You run hiring at a midsize company in the Sacramento area. You need people who show up, lead, and get the job done. There is a feeder you may be walking past. It sits in Fairfield, off Interstate 80, between Sacramento and the Bay. It is Travis Air Force Base. Every year, trained airmen separate from Travis and start looking for civilian work. Most of them want to stay local.

Sacramento makes this even better. California has the largest veteran population of any state, over 1.8 million former service members. The Sacramento metro alone holds more than 1.5 million people across four counties. Two old Air Force bases, McClellan and Mather, closed years ago and turned into civilian job hubs. So the region is thick with veterans, not just the ones leaving Travis this year.

This guide shows you how to find and hire that talent. It is built for a midsize hiring team, not a Fortune 500 program. You will learn what Travis trains. You will learn where the people gather before they separate. And you will learn how to read a military resume. That last skill matters. It keeps you from passing on a strong hire by mistake.

Why is Travis AFB a strong veteran feeder?

Travis is not a small post. It hosts the 60th Air Mobility Wing, the largest air mobility wing in the Air Force. The mission is global airlift and air refueling. That mission needs a lot of skilled people to run it.

The base flies a fleet of three big aircraft: the C-5M Super Galaxy, the C-17 Globemaster III, and the KC-46A Pegasus. Keeping those jets in the air takes maintainers, logistics teams, and supply experts. Travis is also the West Coast hub for aeromedical evacuation. That means it moves sick and injured patients home from across the Pacific. So the base runs deep in medical and patient-movement skills too.

On top of all that, Travis hosts David Grant USAF Medical Center. It is a teaching hospital. That adds nurses, techs, and health administrators to the local mix. You can read more about the wing's mission on the official Travis AFB site.

See the pattern. The skills Travis builds map straight onto jobs you are trying to fill. Logistics. Supply chain. Aviation maintenance. Healthcare support. Operations. These are not soft, vague skills. They are the daily work of a global airlift base.

Is the Sacramento area more than just Travis?

Yes. Travis is the live feeder, the fresh talent leaving the uniform this year. But the wider Sacramento region holds a much larger pool of veterans who already live and work here.

Look at the history. McClellan Air Force Base ran as a logistics depot for over 60 years. At its peak it employed about 34,000 people. It closed in 2001 and became McClellan Business Park. Today that park holds over 240 companies and more than 15,000 jobs. Many of those workers are veterans who chose to stay.

Mather Air Force Base closed in 1993. The site became Mather Airport. The old base hospital became a VA Medical Center. So the region still pulls veterans in for VA care and the jobs around it. Then add the state capital. It brings government work and federal offices. So veterans move to this metro on purpose.

So your local pool is bigger than one base. You have this year's separating airmen and a large standing population. For a midsize firm, that is a steady supply you can tap again and again. If you want to size your own pool, this guide to your local veteran talent pool walks through it.

Are veterans worth the effort to recruit?

The numbers say yes. Veterans show up to work and stay. Recent federal data backs this up.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks veteran employment each year. In 2025, the jobless rate for Gulf War-era II veterans was 3.6 percent. Male veterans from that group sat at 3.4 percent. That was lower than male nonveterans at 4.3 percent. You can see the full report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

That group is also large. Gulf War-era II veterans made up 33 percent of all veterans in 2025, about 5.6 million people. So this is not a tiny niche. It is a big, active part of the workforce.

What you get with these hires is structure. They learned to lead, follow a process, and own a task. They worked under pressure and kept the standard. For a midsize team that needs steady performers, that fits well. The trick is reaching them and reading their resumes right.

Where do you find Travis veterans before they separate?

Timing matters. The best moment to reach a separating airman is months before they leave. By then they are building a resume and looking at job options. You want to be in front of them at that point, not after they have signed somewhere else.

Here is a simple plan a midsize team can run.

The base transition office is a real channel. The Department of Labor runs employer support for hiring veterans, and you can start at the DOL VETS employer page. On the state side, you have two options. CalVet employment services and the California EDD veteran services both have staff. They help employers connect with veterans. For more on the transition-office channel, see our guide to recruiting through base TAP offices.

How do you read a Travis airman's resume?

This is where good candidates get lost. A military resume is full of terms that do not match civilian job titles. The skill is there. The words just need translating. If you read past a strong hire because of the wording, that is a miss on your side, not theirs.

Take a maintainer from Travis. Their resume might say they served as a crew chief on the C-17. In plain terms, that person led a team that kept a multi-million dollar aircraft safe and mission-ready. That is a maintenance supervisor. The same logic applies to a supply or aerial port airman. They moved cargo across the globe on a deadline. That is logistics and supply chain work.

One more point on tools. You may use an applicant tracking system to sort resumes. Know how it works. An ATS racks and stacks resumes by keyword match. A veteran's resume full of military terms can sink to the bottom of the list. It does not get rejected. It just ranks low. So search for the skill, not the exact civilian phrase, and you will surface people other employers skip.

BMR helps here. Veterans on the platform build civilian-ready resumes that translate the military terms for you. So when you search the pool, you see the skill spelled out. Want a deeper read on this? Our piece on hiring for aircraft MRO roles covers the aviation maintenance side in detail.

Which Sacramento roles fit Travis talent best?

Match the role to the mission. Travis builds people in a few clear lanes. Aim your reqs at those lanes first.

The Sacramento market has demand in all of these. Warehouses and distribution centers sit along the I-80 and I-5 corridors. Healthcare systems hire across the metro. Government and federal offices need operations and IT people. So the supply from Travis and the demand in Sacramento line up well.

Think about how close the feeder is. Travis sits in Fairfield, a short drive from both Sacramento and the Bay. A separating airman can take a job in your area without a long move. That matters. Many veterans want to stay near the base and the people they know. A local job lets them do that. So your offer carries extra weight when the work is close to home.

For the logistics side, our guide on hiring veterans for logistics and supply chain roles gives you the full play. It pairs well with this local guide.

How do you compete for this talent as a midsize firm?

You do not need a giant program to win here. You need to move fast and be clear. Big firms are often slow. That is your edge.

First, move quickly. A separating airman has a hard date. They cannot wait three weeks for a callback. If you reply fast and keep the process tight, you beat slower firms to the offer.

Second, write a plain job posting. Drop the buzzwords. Say what the job does, what it pays, and where it is. A clear posting reads better to a veteran who is new to civilian hiring. Then back it with a real sourcing channel so you are not just waiting on inbound clicks.

Third, build a pipeline, not a one-time search. Stay in the veteran channel so you have people ready before a req opens. Our guide to building a veteran talent pipeline shows how. For the full sourcing strategy, see our veteran recruiting playbook.

If you also recruit near other bases, the same approach works. Our guide on how to recruit veterans near San Diego's military bases is the Southern California version of this play.

How does BMR connect you to Sacramento veterans?

BMR is where veterans build their civilian resumes. That gives you a live, growing pool of candidates who have already done the translation work. You see the skill spelled out, ready to match against your reqs.

The pool stays fresh. BMR adds over 1,000 new veteran profiles every month. More than 60,000 resumes have been built on the platform. That is a deep, current supply you can search by skill and location. For a Sacramento employer, that means access to Travis-area talent and the wider regional veteran population in one place.

You do not have to wait for the right airman to find your posting. You can go to the pool, filter for the skill you need, and reach out. Ready to start? Visit our hire page to access BMR's veteran talent pool. You can also learn about partnering with us to build a longer-term hiring channel.

The Sacramento area gives you a rare mix. A live feeder at Travis. A deep standing population across the metro. And a market with real demand in the exact lanes veterans train in. Build the channel now, and you will have strong candidates ready the next time you need them.