Making Arizona a more veteran-friendly place to call home

Today, as we honor our veterans who have given their service to this country, I thought it would be appropriate to briefly mention the important steps that Arizona has taken toward making Arizona a more veteran-friendly place to call home. We know that as increased numbers of veterans are returning back to the civilian life, we need to help them get jobs as quickly as possible and we want to make sure that Arizona is making the transition as smooth as possible. Under the leadership of Representative (and Marine) Sonny Borelli, the Arizona legislature enacted HB2076 earlier this year to ease service members’ return to the civilian workforce in Arizona.

The Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry recognizes that Service members gain valuable skills in their service to this country, skills when transferred to the civilian workforce, benefit both these heroes and the communities they choose to call home. Thanks to Representative Borelli’s vision and his experience as a veteran, legislation enacted this year to smooth the transition of service members back to civilian life and the civilian workforce is a reality. The medics and corpsmen who gain valuable healthcare experience in the service will now have a new opportunity thanks to representatives of the services, leaders in the business community and education community and the Arizona Board of Nursing, who worked together to produce great results: a curriculum to ease the entry of these former members of the armed services into a career in nursing.

The Nursing Board, together with the education community and representatives of the services developed a curriculum to make it possible for service members to bridge the gap to enter a nursing practice. At the September 27, 2013 meeting of the Board of Nursing, the agency voted to approve the curriculum developed from Rep. Borelli’s vision. The Board will be making this curriculum available to education institutions throughout the state and anywhere else where this effort may be put to use. We applaud the hard work of this agency to quickly act on implementing such a critical piece of legislation.

Efforts such as this show the important results that can be achieved when we put our hearts and minds in the effort to implement the visions of our leaders. Together, with great contributions from educators in this state and the services and the State Board of Nursing, this effort stands as a bright example of hard work by a state agency committed to exemplary service through its diligent performance of the work it is called upon to perform. We look forward to working with other agencies to continue building on the exemplary work of the Arizona Board of Nursing.