The California Department of Veterans Affairs is recommending Stay Safe Solutions, Inc., and it’s President, Ken Shoemake, as the 2010 Veterans Employer of the Year Award for the category of private, small business for the following reasons:
1. Mr. Shoemake founded Success Skills Inc., the first Nonprofit Veteran Service Agency (NVSA) certified as a Small Business by the California Department of General Services. Success Skills is a national, not-for-profit corporation founded to create jobs and career paths for service-disabled veterans, and other veterans, including homeless veterans and those with criminal histories. Success Skills’ focus is on key lines of business currently creating significant employment opportunities under the Ability One program, a federal contract set-aside program under the Javits-Wagner-O’Day JWOD Act. Success Skills is headquartered in northern California but provides federal contract services on a national level. According to Mr. Shoemake, “the social mission of Success Skills, Inc. is accomplished when we are able to help a person with disability achieve independence, confidence and self-esteem through employment”. The total revenue for contracts under NISH in fiscal year 2008 was $1.1 billion with the vast majority of this revenue coming from Department of Defense (DoD) contracts. Total employment for these contracts exceeds 36,000 employees. DoD has a made a commitment to double the amount of business with Ability One within five years, creating significant opportunities for new lines of business to grow for NISH, and creating thousands of jobs for veterans. Mr. Shoemake feels that his nonprofit is uniquely positioned to help veterans benefit from this DoD contract expansion.
2. Mr. Shoemake’s document management company, Stay Safe Shred and Recycle, employs a workforce with a ratio of 75% disabled production workers, with an emphasis on veterans. Plus, he utilizes other DVBE companies when he purchases goods and services to run his own businesses. In recognition of his outstanding achievement in increasing employment opportunities for people with severe disabilities, he received the 2007 Small Business Partnership Award by the National Institute for the Severely Handicapped (NISH).
3. Mr. Shoemake’s has a current contract with McKesson to staff the western region distribution center for the H1N1 (Swine Flu) vaccine. This is the largest public health initiative in our country’s history. Mr. Shoemake focused his company’s recruitment efforts on veterans, employing several veterans in the process. McKesson has named his employment company, Street Smart Skills, as a Preferred Staffing Vendor with a mission to improve the veteran staffing ratios at McKesson nationwide.
Street Smart Skills, has also recently signed a contract to staff a project to digitize 250 million inmate and parolee records. This effort will require his company to recruit for 600 - 1000 jobs. Here again, the focus is on veteran recruitment.
4. Success Skills Inc. is focused on working collaboratively with other veteran service organizations including the Veterans Health Administration, Wounded Warrior Program and Disabled Vets of America to create successful models for employment for service-disabled veterans. These models are designed to address a full range of support needs for veterans with disabilities, not only job skills.
5. Mr. Shoemake is the founder of the successful Parolee and Community Teams (PACT) Program currently operating statewide at the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. This is a community-based program to link returning parolees with community organizations within 30 days of their return to their community. The desired outcome is to use community-based housing, drug rehabilitation, food, clothing and employment programs to reduce recidivism. Mr. Shoemake made sure that veterans organizations are included as an important component of the community organizations to help veterans with criminal histories benefit from community programs.
6. Mr. Shoemake was an integral member of a group that received the prestigious Peter F. Drucker Award for Nonprofit Innovation in 1999 for their successful truck driver training program. The award was for successfully using truck driver training and livable-wage employment to reduce recidivism for individuals with criminal histories. The truck driver training program is still operating. Mr. Shoemake is currently helping the California DVBE Alliance to develop a Caltrans grant to help train the transportation industry workforce for the future. Veterans will benefit from this award-winning program.
7. Mr. Shoemake currently serves as the 2nd Vice-President of the California DVBE Alliance to promote entrepreneurship for disabled veterans. He also serves on the California Department of Veterans Affairs Advisory Council to help promote employment opportunities for veterans.
