Ex-soldiers enlist in 'boot camp' again —​​​​​​​ this time, to learn software coding

Joel Corey helped clear roads of bombs in Afghanistan's Helmand Province, a job skill not easily translatable into the civilian workforce back home.

But what made Corey a good soldier — hard work, tenacity, loyalty, problem solving — is helping him and other veterans transform themselves into software developers.

DevCodeCamp, a 12-week boot camp for people wanting to become software developers and coders, began reaching out to veterans in Milwaukee last fall once the Forever GI Bill was signed into law. Now veterans can use GI Bill education benefits to pay the $16,800 tuition for the full-time devCodeCamp software development course.

"Veterans are not interested in spending years re-acclimating to civilian life. They want to get in and go to work," said Paul Jirovetz, who heads up the Milwaukee devCodeCamp.

Corey, 35, is one-third of his way through devCodeCamp, which he learned about through a group of computer-coding veterans called Operation Code, which helps military members find coding camps. He served in the Oregon National Guard, including a year in Afghanistan handling convoy security and route clearance in 2009-'10.

He's done computer coding for years as a hobby but decided recently to develop his skills into a career.

"I enjoy playing with stuff, and code is basically like Legos. You can play with stuff, make stuff, break stuff and hopefully at the end of the day you end up helping someone else," Corey said.

There's a great need for software developers. The Bureau of Labor Statistics is forecasting 30% growth in the next decade for people designing the technology that has become an integral part of life.

In January, U.S. News & World Report ranked software developer as the top job in its annual list of 100 best jobs, with a median salary of $100,000 and 253,000 people employed in the field.

More than 260,000 people are transitioning out of the military each year, and they can go to most post-secondary schools for free or reduced cost. Many of them are finding jobs: The rate of unemployed veterans is 3.5%, below the national rate of 4.1%.

Jirovetz is trying to attract some of those people, particularly the post-9/11 veterans who used technology on the battlefield and grew up with apps on smartphones. Plus, he pointed out, veterans typically are used to working hard, completing tasks, taking directions and showing up on time.

DevCodeCamp is "not right for everybody," Jirovetz said. "But what we do know is veterans are typically driven. When they come back, a lot of them have already been working in some sort of technology as part of their service, and they want to translate that into working back in the United States."

A problem-solving vibe

In the devCodeCamp training center in the historic Pritzlaff Building on N. Plankinton Ave., rock music plays softly as students huddle together to solve a problem or work by themselves on their laptops. A punching bag hangs in the corner, and old-fashioned light bulbs strung across the ceiling illuminate the hardwood floors and Cream City brick walls.

The camp starts at 7 a.m. each weekday, and following an hour or hour-and-a-half lecture reviewing what was learned the day before, students learn something new and then work on a problem. 

On a recent day, Corey was familiarizing himself with a tool called Microsoft Visual Studio on a used ThinkPad X1 Carbon he bought on eBay. At a nearby workstation, Linda Berez, who served in the Air Force in the late 1980s as a hydraulics mechanic, worked on a flight tracker app she developed as her graduation project.

"I travel a lot, and I wanted to do something I already use," said Berez, 57, who is the information technology officer for the Civil Air Patrol squadron in Oak Creek.

Berez earned a computer science degree at San Diego State University and worked in hardware there but wanted to get back into the software side of technology. She learned of devCodeCamp through a highway billboard.

Graduating in the same coding class as Berez was Wade Carlson, who served six years in the Marines in the 1990s as a cryptography technician and then in computer repair and software installation. After leaving the military, Carlson, 43, was working as a golf pro but decided on a career change, which led him back to computers.

"It's extremely challenging," said Carlson. "You dive into a new framework, and you start with the basics of building a website before getting into a more dynamic framework like JavaScript.

"They give you a couple of lectures and then you get a project. They tell you, 'This is what has to be done. Go figure it out.' They give you the tools to problem-solve," Carlson said.

Jared Burks, 24, who was stationed on the missile destroyer USS Mustin in the Navy, was the first veteran to complete devCodeCamp last fall. He hopes to develop his own business to make apps.

DevCodeCamp graduates have been hired by Rockwell Automation, Lands' End, the Milwaukee Brewers, U.S. Bank and other businesses in Wisconsin. Northwestern Mutual visited this month to pitch job opportunities to students, and ETE Reman, a transmission manufacturer, stopped in last week.

Jirovetz said every company, no matter what it does or makes, has become a technology company. "And if technology is not a huge part of your model, you're not going to be around much longer," he said.

"If this gap (between the number of technology jobs and workers) continues," he added, it will "get harder and harder to find good employees."