Daniel Nichols, formerly chief of staff of the Veterans’ Employment and Training Service, celebrated his last day with the Department of Labor April 20th, but he is not moving too far from the employment scene.

For the past five and half years, Nichols has fervently tried to match employers with veterans all over the country. Now, as vice president of corporate hiring for a major health care organization in Northern Virginia, Nichols will have the opportunity to hire those veterans he has advocated for.

Daniel has grown within VETS, starting out as a special assistant and leaving as the chief of staff. During his time here, he earned an MBA from the University of Maryland, and also answered the call of duty to serve in Iraq in 2004 as a Navy Chaplain.

“Shortly after I came in 2001, we hired Dan as our Special Assistant and strategic communications advisor, said Assistant Secretary for Veterans’ Employment and Training Charles S. Ciccolella. “At that time, we did not realize all that Dan would be able to contribute to VETS!”

Although his office at VETS is now empty, his presence is imprinted on the agency, through a number of his contributions to the mission and function of VETS.

“Daniel had the original idea about developing a REALifelines program,” said Ciccolella. “He anticipated the issues our wounded and injured service members would be confronting when they returned.”

REALifelines, which stands for the Recovery and Employment Assistance Lifelines, is a joint program between the U.S. Department of Labor and a number of military medical facilities which aims to create a seamless, personalized assistance network to ensure that seriously wounded and injured service members, who cannot return to active duty, are trained for rewarding new careers in the private sector.

“With tremendous assistance from VETS’ staff throughout the agency, we have implemented this program at many of the military medical treatment facilities around the country where wounded and injured service members are being treated,” said Ciccolella.

Nichols has helped the agency in other more subtle ways. As special assistant and later as chief of staff, Nichols helped improve the agency’s information technology systems and correspondence functions.

“Daniel has helped VETS improve our information technology architecture,” added Ciccolella, “and as chief of staff, he has been instrumental in helping us streamline our national office administrative procedures.”

Nichols is just one dedicated person among many in the VETS’ organization, but today we acknowledge and thank him for his service to our nation’s veterans and bid him “fair winds and following seas.”