The Foreign Service Journal, October 2015

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | OCTOBER 2015 37 EXECUTIVE ORDER 13518: Veterans Employment Initiative FOCUS ON CIV-MIL RELATIONS B y the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including section 301 of title 3 of the United States Code, I hereby order as follows: Section 1. Policy. Veterans have served and sacrificed in defense of our Nation. When they complete their service, we must do everything in our power to assist them in re-entering civilian life and finding employment. … Section 2. Council on Veterans Employment. There is hereby established an interagency Council on Veterans Employment (Council), to be co-chaired by the Secretaries of Labor and Veterans Affairs. The director of the Office of Personnel Manage- ment shall serve as vice chair of the Council. (a) Mission and Function of the Council. The Council shall: (i) advise and assist the president and the director of OPM in establishing a coordinated governmentwide effort to increase the number of veterans employed by the federal government by enhancing recruitment and training; (ii) serve as a national forum for promoting veterans’ employment opportunities in the executive branch; and (iii) establish performance measures to assess the effec- tiveness of, and submit an annual report to the president on the status of, the Veterans Employment Initiative described in Section 3 of this order. (b) Membership of the Council. The Council shall consist of the heads of the following agencies and such other executive branch agencies as the President may designate: (i) the Department of State (ii) the Department of the Treasury (iii) the Department of Defense (iv) the Department of Justice (v) the Department of the Interior (vi) the Department of Agriculture (vii) the Department of Commerce (viii) the Department of Labor (ix) the Department of Health and Human Services (x) the Department of Housing and Urban Development (xi) the Department of Transportation (xii) the Department of Energy (xiii) the Department of Education (xiv) the Department of Veterans Affairs (xv) the Department of Homeland Security (xvi) the Environmental Protection Agency (xvii) the National Aeronautics and Space Administration On November 9, 2009, President Barack Obama signed Executive Order 13518 establishing the “Veterans Employment Initiative”t o boost employment of military veterans, especially from Iraq and Afghanistan, in the federal government. From 2009 through 2013, based on the most current data from the Office of Personnel Management, there was a 7 percent increase in the number of veterans hired by the federal government, and veterans’ participation in the federal workforce jumped from about 26 percent to more than 30 percent. Four of the five foreign affairs agencies (State, USAID, Commerce and Agriculture) are parties to the initiative, but in at least one case—the State Department—the Foreign Service is excluded from OPM’s data. Here are excerpts from the executive order, which can be viewed in its entirety at http://1.usa.gov/1UhXGTu.