Veterans Find Opportunity

The tech industry, with its team orientation and government contracts, is a great fit for many veterans seeking to transition to a civilian career. One company at the heart of many of today’s computing breakthroughs is Intel Corporation, which is well known for hiring people with military experience.

Several veterans shared their experiences working at Intel—what their military backgrounds helped them to do and what the company’s culture gave to them—with SIGNAL Magazine Senior Editor Kimberly Underwood for a SIGNAL Executive Video interview.

There’s a good alignment between veterans’ values and Intel’s, said Viktor Tymchenko, vice president of Intel’s Data Platforms Group and director of its Platform Engineering Division. Tymchenko served as a captain in the Army Reserve for 11 years and has been with Intel for 26 years.

Veterans are an important asset for moving the company’s culture forward because their traditions of problem solving, dealing with adversity and getting the job done mesh with Intel’s cultural elements of customer service, transparency and inclusivity.

Like the military, a person’s background matters little at Intel—it’s what they can do and bring to the table that is key. “We’re all in this together and we’ll help each other getting the job done, no matter what,” he said.

Jose Salame, senior contract manager at Intel, has been with the company for 20 years, previously serving 23 years in the U.S. Air Force and Air Force Reserve before retiring as a lieutenant colonel. He noted that he served most of his Air Force career as a contracting officer and then came to work at Intel in the same role.

Using his experience as an example, Salame said that veterans can use their understanding of working in complex situations to help their companies quickly overcome new challenges. “Taking informed risk to accomplish the mission is truly part of the job I see veterans can offer Intel,” he said.

For Vernetta Dorsey, director of Product Assurance Processes and Governanace at Intel, her military experience gave her the ability to lead people and to be creative with finding solutions to problems. A former Army captain with 10 years of military service and now with the company for seven years, Dorsey says her experience as a signal officer gave her a good understanding of old and new technologies and how they interact, which helps the company’s ongoing transformation.

Angelina Bowmer served 18 years as a technical sergeant in the Air Force and Air National Guard before joining Intel as a manufacturing technician in the company’s microchip fabrication plant. Her military experience stressed critical thinking, troubleshooting and attention to detail, all of which are key to her work. While the nature of the work isn’t life-or-death, it still changes lives for the better, she said.