I recently had Matt Morrissey, COO of Fusion Cell, on my radio show. Fusion Cell is a partner we engaged at the outset of the pandemic to make sure we followed best practices for safety during COVID-19. They bridge military veterans into great civilian careers and help real companies find real experience to solve problems. Once we understood the gravity of the pandemic, Northeast Delta Dental’s top priority was making sure our employees were safe. Fusion Cell’s military trained pandemic experts were crucial to our objectives. Matt and I discussed the significance of their veterans’ skills in this, and other critical scenarios.
In addition to serving dentists and employers, Northeast Delta Dental is a veteran-oriented company. Many times, when veterans go to the VA for dental care, they are generally not able to be helped due to various congressional or other logistical constraints—meaning 9 times out of 10 a veteran doesn’t gain the access to care they need at the VA. Therefore, we established a dental program for our veteran community.
Northeast Delta Dental is proud to offer valuable dental benefits to help create smiles, improve health, and enhance the lives of Veterans and CHAMPVA beneficiaries through the Veterans Affairs Dental Insurance Program (VADIP). Through a continued partnership with Dental Lifeline Network, and several other veterans’ organizations, Northeast Delta Dental donated over $200,000 in 2021 to improve the oral health of uninsured veterans.
“We are committed to decreasing gaps in dental care for veterans,” said Tom Raffio, president and CEO, Northeast Delta Dental. “Oral health is directly connected to overall health, so it’s critical that we provide this care to the soldiers who have served on our behalf.”
Additionally, when hiring veterans (and we have several among our colleagues), it’s important to look at how certain skills from their resumes will translate into the work that you need. This means taking soft skills, those competencies, pulling them out of the candidate and matching them with marketplace needs. This is what we appreciate about our partner Fusion Cell, a company actively working to connect veterans with employers.
“We harness military talent and bring it to companies. Over 200,000 veterans exit the military every year, so you have this incredible labor pool that’s ready to be trained, that’s already been battle-tested, and has a great set of competencies at its core,” shared Matt Morrissey COO at Fusion Cell.
You might be thinking what types of companies could use veterans, but the answer is every company, because veterans are all trainable, and as Matt points out, they already have the significant competencies needed for success. In addition to military values and work ethics, armed service members receive specialized training in over 7,000 different military occupations with over 80% having direct correlation to civilian jobs. Yet perhaps more valuable are the intangible characteristics that to varying degrees each veteran gains through their military experience and formal training.
Fusion Cell helps veterans find a meaningful career in the civilian workforce, fusing the gap between military veterans and corporate America. So whether it’s supporting oral health or jobs for veterans, it’s extremely important we support them as much as we can!
Watch my full exchange with Matt here.
