Eric Bruns ‘03 Starts National Non-Profit
Eric Bruns ‘03 has spent the past year advocating for our nation’s veterans through his non-profit organization Voices For Veterans. Bruns, who served as an active duty Field Artillery Officer in the army for ten years, was stationed all over the world serving in positions from platoon to theater level headquarters. His time in the services motivated him to start Voices For Veterans.
“During my time as an Army Officer, I consistently saw the difficulties many soldiers were having in finding meaningful employment upon the completion of their service. I noticed two main problems that cut across all branches of service and decided to start an organization to tackle these issues,” Bruns says.
Those two main problems, he says, are that most veterans never learned to properly market their skills and accomplishments and most employers have trouble understanding the total value a veteran can bring to their organization.
“While most employers like the idea of hiring a veteran, many end up passing over a veteran, especially recently separated veterans, for a non-veteran with more direct experience in the private sector. This often leads employers to miss out on the potential job candidates that have the highest long-term potential to add value for the company,” Bruns says.
Voices For Veterans currently works with several veterans from the local South Florida area and a handful of veterans spread up and down the east coast from Miami to Philadelphia. This fall the organization will begin its mentorship and placement program for local veterans and student veterans.
“We strive to enrich the lives of our veterans through meaningful, fulfilling employment and to help bridge the civil-military divide that has been slowly growing in our country. We believe the best way to honor and take care of our veterans is to empower them to better take control of their own destiny. We believe a grassroots effort of bottom-up initiatives yields more effective, long lasting benefits for our veterans and their families. Through a combined effort of mentoring programs and local business community education, we can make a significant positive impact in the lives of our veterans,” Bruns says.
Bruns says his desire to serve our country started at a young age when he was an avid history student.
“Especially after September 11th, I figured if somebody had to do serve, it might as well be me,” he says.
Bruns says his time at The Benjamin School helped prepare him for this level of service.
“Benjamin instilled a sense of empathy and compassion for other people that proved tremendously valuable during my 10 year career as a leader in the Army. It greatly aided in my ability to foster trust with my soldiers, contributing to our unit’s capacity to function as an effective team. During my overseas tours, especially in Afghanistan, it helped me to build trust-based, meaningful relationships with our host nation partners that paid dividends in carrying out our complex national security goals in those regions.”
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