I joined the Navy in March of 1994 and served 24 years, retiring at the end of March 2018. As a Quartermaster, my job was to help navigate the ship from point A to point B.

My last job was a desk assignment at SPAWAR in San Diego, where I also served as a collateral duty command career counselor, which helped make my own transition easier since I spent my last three years studying the process and talking to TAPS and the American Legion. When I was done in San Diego, it wasn't cost-effective for a family of four to live there on retirement pay, so we decided to move to South Florida, where my wife's parents live. I went ahead first with the kids still in high school and job hunted from Florida.

Between April and August, I applied for 168 jobs, went to 12 job fairs, and even submitted my resume to a couple of politicians. I got three interviews out of 168 — one with an insurance company, one with WastePro as a dispatcher, and the last with CareerSource Broward for their Jobs for Veterans State Grant program. I sat down with my veteran rep there, whose job title was the same as one I had applied for a week earlier, and the program manager — herself a naval officer — came over and we all chit-chatted and shared stories. She thought I'd be a perfect fit, but I still went through the whole interview process, and ended up working there for the last couple of years as an employment specialist.