The In Gear concept was conceived by Haley Uthlaut to address the needs of career-minded military spouses which were not being served by the existing Military Spouse Employment Programs. Haley approached Donna Huneycutt and Lauren Weiner, the owners of Wittenberg-Weiner Consulting, LLC, to support her in this venture. With their leadership and assistance, and the efforts of some committed Military Spouse volunteers, In Gear was established. This is Haley's story:

Letter from the Director

I am a 30-year-old military spouse, a veteran, a Gold Star wife, mother, and the Executive Director of the nonprofit In Gear Career.  People often ask me why I am passionate about military spouse employment and why I started In Gear Career.  Simply - I care deeply about our Armed Forces and their families.  My personal experience and research leads me to believe that addressing military spouse employment issues will improve the quality of life for our service members.

As a military spouse, my employment has helped me to be resilient. While my husband was deployed, work kept me busy and alleviated some of the deployment stress associated with waiting and wondering.  After my first husband was killed in Iraq, I was devastated. I felt like I had been knocked down in life to say the least.  I have a strong support network through my faith, family, and friends, and they helped me along my personal journey of grief. Another important healing mechanism was my decision to go back to work; a choice that helped me define how I would respond in the face of tragedy.

Throughout my time in the military and as a military spouse, I’ve come across many talented spouses who have been unable to find work appropriate to their level of education, experience, and aptitude.  Many spouses and widows stay at home for the majority of their married life, which limits their ability to re-enter the workforce should they want or need to if their service member is killed or wounded. Staying at home is wonderful if that is what the spouse is called to do, but should military spouses want to work, then I’d like to enable them in the process. 

I identified a gap in services provided to military families because many of the employment related resources were targeted at entry level or “pink-collar” positions.  Many of those options do not work for military spouses. I dreamt of creating systematic change that would not only inform spouses, employers, and academia about the issues facing the professional military spouse but also provide solutions through the nonprofit I co-founded: In Gear Career.

By improving the employment situation for spouses, I hope to improve the quality of life for our military families. I aspire to help make spouses more resilient, happy, satisfied, and financially independent, which will have positive impacts on retention and the quality of the force as well.

Please join me on the journey.

Sincerely,

Haley Uthlaut

In Gear Career

Executive Director