Stann continues to serve military roots by aiding veterans

When Brian Stann began fighting, there was something missing from his life.

He had gone from playing middle linebacker at Navy to an infantry officer in the Marine Corps, and the transition to mixed martial arts -- where he would become the WEC light heavyweight champion and a UFC star -- forced Stann to change his focus.

"I went from an environment where you're concerned about everybody but yourself, because in the military, officers come last, you do everything last," he said. "As a fighter, you kind of have to put yourself first. It's different, it's totally different."

Then along came Hire Heroes USA, an Alpharetta, Ga.-based firm that works to find employment for United States military veterans and their spouses. Stann joined the nonprofit organization in 2009 and serves as its president and CEO.

"This was my opportunity to be a part of something again and to really give back to a community that I feel built the foundation of who I am as a man and who I am as a husband and a father," Stann said.

Stann's journey from the Naval Academy trough his MMA career and into the broadcast booth for UFC on FOX is chronicled in FOX Sports South's "DRIVEN -- Brian Stann: All American." (CLICK HERE FOR AIR DATES).

Founded in 2005, Hire Heroes USA uses personalized employment training that helps veterans with everything from writing a resume line by line -- including how to translate their military experience and expertise for potential employers -- to setting up a LinkedIn page and teaching them how to interview for a job.

"When you get out of the military, these are things that are really foreign to you," Stann said. "Even me as an officer, my first resume was terrible. I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do or even what to say."

Through Google, one of the organization's corporate partners, Hire Heroes USA discovered it was one of 47,000 veteran service organizations. But, as Stann says, what sets his group apart and what has made it so successful is "being very good at what we say we're supposed to be good at."

They do it all with a full-time staff of 35 employees, over 75 percent of which are veterans themselves. Hire Heroes USA spends 137 hours a year at different military installations across the country and off U.S. soil -- this week it is educating active personnel at an Army base in Germany -- through its partnership with United Service Organizations. Stann estimates they average about three such seminars a week.

The proof is in the numbers as this week Hire Heroes USA announced that a total of 90 veterans had been hired in the past two weeks, with 54 in the week that ended Aug. 23. That put it track for more than 1,500 hires this year.

Said Stann: "You know how long it takes to sit down next to somebody who has no idea what to put on a resume and then build it line by line? And then amount of care and the compassion it takes to be able to do that with someone and be patient, especially if that person happens to have a traumatic brain injury or they're just frustrated with their situation.

"That's the kind of people we have on staff and that's the kind of effort and passion it takes to get to numbers like that."

Stann retired from the octagon in 2013 with a record of 12-6, with final fight coming on March 3, 2013, when he lost to Wanderlei Silva by a second-round knockout. He had claimed the WEC light heavyweight title on March 26, 2008 with a knockout of Doug Marshall and made his UFC debut in '09.

As Stann said of his UFC career in DRIVEN, it was always about paying tribute to his fellow Marines.

"I wanted to make sure that when I won and I had those successful times, those were times that I needed to cherish those men I served with that didn't make it," he said. "That's when I needed to memorialize them -- because without them I may not be here."

He is no longer fighting, but Stann has found a way to continue to honor those military roots.