{"id":64401,"date":"2018-10-02T22:04:56","date_gmt":"2018-10-02T22:04:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/marinecorpstimes\/uncategorized\/2018\/10\/02\/this-program-could-lead-to-it-careers-for-military-spouses-with-starting-salaries-of-70k\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T14:07:38","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T14:07:38","slug":"this-program-could-lead-to-it-careers-for-military-spouses-with-starting-salaries-of-70k","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/marinecorpstimes\/pay-benefits\/2018\/10\/02\/this-program-could-lead-to-it-careers-for-military-spouses-with-starting-salaries-of-70k\/","title":{"rendered":"This program could lead to IT careers for military spouses with starting salaries of $70K"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Some military spouses<\/a> in Washington state have started training for long-term portable careers in technology<\/a>, with average starting salaries of about $70,000 a year, under a free pilot program launched by Microsoft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 19 spouses, all from the military community at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington, are engaged in a 22-week training program in server and cloud administration, a high-demand field, according to Microsoft officials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Spouses who successfully complete the training are guaranteed an interview at Microsoft, or at one of the company\u2019s more than 360 hiring partners, many of whom are Fortune 500 companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve built a rock-solid program to create a successful environment so that a military spouse who wants to work in the IT industry, who wants to get a no-kidding good job, can go through a program like this and do just that,\u201d said Chris Cortez, a retired Marine Corps major general who is vice president of Microsoft Military Affairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Microsoft officials are focusing on this pilot program before considering expanding, said Cortez.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe really want this program to not only work well, but we\u2019d like to see all of these 19 spouses participating have a great experience and have a great outcome at the end of the course.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe know how talented military spouses are,\u201d said Cortez. He noted that more than 60 percent of spouses have an associate degree or higher. Yet military spouses are often unemployed or underemployed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe know they have a hard time landing the kind of jobs that a program like this would allow them to attempt to do. And we know it\u2019s because they move every two to three years. We\u2019re going to give them an opportunity through this pilot program that they don\u2019t necessarily have today,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe military spouse is super talented and represents a great potential in terms of an employee in the information technology industry,\u201d said Cortez. \u201cWe have a lot of good reasons to stand up this Military Spouse Technology Academy. This is the right program, at the right time, and I think military spouses are going to show how great they are.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\t