Posted: August 13, 2025
NORTHWEST FLORIDA – Florida’s Great Northwest (FGNW) has launched a marketing campaign, “Military Talent: Mission-Ready Veterans, Business-Ready Results.” The campaign, built around a new study by the University of West Florida Haas Center, aims to emphasize Northwest Florida's deep talent pool of transitioning military personnel and veterans. These highly trained individuals represent a unique and valuable workforce, delivering mission-ready skills and business-ready results to employers in Northwest Florida.
The study’s data is housed on FGNW’s Military Talent Dashboard, now serving as a key economic development recruitment tool for Northwest Florida. Funded by the FloridaCommerce Defense Reinvestment Grant, the study provides a comprehensive, data-driven report on military metrics and post-service workforce information in Northwest Florida.
The study provided FGNW with three major takeaways:
1. On average, 5,200 service members transition out of Northwest Florida’s military installations each year – significantly higher than previous estimates.
2. Nearly 60% of those military members hold a bachelor’s degree or higher.
3. Over 47% of transitioning military members plan to remain in the region, and 19% are undecided.
“This data is a game-changer, allowing us to powerfully describe this pool of pre-trained, disciplined, untapped talent pipeline to companies in our target industry sectors,” said Jennifer Conoley, President & CEO of Florida’s Great Northwest. “The Military Talent Dashboard underscores Northwest Florida’s strategic advantage as a place where employers have access to highly-skilled professionals who are ready for their next career.”
"I want to commend Florida’s Great Northwest for launching this campaign, a campaign laser-focused on unlocking opportunity for our veterans and for our economy," said Florida Secretary of Commerce J. Alex Kelly. “Northwest Florida has long been a center of defense excellence, supporting our heroes and their families, and FloridaCommerce was grateful to have supported this endeavor with a Defense Reinvestment Grant to seed the necessary research for this campaign to recruit and retain our military expertise in the civilian workforce.”
The FGNW Military Talent Dashboard is a dynamic report that provides essential data for business attraction and expansion efforts in Northwest Florida. As the business attraction marketing arm for the 13-county region, FGNW has used this data to create marketing materials for the new “Military Talent: Mission-Ready Veterans, Business-Ready Results” marketing campaign. This initiative aims to build on FGNW's success in lead generation, which has resulted in over 1,400 announced high-skill, high-wage jobs in the last five years.
“The UWF Haas Center was proud to support FGNW on this important mission of promoting Northwest Florida’s hidden talent pipeline,” said Nicole Gislason, Executive Director of the University of West Florida Haas Center. “This is a strategic win for both our economy and our communities, leveraging 伊人直播app military separation data to support economic growth.”
To visit the dashboard and learn more about the campaign, visit www.FGNWTalent.com.
Florida’s Great Northwest is the 伊人直播app economic development organization for the Florida Panhandle. The organization was created to promote Northwest Florida for economic growth and diversification, advocate for economic development issues that affect the region, and collaborate to improve 伊人直播app competitiveness. The organization accomplishes this in partnership with the state and local economic development organizations, rural 伊人直播app economic development organization, utility partners, private sector businesses, local government, higher education institutions, workforce boards, and community leaders.
