Agenda & Speakers

Guest Arrival, Registration and Visitor Passes

Sponsor Networking Reception

Shuttle to Eisenhower Hall

Welcome and Film Introductions

Screening — D-Day +80

A 50-minute cut of the documentary, screened with the filmmaker Nate Boyer (Merging Vets and Players) present. Open to the West Point community and the wider Hudson Valley alongside Summit attendees.

Q&A — D-Day +80

Screening — Noori

A 30-minute cut of the documentary, screened with the filmmaker Lyla Kohistany present.

Q&A — Noori, and Close of Evening

Optional Morning Workout

An optional group workout before breakfast.

Breakfast, Registration and Sponsor Exhibits

Breakfast, late registration and the sponsor exhibit floor. Pick up your Veteran Ready Self-Audit card here and start scoring over coffee — the first session builds directly on it. Registered Apprenticeship Office Hours open at 7:30.

Opening Remarks and West Point Welcome

Winning the War for Talent

A co-host opening on the state of military hiring — where the talent is going, what employers are getting wrong, and what the national picture looks like heading into 2027.

The Veteran Ready Self-Audit — Baseline Score

Everyone works. Score your own organization against five marks of a Veteran Ready employer, compare your lowest mark with the person beside you, and put your number into the app. The room’s aggregate baseline goes up on screen — and it is the number the whole Summit gets measured against on Tuesday afternoon.

Opening Keynote — Randy Couture

The first of three keynotes across the Summit.

Randy Couture

Break — West Point Trivia, Round One

Panel — More Than Military Friendly: What "Veteran Ready" Actually Means

A flag in the lobby is not a strategy. Four practitioners argue out the difference between an employer that welcomes veterans and one that is genuinely built to hire, develop and keep them — including a live readiness check you can run against your own organization.

Panel — Registered Apprenticeship: The Pipeline You Can’t Hire Your Way Out Of

When the talent you need does not exist to be hired, you build it. How employers are standing up Registered Apprenticeship programs, the RA pathways available to them, and how to braid VA funding with a DOL-registered program.

Panel — SkillBridge at Scale: From MOU to Cohort

Getting a SkillBridge MOU signed is the easy part. Employers running real cohorts walk through what it takes to go from an agreement on paper to service members in seats — and what breaks along the way.

Lightning Talk — The Combat Arms Discount

A short, pointed look at the wage penalty carried by veterans from combat arms occupations, why the civilian labour market misreads that experience, and what employers can do about it.

Lightning Talk — Decoding the Joint Service Transcript

How to turn a Joint Service Transcript into a credential your hiring managers actually recognize

Lunch and Huddle Round One

Lunch is the working session. Each table carries one specific question printed on it — not a broad topic — and about eight people spend the hour answering it. Every table picks its own lead to file the answer into the event app before standing up, so all six answers are available to the whole Summit within the hour. A menu introduction from the chef opens the hour.

• 11:50 AM – 12:50 PM

  Leadership in Motion — West Point Leadership Seminar

  Eisenhower Hall

  A 45-minute seminar plus Q&A led by West Point, running inside the lunch hour as an alternative to the huddle tables. Sixty seats, opt-in at registration. This is the only point in the Summit where the group splits.

Buses Load for the West Point Tour

West Point Historical Tour

The whole Summit goes on the tour: the Cadet Chapel, Trophy Point and The Plain, with a guide on each coach. Starts and ends at Eisenhower Hall.

Break — Trivia Round Two

Panel — Beyond the Job Fair: Where the Pipelines Actually Are

If your military hiring strategy is a table at a job fair, you are fishing in the most crowded water there is. Where the real candidate pipelines sit — installations, transition programmes, veteran-serving organizations and referral networks — and how to build into them.

Enterprise Veteran Hiring, Rebuilt — Paired Case Studies

Two enterprise employers, each with a technology partner, on what it took to rebuild veteran hiring at national scale. Two ten-minute cases back to back, then shared Q&A.

Ignite — Lessons Under Pressure

Ignite is the Summit’s version of a TED talk: short, sharp, one question answered well. Six speakers on what they learned when the situation gave them no good options — and what it taught them about leading afterwards. One shared Q&A closes the round.

Panel — The Veteran Employment Collective

The Veteran Employment Collective is a group of veteran-serving organizations collaborating on a shared front door for military talent. Member organizations discuss what changes when VSOs stop competing for the same candidates and start working one pipeline together — and what employers should expect from that partnership.

ESGR Statement of Support Signing Ceremony

Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve hosts a formal Statement of Support signing. Employers who wish to sign should register in advance.

Close — What You Said Veteran Ready Means

Hall of Fame Opening Reception

An evening reception in the Hall of Fame with a two-hour premium bar and a specialty cocktail, featuring The Power of Story and the presentation of the first Steve Janke Award for Veteran Engagement.

Optional Morning Workout

An optional group workout before breakfast.

Breakfast and Sponsor Exhibits

Breakfast and the sponsor exhibit floor. Registered Apprenticeship Office Hours open at 7:15, and story collection opens at 9:00 in the Class of ’63 Lounge.

Opening Remarks

Remarks from Medal of Honor Recipient Clint Romesha

Remarks from a Medal of Honor recipient and Hiring Our Heroes ambassador, returning to the Summit

Clint Romesha — Hiring Our Heroes Brand Ambassador

Panel — Translation and Technology: Making the Match Work

Military experience does not arrive pre-translated, and most matching technology is still bad at it. What is actually working to connect service members to the right roles — including a live coaching demonstration.

Panel — Retention: The First 90 Days and the Month-Nine Cliff

You hired the veteran. Can you keep them? Why so many military hires leave between month nine and month twelve, what the first ninety days have to do with it, and what to change.

The Power of the Got Your 6 Network

A co-host session with a live demonstration of a vetted directory of roughly 500 veteran-serving organizations — plus how veteran employee resource groups and community involvement fit into an employer’s wider strategy.

Break — Trivia Finals and Prizes

Panel — Support Without Overstepping: Mental Health, Trust and the Referral Pathway

Where an employer’s responsibility begins and ends on well-being, how to build a referral pathway people will actually use, and how to earn the trust that makes any of it work.

Beyond Recruiting: Building a Compensation and Culture System Veterans Stay In

A co-host session on the parts of the employment offer that come after the hire — pay structure, progression and the culture that decides whether someone stays.

Panel — Coaching the Leader Who Makes or Breaks the Hire

A veteran’s experience of your company is mostly their first-line supervisor. What that manager needs on day one, the well-meaning mistakes they make, and whose job it is to coach them.

Beyond the Job Fair: How to Build Military Talent

A practical session on sourcing and hiring military talent at scale: decoding the military résumé, the sourcing channels that consistently deliver, modernising the interview, and a thirty-day integration framework.

Panel — Proof and ROI: The Three Numbers Your CFO Will Respect

Every veteran hiring programme eventually has to justify itself. Which three numbers actually hold up in front of a CFO, which ones flatter the programme without proving anything, and how to measure mentorship as infrastructure rather than goodwill.

Ignite — Leading Through What’s Next

A second Ignite round: five short, sharp talks on leading through change, followed by one shared Q&A.

Closing Lunch and Huddle Round Two

The second working lunch, and the bigger one: twelve tables, twelve specific questions, about eight people each. Every table files its answer into the event app, so by the time you stand up there are eighteen documented answers from across the two days — yours and everyone else’s.

Take It Home — Self-Audit Re-score and Action Plan

Wreaths Across America Presentation and Convoy Stop

The Wreaths Across America Escort to Arlington makes a stop at West Point. A Remember, Honor, Teach ceremony with a keynote, followed by refreshments in the Riverside Cafe.

Benjamin Patton — Patton Veterans Project

Closing Keynote by DJ Skelton

The final keynote of the Summit.

Transition Trucking: Driving for Excellence Winner Announcement

The Summit closes with the announcement of the Transition Trucking: Driving for Excellence winner — the year’s top rookie military driver — and the presentation of the keys to a new Kenworth truck.

Closing Remarks

Closing Reception

A final two-hour reception to close the Summit.