A few months after becoming co-owner of a home care franchise, I was on a call with one of our franchise coaches. She said something I have not forgotten: if you can find a veteran to bring into your office, do it. They are almost always exceptional.
I wrote that down. Then I did almost nothing with it. Not because I disagreed. We care for seniors, veterans, and people with disabilities at A Place at Home – North Austin. I see what service and sacrifice look like up close. I wanted veterans on my team. But in the grind of running a growing business, that goal stayed on the mental backburner while I focused on the fires directly in front of me.
That changed when I sat down with Isaac Marquez-Diaz on the Rock Solid podcast. Isaac is the Veteran Employer Liaison for the Texas Veterans Commission, based at the Workforce Solutions of Williamson County office right here in Round Rock. In less than 20 minutes, he reframed the way I think about hiring for growth.
What Military Training Actually Produces
Here is what most business owners do not know about veterans as employees. The military does not just train people for combat. It systematically breaks down who you are and rebuilds you as someone who executes under pressure, shows up regardless of circumstances, and operates with a sense of mission that most civilian workplaces never develop. The training is designed, from the start, to produce people who can be counted on when it matters.
Isaac described it this way: “When you become a soldier, you have missions. You have things that need to get done. You can have somebody reliable who is going to be a hard worker. Most of us, if you talk to veterans, we are broken, not because of the difficulty, but because we want to go so hard into making sure something gets done.”
Broken in the best possible sense. That is exactly the energy a growing business needs. Not employees who wait to be told what to do, but people who understand what the mission is and drive toward it without being managed every step of the way.
When you are scaling a business, the number one thing that accelerates or destroys your trajectory is the quality of your team. The first 10 or 20 people you bring on set the culture, the pace, and the standard. If you fill those seats with people who do not execute, do not hold the line, and need constant supervision, you spend all your time managing instead of building. Veterans solve a specific version of that problem. They arrive trained. They know how to operate in under-resourced, high-pressure environments. They are used to ambiguity and change. Those are not generic job skills. Those are the skills that make a team coachable and scalable.
The Award That Tells You Everything You Need to Know
Isaac was just named the 2026 Local Veterans Employment Representative of the Year by The American Legion’s Veterans Employment and Education Commission. That is a national award. He will be honored at The American Legion’s 107th National Convention in Louisville this summer.
The numbers behind it: a 60% Employer Effectiveness Ratio, 93 quality referrals and job placements, 116 employer outreaches, and 5 employer events in a single year. That is the output of someone who is genuinely good at what he does and deeply committed to the mission. And his mission aligns directly with yours: getting the right people into the right seats.
The point of sharing the award is not to impress you with a credential. The point is this: Round Rock has a world-class veteran employment connector, operating right here, available to any employer who picks up the phone. If you are building a business in this community and you are not talking to Isaac, you are leaving an advantage on the table.
The Resume Problem Nobody Talks About
There is a real friction point between veterans and civilian employers, and it runs in both directions. Veterans often undersell themselves because military culture trains you to attribute success to the team, not to yourself. They write “Sergeant, 82nd Airborne” on a resume without translating that into what it actually was: managing people, running operations, executing under pressure, and being held accountable for results at a level most civilian managers never experience.
A sergeant managing 10 people in a high-stakes environment is a manager. A commander is a director. The scope, the responsibility, and the accountability are all there. The civilian vocabulary is just missing.
Isaac helps veterans build that translation. But he also works with employers to read between the lines of a military resume and recognize the real experience on the page. If you have been screening candidates based on familiar job titles and familiar company names, you may have already passed on exceptional people. The question worth sitting with is: what criteria am I actually hiring for, and am I set up to see it when it shows up in a different package?
A Free Resource Hiding in Plain Sight
The Texas Veterans Commission is not a staffing agency. It is a state-funded resource, and every single thing Isaac does for employers is free. No invoice. No contract. No pitch. Job postings, resume translation, introductions, employer showcases, job fairs. All of it.
He works through WorkInTexas.com, the state job matching platform. Every veteran receiving unemployment benefits or state services is already in that system. As an employer, posting there puts you in front of a population of job seekers who have been pre-screened by the demands of military service itself. That is a different kind of candidate pool than what you find on most job boards.
Isaac also runs job fairs, including the statewide Hiring Red, White and You series, and employer showcase events where you present your business and openings directly to veterans who are job-ready and actively looking. On the podcast he mentioned that a company flew someone in from New York specifically to attend the Round Rock event. They saw something in this talent pool worth a cross-country trip. If you are a local entrepreneur, that employer was competing for your future hires and you were not even in the room.
The Call That Costs You Nothing
Isaac made one thing clear in our conversation: he is not trying to sell you anything. He is one of the rare government resources that is genuinely accessible, genuinely useful, and genuinely motivated by the outcome. He answers email. He is on LinkedIn. He picks up the phone.
If you are a growing entrepreneur and you are hiring in the next six months, the action is simple. Connect with Isaac Marquez-Diaz on LinkedIn or visit the Texas Veterans Commission to get started. Tell him what you are building, what you need, and let him show you what is available. You have nothing to lose and a better team to gain.
What story are you telling yourself about why you have not tapped into veteran talent yet? Is it real, or is it just unfamiliarity with where to look?
Listen to the full conversation on the Rock Solid podcast below.
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