Ames Area Employers Tour Boone Aviation Support Facility

About 40 area employers toured the Boone Aviation Support Facility Thursday to foster relations between guardsmen and employers and -- oh, yeah -- to fly around in a Blackhawk U-60.

Iowa Army National Guardsmen provided 15-minute helicopter tours of the Boone River Valley and also walked employers through the Air Guard's 20-year-old hangar before members of the Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve talked to people about troops' rights. The Boss Lift is one of many activities that the Employer Support group organizes to educate employers and to find returning servicemen jobs.

Maj. Charles Lampe said the aviation units in Boone didn't have any employment problems, but told tour groups that they did need a larger hangar. However the unemployment rate among the 2,800 troops of the Iowa-based 2nd Brigade Combat Team that deployed to Afghanistan in 2010, increased upon their return

Wayne Davis, an Employer Support volunteer from Ames, said the unemployment rate is higher among servicemen when compared to the rest of the population even though servicemen have valuable skills.

They are finding the jobs they left no longer exist or that employers weren't able to maintain their jobs at the same level, he said.

Employer Support said that 630 members of the Brigade, which includes some troops from Boone, were unemployed before heading to Afghanistan. Nearly another 100 have joined the unemployment ranks since returning, according to a recent survey. In other states, about 30 percent of returning serviceman say they are unemployed.

Becky Coady, of Employer Support, said about 1,100 of the 2,300 troops who were surveyed said they plan to further their education.

Lampe, a logistics manager of the Aviation Support Facility in Boone said the aviation units deploy about every three years and haven't had any employment problems coming home.

“Doing this stuff helps,” Lampe said.