Some companies treat veteran hiring as a seasonal push tied to headlines or hiring fairs. Margarita Howard, CEO of HX5, has taken a different route, keeping the company’s involvement in the Hiring Our Heroes Corporate Fellowship Program steady at two fellows annually since 2021.
That consistency, Howard suggests, sends a clearer signal to transitioning service members than a one-time hiring surge would. HX5, a service-disabled veteran-owned and women-owned small business, has hosted eight fellows total through the twelve-week program, which lets active-duty members work at civilian companies during their final 180 days of service.
A Founder’s Perspective Built on Service
Howard’s own history in the Air Force informs this approach. “My background was influenced by military service,” she says, connecting her personal transition out of uniform to the structure she has built at HX5 for others making the same move.
Fellows split their time between four days of project work and one day of professional development weekly, receiving military pay throughout. That structure lets them explore defense contracting, including HX5’s work on advanced weapons research and modeling for space programs, without giving up the security of active duty status.
Room to Grow, Carefully
HX5 operates across more than 20 states and 70 government locations, supporting NASA and Department of Defense missions in engineering and mission operations. With about 1,000 employees, the company cannot match the fellow counts of giants like Microsoft or Booz Allen Hamilton, but Howard has chosen depth over volume.
Two fellows a year, repeated consistently, lets HX5 give each participant real attention while building a modest but dependable channel of veteran talent into specialized defense and aerospace work.
Howard treats that dependability as the point rather than a limitation. A fellowship program that expands and contracts with quarterly budgets sends a mixed message to service members weighing a move into contracting. By holding steady at two fellows annually since 2021, Howard has tried to make clear that HX5’s commitment to veteran hiring does not depend on any single contract or fiscal year. Refer to this article for related information.
Learn more about Howard on https://www.margaritahoward.com/
