SALISBURY, MD – Chris Eccleston, founder and president of the Delmarva Veteran Builders (DVB), was invited to the Pentagon to speak at the 2019 International Conference on Employer Support for the Reserves on April 30. 

ICESR is a biennial conference for allied and partner nations to meet and discuss their reserve employer support programs, and to exchange lessons learned and best practices.

Eccleston, along with Wicomico County Sheriff Mike Lewis; Joe Crandall, a partner with Greencastle Consulting in Malvern, Pennsylvania; and Carrol Eggert, Comcast Corp.'s senior vice president for military and veterans affairs, participated in a panel discussion during the conference. The four panelists represented companies that have received the Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve Secretary of Defense Employer Support Freedom Award. The panel members discussed how military service and experience makes guardsmen and reservists excellent employees.

Kim Joiner, acting principal deputy assistant to the Secretary of Defense for public affairs, said that the Defense Department is hoping to use panels like this to educate the American public about who their military people are, what they do, why they serve and ways companies can help reservists when they deploy. Today, only about one-half of 1% of Americans are in the military, and therefore, there are fewer veterans around than in earlier generations to tell the military story and what it means to serve.

If you would like to know more about your military and ways our government is poised to help veterans transition into civilian life, please visit Know Your Military for more information.