TAMPA, Fla.—DAV (Disabled American Veterans) has named Virtual Service Operations (VSO), a Virginia-based company that takes a veterans-first mentality to recruiting and hiring employees, its Small Employer of the Year. VSO representatives will receive the award Aug. 1 during the 2021 DAV and Auxiliary National Convention in Tampa, Florida.

VSO has developed a methodology to train and deploy a veteran-based workforce to provide architecture, migration and managed services. The company’s leadership has successfully trained veterans to transform and manage some of the largest IT enterprises. VSO was selected over numerous other businesses with fewer than 250 employees competing for the national-level honor.

More than one-quarter of the VSO workforce is veterans, with approximately 25% of those employees considered to be disabled veterans. VSO prides itself in offering most, if not all, new positions to veterans and disabled veterans.

“We have partnerships with several veteran organizations, both private and government-based,” said VSO CEO Steve O’Keefe. “This allows us to facilitate prioritizing veteran candidate hires. These programs, along with our recruiting process, help us identify and locate veterans at all skill levels to fulfill valuable positions within the company.”

In addition to veteran recruitment and employment efforts, VSO engages with all veteran employees personally, making sure their career paths are on the right track. Each veteran is assigned a mentor who provides IT career path guidance, ensuring the veteran’s success.

“We’re thankful VSO is helping ensure the promise our country made to the men and women who served is kept,” said DAV National Commander Stephen “Butch” Whitehead. “They know hiring veterans is smart business and professionally nurture and promote veterans in a truly unique way.”


About DAV
DAV empowers veterans to lead high-quality lives with respect and dignity. It is dedicated to a single purpose: keeping our promise to America’s veterans. DAV does this by ensuring that veterans and their families can access the full range of benefits available to them, fighting for the interests of America’s injured heroes on Capitol Hill, providing employment resources to veterans and their families, and educating the public about the great sacrifices and needs of veterans transitioning back to civilian life. DAV, a nonprofit organization with more than 1 million veteran members, was founded in 1920 and chartered by the U.S. Congress in 1932.