Tucson has a hiring edge that most local companies sleep on. Every year, hundreds of airmen separate from Davis-Monthan Air Force Base. They live here. Their kids go to school here. Their spouse has a job here. And a lot of them want to stay in Tucson when the uniform comes off.

That is a ready-made talent pool. These are people who fix aircraft, run supply chains, and lead teams under pressure. Most of them never relocate far. They just need a local employer who knows how to find them.

This guide is built for the Tucson hiring manager. Maybe you run a midsize company. You do not have a big veteran-hiring program or a recruiter who only sources veterans. You just want strong, steady people who show up and lead. Davis-Monthan turns those people out every single month. Here is how to reach them, read them right, and hire them before someone else does.

What kind of veteran talent comes off Davis-Monthan?

Davis-Monthan is the home of the 355th Wing. For decades, the base was the center of A-10C Thunderbolt II operations. The A-10 training mission wound down in 2026 as the Air Force phased out the platform. But pilots are a tiny slice of the people who work there. For every pilot, there are dozens of airmen who kept the jets flying and the base running. Those maintainers, technicians, and logistics specialists are the ones separating into the Tucson job market.

The 355th Maintenance Group has supported a large fleet over the years. That fleet included the A-10 Thunderbolt II and the EC-130H Compass Call. The EC-130H was replaced by the EA-37B in 2024. The base also runs rescue aircraft including the HH-60W and HC-130J, per base fact sheets. That is a lot of hands-on technical work. Here is where the talent skews.

One caution. Tucson is a real city, not just a base town. Not every veteran here is a mechanic. You will find security, medical, admin, and IT people too. So read each resume for the work the person did. Do not assume the job from the unit name. The base is the source. The resume tells you the fit.

Why are these strong hires for a Tucson company?

Start with the numbers. Veterans show up to work and they stay. In 2025, the jobless rate for all veterans was 3.5 percent, lower than the 4.2 percent rate for non-veterans, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That tells you this is a group employers want.

But the real win is local. An airman leaving Davis-Monthan has roots in Tucson. They are not weighing a job in another state. They want to stay. That means lower flight risk and faster ramp-up. You are not paying to relocate anyone.

You also get someone who works clean. Aircraft maintainers do not get to "mostly" finish a job. The jet flies or it does not. That habit carries into your shop. So does the leadership. A staff sergeant who ran a 10-person crew already knows how to train people, run a shift, and own a safety record.

Here is the part midsize companies miss. You do not need Air Force pay or a Fortune 500 brand to win these hires. What veterans value is a clear role, a real path, and a boss who respects the work. You can beat the big names on speed and clarity. Move fast and tell them exactly where the job goes.

How do you read a maintenance airman's resume?

This is where good hires get missed. A maintenance airman's resume often reads like a different language. It is full of jets, codes, and acronyms. The instinct is to skim past it. Do not. Slow down and translate the work.

Take a real example. An aircraft mechanic might write that they were an "AGE journeyman, 355th MXG, ran flightline support equipment, CDI on a 12-person shop." Strip that down. They maintained heavy support equipment. They led quality checks. They supervised a dozen people. That is a maintenance lead and a shift supervisor.

One more trap. If you use a resume system, watch how it screens. These tools rack and stack resumes by keyword. They do not reject anyone. But a strong airman can sink to the bottom of your list over one word. Their resume says "munitions" and your job says "inventory control." Same skill, different word.

So search for both languages. When you write a req, list the military term and the civilian term side by side. You will surface people your competitors filter past. For a deeper walk-through, see our guide on how to evaluate a veteran's resume and how to write a job description that attracts veterans.

Where do you find separating airmen around Tucson?

You do not have to guess. There are clear local channels that put you in front of Davis-Monthan talent before they leave. Most cost you nothing but time.

Start with the base transition office. Every base runs a program for members who are about to separate. Local employers can build a relationship with that office and get in front of cohorts on a regular basis. Our guide to recruiting through base transition offices walks through how to do it the right way.

Next is SkillBridge. This is a Department of Defense program. It lets a service member spend their final months at a civilian company. They do this in place of their normal duties. You can read the official rules at skillbridge.osd.mil. It is a powerful tool. But read the next part carefully.

To become a host, you sign up as an authorized provider. We cover the full path in our guide on how to become a SkillBridge host company. You can also find members who are already searching through the SkillBridge provider directory.

Tucson sits in good company on this. Other base-heavy metros run the same play. If you want to see how nearby Air Force markets do it, our Phoenix and Luke Air Base guide and our Las Vegas and Nellis guide use this same approach.

How do you reach them before they separate?

Timing is the whole game. The best Davis-Monthan talent is gone within weeks of separating. If you wait for a resume to hit your inbox, you already lost. You want to be in front of these airmen 6 to 12 months out.

That means you build a pool, not a job post. You search and reach out first. You do not wait for the right resume to show up. Here is the rhythm that works.

For the full playbook, read our guide on how to build a veteran talent pipeline before reqs open and our veteran recruiting strategy playbook. The companies that win in Tucson are the ones building the pool now.

What about the boneyard and the depot side?

Tucson has one more talent source most cities do not. Davis-Monthan is home to AMARG, the famous "boneyard." It is the Air Force storage and regeneration facility. It cares for more than 4,400 retired aircraft, per the AMARG mission page.

This matters for two reasons. First, the work there is deep technical maintenance. People who preserve, strip, and regenerate aircraft are top-tier mechanics. Second, that facility employs a large local workforce. Some of those workers are veterans, and some are airmen finishing service who want to stay in the field.

So when you target Davis-Monthan talent, think past the flightline. Think about heavy maintenance, corrosion control, and parts reclamation skills. Those translate straight into manufacturing, fleet maintenance, and field service roles across Tucson. If your company touches any of those fields, this pool is built for you.

These maintenance skills line up with whole industries. See our role guides on hiring veterans for aircraft MRO and hiring veterans for logistics and supply chain roles if you want to map the talent to your openings.

Do tax credits and hiring incentives still help?

You may have heard of the Work Opportunity Tax Credit. It rewarded employers for hiring certain veterans. Here is the honest status, because it changed.

The Work Opportunity Tax Credit expired at the end of 2025. New 2026 hires do not qualify for it unless Congress renews it. You can check the current status on the Department of Labor WOTC page. Veterans you hired in 2025 may still qualify. The pause only affects new hires going forward.

So do not build your hiring case on this credit today. Congress has renewed it after past lapses, so it could come back. But base your decision on the talent, not a tax break that is on pause.

The stronger case is the one you can count on. A Tucson airman you hire local has no relocation cost, a short ramp, and a low flight risk. That is a real return, and it does not depend on a tax code that keeps changing. For more on local pool sizing, see how many veterans are in your local talent pool.

What mistakes do Tucson employers make?

Most companies do not lose this talent to a competitor. They lose it to their own process. Here are the misses I see most, and how to fix each one.

The interview itself is its own skill. A veteran may undersell their work out of habit. Ask the right questions and you get the full picture. Our guides on how to interview a veteran candidate and how nearby Colorado Springs employers hire base talent go deeper on both.

How does BMR help you hire Tucson veterans?

Best Military Resume is where transitioning service members and veterans build their resumes. That gives us a live, growing pool of veteran talent, and a lot of it sits in base-heavy metros like Tucson.

The pool keeps growing. We add over 1,000 new profiles every month. More than 60,000 resumes have been built on the platform. Many of those people work in aircraft maintenance, logistics, electronics, and frontline leadership. That is the exact mix that separates at Davis-Monthan.

You do not wait for the right resume. You search and reach out first. You find people while they are still in uniform and planning their move. To get access to BMR's veteran talent pool, reach out through our hire page. Tell us the roles you need to fill in Tucson, and we will help you connect with the talent.

The airmen leaving Davis-Monthan this year are going somewhere. They can go to your competitor, or they can go to you. Build the pool now and be the local employer that is ready first.