At HX5, veteran hiring is not a side initiative. It sits close to the center of how CEO Margarita Howard has shaped the company, a service-disabled veteran-owned and women-owned small business working on defense and aerospace contracts across the country.
HX5 operates in more than 20 states and over 70 government locations, supporting Department of Defense and NASA missions that range from research and development to mission operations. That footprint means the company regularly needs employees comfortable with clearance requirements and government worksites, exactly the kind of background many veterans bring with them.
A Steady Fellowship Commitment
Since 2021, HX5 has welcomed eight fellows through the Hiring Our Heroes Corporate Fellowship Program, a Department of Defense SkillBridge initiative that lets active-duty members spend their last 180 days of service working at a civilian company. Margarita Howard has kept HX5’s participation to two fellows a year, a pace that lets the company integrate each cohort without straining operations.
The fellowship runs twelve weeks, with four days of project work and one day of professional development weekly. Nationally, since the program began in 2015, more than 500 fellows have graduated with an 80 percent hire rate and average starting salaries near $70,000.
Mission Work That Feels Familiar
HX5’s contract work includes advanced weapons research, production readiness reviews for sensor systems, and modeling and simulation for defense and space programs. Howard sees that alignment as valuable, telling fellows that HX5‘s projects can build directly on systems they worked with in uniform.
“The work we do is very exciting. Some of it is not being done anywhere else in the world,” she says, adding that meaningful work often matters as much as pay in keeping veteran employees engaged long after their fellowship ends.
Howard’s emphasis on mission alignment is not just a hiring pitch. Fellows who arrive from Air Force or Army engineering roles often find themselves working on systems adjacent to what they handled in uniform, just seen now from the contractor side of the relationship. That continuity, paired with HX5’s consistent fellowship participation, gives transitioning service members a clearer sense of where their skills can lead once they leave active duty. See related link for more information.
More about Howard on https://www.youngupstarts.com/2025/01/10/how-hx5-and-margarita-howard-stay-ahead-in-government-contracting-as-a-women-owned-firm/
