advertise as part of recruitment campaigns. 
  • The Department of Defense’s Skillbridge program funds the first six months of a veteran’s employment as a trial period for both employer and employee. The VA’s Special Employer Incentive Program also subsidizes employment of veterans for up to six months. 
  • There are also many local pathways to free or discounted CDL training for veterans. 

Contributing Author: Shayna Gleason