Where It Started: Brian Heffernan on 22 Years of Service, the Decision That Changed Everything, and Building the Bridge He Never Had
- Camille D. Ford | Founder & Editor-in-Chief
- Mar 13
- 10 min read
Summary
Brian Heffernan joined the United States Army in May 1998 at the age of 21. He did not have a plan. He had a baby on the way. Twenty-two years, one Audie Murphy Club induction, one garrison command, one deeply humbling job search, and one pandemic later, he is the Global Manager of Military Programs for Amentum, one of the country’s largest defense and government services contractors, and the 2025 National Army Veteran of the Year. The baby is grown. The mission has not stopped.
The Reason he Joined
The woman in his personnel department did not soften the feedback. She looked at what Brian Heffernan had written and took it apart. One resume. Submitted to every job he applied to. Rejected by all of them. He was a Command Sergeant Major. Twenty-two years. An Audie Murphy Club induction at 26. A garrison command. A master’s degree. And he could not get a callback. “She educated me,” he says. “She said, it’s not about everything you’ve done. It’s about what you’ve done in the role that you’re applying for.” He had been writing his entire career onto one page, expecting employers to recognize the relevance. What they needed was for him to translate. He rewrote his approach from the ground up. Four job offers arrived in the same week.
That moment is the thread of everything Brian Heffernan has built since he left the Army, and it traces back further than the resume. It goes back to 1998. He was 21. He had a baby on the way. He did not have a plan. “It wasn’t something I had planned on doing,” he says. “I had a baby on the way, and I knew I needed to take care of that baby. At the end of the day, I joined the Army.” He went down to the recruiter, looked at the jobs available, and chose armor. Not because of a calling or a family history in tanks, but because it seemed like the most interesting option in front of him. He was 21 years old, far from home, responsible for a family, and about to find out what he was made of.
He was assigned to Friedberg, Germany. “Being in Friedberg, Germany really set the stage for the rest of my Army career,” he says. “I had good leadership. I was far away from home. I was able to just be a sponge and take everything in. They taught me how to self-develop, how to set goals, how to get to the next level. That mattered a lot, having a family.” He expected the Army to be relentlessly intense. What he found in Germany was something closer to a community. Different people from different places, all going through the same thing, becoming friends he still has today. He stayed for 22 years.
“It’s not about everything you’ve done. It’s about what you’ve done in the role that you’re applying for.”
The Audie Murphy Club
In 2003, five years into his Army career, Brian Heffernan was nominated for induction into the Audie Murphy Club. He was 26 years old. The Audie Murphy Club is not something you apply for. You are nominated by your first sergeant for sustained excellence in leadership, dedication, physical performance, and professional conduct. Being nominated is the beginning of a year-long process that eliminates roughly 80 percent of candidates before they ever stand in front of a panel board. Candidates must score 100 percent on 10 to 15 separate examinations, complete a written paper graded by college professors, and pass a physical fitness test scoring 290 or above out of 300. Any single standard missed means the candidate is out.
“It was one of the greatest honors of my career.”
“Once you accomplish all that, there are going to be a lot of people that fall out,” Heffernan says. “About 20 percent of the people that started got to go in front of the panel board. Then you lose probably another 50 percent after that.” He was inducted on his first attempt. “It was one of the greatest honors of my career,” he says. He does not linger on it. He moves on the way people do when an achievement has been metabolized rather than displayed. But it is worth staying there for a moment. The Audie Murphy Club is not a certificate. It is a standard that most senior noncommissioned officers never attempt and most who attempt it do not reach. Heffernan reached it at 26, on his first try.
What He Learned Recruiting
At some point in his career, Heffernan was selected for recruiting duty as a station commander. The job is to bring people in. He was good at it, and the reason has nothing to do with salesmanship. It has to do with honesty and memory. “When I got selected to do recruiting, the way I looked at it was, I wasn’t looking for what the Army wanted. I was looking for people who needed an opportunity. Somebody who wanted an opportunity.” He thought about what it had felt like to be 21 with a baby on the way and no clear plan. He thought about the young person sitting across from him who was scared about leaving home, or scared about going to war, or scared about whether someone like them belonged inside an institution like the Army. He told them the truth.
“I wasn’t going to lie to anybody. I was going to give them the lowdown, dirty truth on what we do, what it is, and the expectations.” If someone wanted to be a computer programmer, he helped them figure out how to get there. If their test scores did not qualify them for the job they wanted right now, he told them which career fields would get their foot in the door and position them to move toward it later. He was not closing deals. He was solving problems for people who did not yet know what resources they had. The referrals came in steadily. The fear he heard most often was leaving home. He did not minimize it. He just told people what was waiting on the other side of it.
“I wasn’t looking for what the Army wanted. I was looking for people who needed an opportunity.”
Rock Island Arsenal
The Garrison Command Sergeant Major assignment at Rock Island Arsenal in Illinois was, by his own description, one of the coolest things he ever did. A garrison command is not field leadership. It is institutional leadership. The Command Sergeant Major of an installation is responsible for the culture, the daily life, the morale, and the community relationships of an entire base. Rock Island Arsenal sits on an island in the Mississippi River between Illinois and Iowa, home to more than 7,000 civilian employees. When Heffernan drove onto the post, he saw the gap immediately. The installation felt disconnected from the world around it. Outside the gate, there were energized local leaders, running communities, and events filling the spring and summer calendar. Inside the gate, people came to work and went home. “I said to myself, how do we become a part of that?” he says. “That’s what I wanted to do.”
He put together a committee and created Run the Rock, a 5K and 10K race run on the arsenal grounds. To make it possible, he first changed the access policy: the installation moved from single-day passes to annual vetted passes so community members could come and go throughout the year. He reached out to the most respected race director in the region, Joe Moreno, who told him that 300 people for a first run would be successful. The first annual Run the Rock drew more than 600. The year after, over 1,000. The veteran hiring event that followed came from the same instinct. A soldier told him the existing transition hiring events only drew about 60 people because all the employers were local, and most separating service members wanted to go somewhere else. Heffernan listened. He partnered with workforce agencies in Illinois and Iowa, opened the employer pool to companies from across the country, and rotated events across three sites. Attendance went from 60 to more than 500. More than 121 employers showed up. “The biggest thing I’d take away is that I listened,” he says.
“The biggest thing I’d take away is that I listened.”
The Transition He Was Not Ready For
Brian Heffernan retired from the United States Army in 2019 as a Command Sergeant Major. He had 22 years in. He had a master’s degree, a garrison command, an Audie Murphy Club induction, and a career full of preparing other people to leave the military. He thought he was ready. “I provided all these resources and helped all these other people,” he says. “You don’t look at yourself as needing to take advantage of those. And I think that’s when it hit me.” He wrote one resume, submitted it to every job he applied to, and watched the rejections come in. Not qualified. Not qualified. Not qualified. Then the woman in his personnel department took it apart and told him what it was missing. He rewrote his approach. A different resume for each application, built around the specific role, not the full biography. Four job offers arrived in the same week. Three GS-13 government positions and one from Amentum. He chose Amentum. “I’m glad I did,” he says. “I’ve been with them for six years.”
COVID and the John Deere Contract
Heffernan started at Amentum as a Program Manager on the John Deere facilities account, overseeing a contract he restructured from the beginning. He organized the support roles the way the Army had taught him: always someone behind the people doing the visible work, shaping the environment, making sure they had what they needed. Then COVID hit in March 2020. The buildings emptied. The question in every facilities contract in the country was the same: do we still need this? Heffernan did not wait for the answer to come from above. The buildings were empty. They had a cleaning problem, possibly a disease transmission problem. He redirected the entire workforce into deep cleaning operations. Every building, while the employees were home. The work was real, the problem was real, and the people kept their jobs. “Tying in that experience from the military but being on the commercial side, I was able to make decisions much quicker,” he says. “And I was able to help people in the position I was in and keep them employed.”
A man named John James, who had been running the contract on the John Deere side before Heffernan arrived, shook his hand the first time they met and said four words that Heffernan still carries. “Don’t let us civilianize you.” He knew exactly what it meant. The military background that had made him seem like an outside hire was the same background that was going to let him see things the organization could not see from the inside. His job was not to assimilate. His job was to lead.
“Don’t let us civilianize you.”
Building the Bridge
Brian Heffernan is now the Global Manager of Military Programs in Human Resources and Talent Acquisition at Amentum. His job is to build, manage, and expand the systems that connect transitioning service members to employment at one of the country’s largest defense contractors. Amentum was named a 2025 Top Veteran Employer and 2025 Top Military Spouse Employer by the Military.com Veteran Employment Project. Heffernan was named the 2025 National Army Veteran of the Year. He does not present these as endpoints. He presents them as evidence of what is possible when a company decides to do this work with intention rather than optics.
One of the programs he has expanded significantly is SkillBridge, the Department of Defense program that allows service members to work with civilian employers for up to 180 days before separation, while still receiving their military pay and benefits. In Heffernan’s hands, SkillBridge is not a pipeline. It is a job offer waiting to happen. “We built this program to result in jobs,” he says. “That’s exactly where we want it to be. They have an opportunity to come show us what they’re capable of and then transition into a job.” Every hiring manager he works with gets the same first question: will this result in a job for these individuals if they do a good job? If the answer is yes, Amentum supports the program.
He is direct about what the veteran employment industry consistently gets wrong. “If you’re going to have programs for veterans, then do everything in your power to ensure that they result in jobs. That’s the biggest thing. You need to be able to track whether you are providing jobs to these individuals.”
The fear he sees most often in transitioning veterans is the same fear he saw in the civilians sitting across from him at the recruiting office twenty years ago. “It’s the fear of the unknown,” he says. “The difference is, when somebody’s getting out, they know a lot, and they want to exercise that. They just want to get into the right place to operate.”
“If you’re going to have programs for veterans, then do everything in your power to ensure that they result in jobs.”
He tells them what the woman who dismantled his resume told him: your skills transfer. What you have to learn is how to translate them for people who have never seen what you can do. “When you get out of the military, don’t change anything. Remember where you came from to know where you’re going.”
What the 21-Year-Old Could Not Have Predicted
If the armor crewman who landed in Friedberg, Germany in 1998 with a baby on the way and no clear plan could see the work Brian Heffernan is doing today, Heffernan does not think he would recognize it. “I was nearsighted back then,” he says. “Now I’m on the other side. I don’t think I ever would have dreamed of what I’ve been able to do with my life.” He pauses. “But I think he’d be proud.”
“I don’t think I ever would have dreamed of what I’ve been able to do with my life. But I think he’d be proud.”
He joined the Army to take care of a child. He built 22 years of service around showing up for people who needed someone in their corner. The woman who took apart his resume gave him something he had spent years giving to others: the truth about the gap between where you are and where you need to be, and a path to close it. He is still closing it, one transitioning service member at a time. “When you get out of the military, don’t change anything,” he says. “Remember where you came from to know where
Resources
SkillBridge Program
DoD program allowing service members to intern with civilian employers up to 180 days before separation while retaining military pay and benefits.
Amentum Careers
Careers in defense, engineering, logistics, and operations. Amentum is a 2025 Top Veteran Employer and actively recruits through SkillBridge.
Transition Assistance Program (TAP)
Mandatory pre-separation program covering employment, education, and financial planning. Heffernan recommends beginning at least a year out.
Hiring Our Heroes
Fellowship programs, career fairs, and employer connections for transitioning service members and military spouses.
American Corporate Partners (ACP)
Free mentoring program connecting veterans with business professionals for career guidance.
Veterans Crisis Line
Dial 988, then press 1 | veteranscrisisline.net | https://www.veteranscrisisline.net
About Brian Heffernan
Brian Heffernan is the Global Manager of Military Programs in Human Resources and Talent Acquisition at Amentum, a global defense and government services contractor. He retired from the United States Army in 2019 as a Command Sergeant Major after 22 years of service. He is a member of the Audie Murphy Club and was named the 2025 National Army Veteran of the Year by the Military.com Veteran Employment Project. He is based in Chantilly, Virginia.
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