When Nick Zeiler prepared to leave the U.S. Navy, he and his wife were raising four children, with a fifth on the way.

“Taking that next step into civilian life felt like a significant risk, not just for me, but for my entire family,” said Zeiler, a six-year Navy veteran.

It’s a risk about 200,000 service members take every year, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Many find that the work experience, discipline and leadership they built in uniform don’t translate neatly to a civilian resume. Research from Penn State’s Clearinghouse for Military Family Readiness found that 61% of post-9/11 veterans reported being underemployed three years after leaving the service, working jobs that didn’t fully use their skills, education or experience.

Haskell is part of an effort to close that gap. The company partners with veterans organizations to recruit transitioning service members, and today dozens of veterans work across its operations.

One of those partners is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation’s Hiring Our Heroes Corporate Fellowship Program, an approved Department of Defense SkillBridge program. Service members in their final 180 days of duty spend 12 weeks inside a private-sector company, gaining hands-on, role-specific experience alongside mentors while attending weekly professional development sessions on resume writing, interviewing and networking.

The model reflects what the research supports. The Penn State study found that veterans who used mentoring, interview coaching and career planning early in their transition were more likely to land full-time jobs at higher starting salaries than those that didn’t.

Zeiler came to Haskell through Hiring Our Heroes and joined the company as a network engineer in 2026. For him, having an offer in hand before separating eased some of the uncertainty but the company’s flexibility during his final steps out of the Navy mattered more. The early months on the job often felt like “drinking from a firehose of information,” he said, but mentorship and training turned that challenge into a chance to grow.

“The transition may feel intimidating, but so did joining the military,” Zeiler said. “With planning, hard work and guidance from people who have already walked the path, the risks become manageable and the opportunities can be life-changing.”

For Ryan Hollister, Haskell Operations President of trades & Supply, that path began more than two decades ago. Raised near Chicago, he had never seen the ocean when he enlisted in 2000, two days after his 18th birthday. Two deployments aboard the Mayport, Florida-based frigate USS Samuel B. Roberts followed, along with the lesson that has shaped his career since: Raise your hand.

Volunteering beyond his normal duties, including qualifying as a rescue swimmer and serving on a visit, board, search and seizure team, taught him that opportunities follow people willing to step forward.

After leaving the Navy in 2004, Hollister used the GI Bill and an Illinois Veterans Grant to earn a construction management degree, then returned to Jacksonville, his old homeport and where he met his wife. He joined Haskell in 2008.

“The transition was humbling,” he said. “I went from having significant responsibility in the Navy to starting over professionally.”

But he wasn’t starting from zero. The leadership and grit he developed in the Navy, he said, became the foundation for everything that followed.

He has advice to service members making the same move today:

“Don’t judge your opportunity by where you start,” Hollister said. “Your first civilian job may be entry level, but your future is defined by what you’re willing to do with the opportunities in front of you.”

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