Technical skill alone does not guarantee a smooth move from military service into a company like HX5, and CEO Margarita Howard has built the firm’s approach to the Hiring Our Heroes Corporate Fellowship Program around that reality. Since 2021, HX5 has hosted two fellows a year, pairing hands-on project work with structured professional development.
The fellowship, run under the Department of Defense’s SkillBridge authority since 2015, places active-duty service members with host companies for their final 180 days before separation. Fellows spend four days weekly on the job and one day in training sessions covering areas like project management, corporate communication and influencing coworkers without relying on formal rank or authority, all while still receiving military pay and benefits.
Margarita Howard has said she views the training day as just as important as the four days spent on project work, since it addresses habits and vocabulary that a purely technical assignment would never surface on its own.
Filling the Gaps Military Training Leaves
These sessions target exactly the areas where military and civilian workplace culture tend to diverge, even when core values like accountability and attention to detail carry over cleanly. Margarita Howard has noted that service members often arrive with strong technical backgrounds but limited experience translating that expertise into a civilian resume or workplace vocabulary.
At HX5, that gap matters less than it might elsewhere, since the company’s Department of Defense and NASA contract work already resembles what many fellows did in uniform. Still, Margarita Howard has emphasized that understanding procurement processes, contract structures and administrative requirements takes deliberate exposure, something the fellowship’s 12-week structure is designed to provide before fellows commit to a government contracting career.
More than 500 fellows have completed the broader program nationally, with roughly 80 percent receiving job offers and average starting salaries near $70,000. HX5‘s eight fellows since 2021 make up a small slice of that total, but Howard has treated each placement as an opportunity to close the business-side gap that military training alone does not cover. Refer to this article for more information.
Learn more about Margarita Howard on https://homebusinessmag.com/success-stories-lifestyles/defense-contractors-margarita-howard-adapts-gen-z-amid-competition-stem-talent/