You run a midsize company in the Kansas City metro. You need people who can plan, lead, and run a team without hand-holding. That talent is sitting 30 minutes northwest of downtown, at Fort Leavenworth.

Fort Leavenworth is not a normal Army post. It is the schoolhouse for the people who run the Army. Officers and senior enlisted leaders rotate through to learn planning, strategy, and how to lead at scale. Some of them separate here. Many stay in the area.

That gives KC employers a steady local pool of trained leaders. The catch is most companies do not know how to find them or read their resumes. This guide fixes that. It covers who lives near the post. It shows what their experience means. And it shows how to hire them without a giant program.

Why is Fort Leavenworth different from other Army posts?

Most Army posts train units to fight. Fort Leavenworth trains the leaders who run those units. The Army itself calls it the "Intellectual Center of the Army." That label is earned.

The post is home to the U.S. Army Combined Arms Center. It also runs the Command and General Staff College, or CGSC. CGSC has trained officers since 1881. The Army calls it "America's School for War."

Here is what that means for you. Every year, hundreds of mid-career officers go through advanced leadership school here. They learn planning, operations, and how to run large, complex efforts. These are the people the Army picks to lead next.

It is also the second oldest active Army post west of Washington, D.C. The base has deep roots in the area. Families settle here. People put down stakes. So when these leaders leave the service, a lot of them want to stay in the Kansas City region.

Who lives near the post that you can actually hire?

Not everyone at Fort Leavenworth is a general in training. The talent base is wider than that. You will find a few clear groups in the local market.

First, separating field-grade officers. These are majors and lieutenant colonels. They have led companies and run staff sections. They plan, brief leaders, and manage budgets and people. In a company, they map to program managers, operations managers, and directors.

Second, senior NCOs. These are sergeants first class and master sergeants. They are the hands-on leaders who run day-to-day work. They train teams, fix problems, and keep things moving. They map to shift leads, site supervisors, and operations roles.

Third, military spouses. A leadership-heavy post means a lot of educated, experienced spouses in the area. Many have their own degrees and careers. They are looking for steady local work and they tend to stay.

Why does this matter for a Kansas City employer?

The Kansas City metro spreads across two states. Leavenworth County sits on the north end. The post is close enough that a worker can live by the base and commute to KC jobs. That makes this a local hiring market, not a relocation play.

For a midsize company, that is the whole point. You do not need to fly people in. You do not need a giant program. You need to reach people who already live here and want to work here.

This is a tight talent market. The 2025 veteran unemployment rate was just 3.5%, below the 4.2% nonveteran rate, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Good veterans get hired fast. So speed matters.

This is also where you beat the big players. Fortune 500 firms run national veteran programs. They cast wide and slow. You can move fast and hire local. A separating major in Leavenworth wants a real offer, not a six-month recruiting funnel.

I served as a Navy Diver and spent years on the federal hiring side after that. The pattern is always the same. The best leaders get snapped up by whoever moves first. They want to be treated like a person, not a checkbox.

How do you read a Fort Leavenworth resume?

This is where most employers trip. The resume comes in full of rank, unit names, and Army terms. Your screen does not know what to do with it. So strong candidates get passed over.

The fix is simple. Read for the work, not the words. Ignore the unit name. Look at what the person actually did. How many people did they lead? How big was the budget? What did they plan or run?

A CGSC graduate may write that they "served as a battalion operations officer." Strip away the title. That person ran planning and daily operations for a unit of several hundred people. That is an operations manager. The work is right there once you translate it.

Want a deeper method for this? Our guide on how to evaluate a veteran's resume walks through it step by step. We also cover reading a military job title on a resume so the titles stop tripping you up.

How should you weigh officers versus senior NCOs?

Leavenworth gives you both. They are not the same hire. Knowing the difference saves you from over-paying for one or under-using the other.

Officers bring broad leadership and planning. They are used to setting direction and managing through other people. They fit director, program manager, and senior operations roles. They read as "big picture" on paper.

Senior NCOs bring deep, hands-on execution. They are the ones who made the plan actually happen. They fit supervisor, team lead, and operations roles where the work gets done. They read as "concrete" on paper.

Do not let rank alone set the pay grade. An officer is not automatically more senior than an NCO for your role. Match the person to the seat. Compare scope, not pay grade.

For a real method on this, read how to compare officer and enlisted experience. If the open seat is a leadership role, our guide on hiring military officers for director-level roles goes deeper.

Does your applicant system hurt you here?

It can. Your applicant tracking system does not throw out military resumes. But it racks and stacks them by keyword match. A resume full of Army terms can sink to the bottom and never surface.

So a strong Leavenworth candidate applies. The system reads "MDMP" and "S-3" and finds no match for your job. The resume drops down the pile. A weaker but better-worded resume floats up. You never see the leader you wanted.

The fix is to search both languages. When you post for an "operations manager," also search for "operations officer." When you want a "supervisor," search "NCO" and "platoon sergeant." Build your screen to catch both worlds.

How do you actually reach this talent?

You do not need a big budget. You need to be where these people already are and move when they are ready. Here is a simple path for a midsize KC employer.

SkillBridge is worth a closer look if you can host. The member is free to your payroll during the internship. You get a real working tryout before any offer. Learn the mechanics in our guide on how to become a SkillBridge host company. The official program lives at skillbridge.mil.

And start early. The best leaders line up their next job well before their last day. Our guide on how to source veterans before their separation date shows you how.

What about other bases near Kansas City?

Fort Leavenworth is the anchor, but it is not the only source. The wider region feeds the metro too. If you hire in KC, think across the Midwest hub.

Scott Air Force Base sits east of St. Louis, a few hours away. It is a major logistics and command hub. Many of those members and families land in the broader region. We cover that market in how to hire veterans in St. Louis.

If your company hires across more than one base region, the same playbook scales. Fort Campbell, further southeast, is another deep pool. See how to recruit veterans near Fort Campbell for that one.

How do you keep a Leavenworth hire once you land one?

Hiring is half the job. These leaders came from a place with clear missions and high standards. If your onboarding is vague, they will get restless fast.

Give them a real plan. Tell them what good looks like in the first month, the first quarter, and the first half-year. Veterans respond to clear goals. They have run to standards their whole career.

A simple 30-60-90 plan does most of the work. It sets expectations and gives them a target. Our guide on using a 30-60-90 plan to onboard a veteran manager lays it out.

What roles do these veterans fill best?

It helps to map the talent to real openings. A KC employer rarely posts for a "battalion operations officer." But you do post for the civilian version of that job. Here is how the match works.

Program and project management is the strongest fit. Field-grade officers plan and run large efforts for a living. They track timelines, budgets, and people. A program manager seat fits them well. So does an operations manager role.

Site and shift leadership is the senior NCO sweet spot. These leaders ran teams in hard conditions. They train people, hold standards, and fix problems fast. A plant supervisor or warehouse lead is a clean match.

Logistics and supply roles fit a wide range of these veterans. The Army moves people and gear on tight clocks. That skill transfers straight to distribution, fleet, and supply work. For a deeper look, see our guide on hiring veterans for logistics and supply chain roles.

The point is to look past the uniform. The work translates once you know how to read it. A trained Army leader is a trained leader. The KC metro has a steady supply of them right next door.

Where do you start?

You do not need to build a veteran program from scratch. You need a way to reach the right people. The best candidates already live near the post. They already have a civilian-ready resume.

That is what we built. Best Military Resume runs a growing pool of veteran candidates. We add over 1,000 new profiles every month, and members have built more than 60,000 resumes through the platform. Many of them are in the Kansas City region right now.

You skip the cold search. You reach people who have already translated their military work into plain civilian terms. That alone saves you the resume-decoding problem this whole guide describes.

If you want to hire trained leaders near Fort Leavenworth, reach out to access BMR's veteran talent pool. We will help you connect with candidates who fit your roles and your market.