Mayor Alvin Brown announced Thursday afternoon what he calls a milestone for Jacksonville and its veterans.

The City of Jacksonvilles “Jobs for Veterans” web site, which launched in April when Deutsche Bank signed on as its first company partner, now has over one hundred companies on board.

“We’re connecting people to jobs,” Mayor Brown said at City Hall. “We’re making it happen.”

The web site, which can be found by CLICKING HERE, links veterans with opportunities for jobs, internships and education.

“At JP Morgan case, there are now three veterans in training,” Brown said.

The Mayor said they’re in the process of adding a new section to the web site which helps veterans get one-on-one counseling.  Mayor Brown said the city recently received a grant from the Department of Labor for counseling.

“And it’s all targeting to these veterans and making sure, you know, how do you write your resume, how do you communicate, how do you interview…and really make it user friendly,” Brown said.

“And I believe that one-on-one contact with the veterans, sitting down with them and walking through the process, is very important.”

Brown said not only does it help the local economy when vets can gets jobs and afford to buy houses and cars, “but it also allows us to keep that talent, that skilled workforce, to continue to attract other companies.”

He said the site is tracking thousands of hits a month but didn’t say the exactly figure.  He also said they’re working on a marketing plan to expand the number of members on the site.

Moving forward, Mayor Brown said they’re going to expand in ways to connect vets to opportunities.

 “For example to access to capital and credit,” he said.

At the news conference, Brown recognized Kyle Lumpiesz, a U.S. Army veteran currently in training with the Workforce Opportunities Services Program as a Claims Processor and who will soon be hired by Prudential.

Also present was Michael Fleming, CEO of Deutsche Bank’s Jacksonville center, who said they’ve already hired a number of veterans.

“The veterans we’re hiring now have both specific technical skills,” he said.  “The person we hired to run our new I.T. command center is a veteran.  We have veterans hired because of their leadership skills, technical skills…just a variety of reasons we hire veterans.”

Fleming said he worked with Admiral Victor Guillory to develop the web site and wants to have companies take part in it.

“And we do,” he said.

Mayor Brown said one of every four people in Jacksonville is directly connected to the armed services.

Again, the Jobs for Vets site can be found by CLICKING HERE.