Hire a Hero Enlists Salesforce.com and XAware to Assist Veterans

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--XAware, Inc. today announced it is contributing its data integration software and professional services to the Armed Forces Support Foundation’s Hire A Hero network. Hire A Hero is an online social network that provides the infrastructure, tools and support needed for service members to find a quality career upon their return from active duty. Since its founding in January 2007, Hire A Hero has come in contact with over 190,000 service members and helped many transition back into the civilian world.

The vast majority of the transitioning military community is men and women in their 20s. These veterans are comfortable with online social networking tools such as instant messaging, Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn. Similar to these social networking sites, Hire A Hero users are able to create online profiles that can communicate the individual’s story and career objectives. This includes pictures, resumes, podcasts and videos. At the same time, Hire A Hero is working with companies of all sizes, management associations, staffing companies and trade unions to bolster its national network and provide quality job opportunities for service personnel.

“The men and women who protect our country should be rewarded, not penalized, for their service,” said Brac Selph, executive director of Hire A Hero. “Unfortunately, the unemployment rate among veterans is consistently higher than non-veterans. And for those that do find work, underemployment can often be a problem. XAware’s pro-bono data exchange services and donated licenses of salesforce.com’s Software-as-a-Service CRM solution have been instrumental in allowing us to connect service members with people who can help them get good, well paying jobs and more importantly connect back into their community. By using XAware’s data integration services and Salesforce to connect service members with volunteers, events and friendly employers, Hire A Hero is helping those who have done the most to protect the American Dream to participate fully in its rewards.”

Hire A Hero uses the Salesforce CRM application to help automate the job placement process for veterans as part of salesforce.com’s 1% Product Donation program. As is the case with the general population, service members use a variety of different computing systems. This produces incoming data in an assortment of formats. In an effort to integrate these different forms of data, Hire A Hero turned to the XAware Plug-in for Salesforce, which is available at the Salesforce.com AppExchange. XAware is an open source product that hides the differences and complexity of data coming from disparate sources. XAware transforms the data into a common format that can be understood and used by Hire-A-Hero’s Salesforce system.

“I am very grateful and pleased with the help I received from Hire A Hero,” said Staff Sergeant Glenn Kaufman of the U.S. Army. “Hire A Hero connected me with a wonderful volunteer coach in my area. Thanks to this program I have received a far greater response from prospective employers than I ever expected. I am forever grateful to Hire a Hero, my career coach and the other organizations that volunteer their services.”

Today’s military community includes more than two million active duty personnel and an additional two million reservists and members of the National Guard. Since military service often removes these people from their normal social and career networks, Hire A Hero offers a way to be re-introduced into the civilian world, and reconnect veterans with their local communities. These veterans use Hire A Hero to search for careers in a variety of categories, by region and key words.

“By utilizing Web 2.0 networking features, Hire A Hero brings together job seekers who have completed their service to our country with military friendly employers,” said Tim Harvey, CEO of XAware, and a veteran of the United States Marine Corps. “Hire A Hero is harnessing the immense power of a viral, Web-based community to build a network that our military people can use as they search for meaningful career opportunities, whether close to home or in a new part of the country.”

“It’s amazing to see an organization like Hire A Hero do such extraordinary work and support it using next generation technologies,” said Suzanne DiBianca, executive director of the Salesforce.com Foundation. “We applaud their efforts and those of the over 4,000 nonprofits around the world using Salesforce to better serve their missions.”

Hire A Hero has also embarked on a campaign to gather one million “Thank You” messages for our troops. The online message board contains messages to remind service members of how much our nation appreciates their sacrifices. For more information, please visit: www.thanksforserving.com.

About XAware, Inc.

XAware is the first company to provide a comprehensive open source data integration solution for creating composite data services. XAware provides users with the ability to rapidly access and integrate data with applications and business processes. Furthermore, XAware makes it possible to transform data, regardless of the source, into reusable components for SOA and Web 2.0 applications. XAware features an Eclipse-based development environment and runtime engine based on the Spring framework that can be implemented to take advantage of almost any IT infrastructure. Companies worldwide, including S1 (NASDAQ: SONE) and Synovus (NYSE: SNV) rely on XAware for their composite data services needs. For community information please visit: www.xaware.org and for corporate information on XAware, please visit: www.xaware.com.