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Town hires Pereira as new veterans’ services officer

Date: 1/14/2016

LONGMEADOW – The town recently hired Jesus Pereira as the new veterans’ services officer (VSO).

Pereira is a resident of Holyoke and was recently named the city’s Veteran of the Year for 2015.

Pereira told Reminder Publications he served in the Massachusetts Army National Guard for 20 years and was named veteran of the year due to his work with Vet Air, a nonprofit organization that he founded, which provides small aircraft transportation to veterans that need to reach health appointments that are sometimes hundreds of miles away from where they live.

“That entails a slew of private pilots that are available to fly the personal aircraft, pick the veteran up at a local airport where they live, and then fly them to an airport near where their appointment may be,” he added.

Periera said he’s been a non-commissioned officer in the Massachusetts Army National Guard for 15 years and during that time he’s learned about the availability of state and federal benefits for veterans.

He said as the town’s VSO he wants to make sure local veterans understand what benefits are available for them.

“We want to increase the amount of veterans using the system in which they are basically entitled to,” Pereira said. “I have a big goal of reaching out to the younger veterans in town ... and I want to build a strong community of veterans here in the town.”

Town Manager Stephen Crane said there are approximately 1,000 veterans in the town.

The town’s previous VSO, Paul Seifert, was hired by Longmeadow in August 2014. He left the position for a similar one in Springfield in October. Seifert took over the job from Anthony Lawrence, who had at the time recently graduated from the Springfield Fire Academy. Lawrence was hired in April 2014.

“The veterans’ [service] officer has unfortunately been a position where we haven’t been able to have somebody stick with long-term,” Crane said. “One of the things we’ve talked with each of them, ‘Are there veterans in the younger generation – the Afghanistan [or] Iraq [War] age in town and if so how do we connect with them?’”

He continued, “Right now we have a veterans circle that’s heavy with Vietnam [War] era veterans, which is great and they provide great support for the older veterans in the community, but there really is a disconnect to the younger generation.”

Crane said one of the things that stood out in Pereira’s interview were ideas to “bridge that gap.”

Pereira said he plans to utilize social media to interact with local veterans.

Crane said the town received 10 applicants for the position and several veterans were among the applicant pool. The town completed two rounds of interviews and also assessed candidates on their computer skills.

“In addition to doing outreach, this position is essentially the equivalent of a department head and needs to be able to do reporting and have some skills in terms of budgeting,” he added. “Jesus really excelled in all phases of the screening process.”

Pereira said he believes a military background is vital to do the job.

“You really need to sympathize with some of these veterans – especially male veterans – and I hate to point them out, but the reality is that we were bred to be tough and not ask for help and suck it up and drive on when things get bad,” he said. “We don’t reach out for help when we need it knowing that there’s benefits out there that can help us during our hard times. It’s something that we need to teach these ex-soldiers, Marines [and] sailors.”