Inside Margarita Howard’s HX5 SkillBridge Pipeline

The Air Force changed the math of military-to-civilian hiring this spring. On March 31, 2026, the Department of the Air Force began capping how long airmen and guardians can spend in the Defense Department’s SkillBridge program before they leave the service, tying the maximum to rank.   

Junior enlisted members and officers through the rank of O-3 can train for up to 120 days; more senior personnel are held to 90. The earlier policy let nearly everyone use the full 180-day window. For a contractor that recruits through SkillBridge, the change shortens the runway for turning a transitioning service member into a hire.   

Margarita Howard, founder and chief executive of HX5, has spent five years running a veteran pipeline built to work inside that kind of limit.  

HX5 is a defense and aerospace services contractor that Howard started in 2004. It employs close to 1,000 people, working primarily with the Department of Defense and NASA. Veterans account for more than 30% of that workforce. Howard, an Air Force veteran, tends to describe that share as a point of pride but, also as a fix for a recruiting problem her corner of the industry has struggled to solve any other way.  

How a SkillBridge Placement Becomes a Cleared Role at HX5  

HX5 entered the SkillBridge network in 2021 through the Hiring Our Heroes Corporate Fellowship Program, a twelve-week track that places a service member with an employer four days a week and reserves the fifth for professional development.   

Through that program, the Defense Department keeps paying the fellow’s military salary and benefits until the end of active duty, so the host company carries no direct labor cost. But the fellow steps into an actual assignment rather than a shadowing arrangement, and is measured against the same standards as the permanent staff working beside them.  

Howard hires two Hiring Our Heroes Corporate Fellowship Program fellows a year rather than running a large intake. Each placement is matched to a specific contract and a specific clearance requirement, so the twelve weeks function as a working tryout in both directions. The company learns whether a fellow’s background maps onto the program they would actually staff, while the fellow learns whether the role and the site are what they want. When the fit holds, the fellowship can convert into a permanent, cleared position, and the candidate starts that job already knowing the team and the contract.  

Government Experience Shortens the Onboarding Curve  

The reason the model pays off is what a candidate brings on the first day. A fellow transitioning out of uniform usually arrives with an active security clearance and, more important, with firsthand knowledge of how a government program actually runs: how a contracting officer evaluates performance, what a compliance deadline means when an agency mission depends on it, how a secured environment differs from a commercial office. Those are the parts of the job that take a strong commercial hire months to absorb, and that a service member has already lived. At the site level, that experience compresses onboarding from a long ramp into a short one.  

It is also why Howard guards hiring so closely. She has said the hardest responsibility for her to delegate as the company grew was personnel, because “much of our success has been because of the people that we’ve hired.” What she eventually handed off was the volume, not the standard. The job, as she came to see it, was “less about being involved in every single hire and more about creating a culture, finding people that would share our vision, support our mission.” A veteran who has spent a career inside the mission tends to clear that bar before the interview starts.  

Once a fellow converts, HX5 leans on the same internal machinery it uses to hold knowledge in a workforce where many employees stay a decade or more.   

“We also have our mentorship programs where senior employees mentor newer hires, ensuring that knowledge transfers happen quickly and consistently from within,” Howard said.   

Margarita Howard’s Practical Case for Veteran Hiring  

The market explains the urgency. Cleared, technically credentialed talent has been the binding constraint across aerospace and defense for years, and the candidates HX5 needs sit at the narrow intersection of clearance, technical skill, and direct agency experience. SkillBridge delivers people who already hold the clearance and the experience, which is why Howard treats veteran hiring as workforce strategy rather than goodwill.   

The approach has a federal scorecard behind it. In 2025 the Department of Labor awarded HX5 its HIRE Vets Gold Medallion, the government’s only veteran-employment recognition tied to measured hiring and retention rather than intent. The 30% veteran share and a high fellowship-to-hire conversion rate are the kind of numbers that distinction rewards.  

But those results now have to be produced in a tighter environment. The Defense Department has tightened the criteria partner organizations must meet and pushed them toward structured enrollment and real hiring commitments, and the Air Force’s new rank-based caps shorten the time a fellow has to begin with. A program built around bulk intake and open-ended auditions has less room than it did a year ago. A program built the way Howard built hers, small, matched to specific roles, and aimed at conversion from the outset, is largely already operating to the standard the rules now require.