Vandenberg Space Force Base sits on the Central Coast. It runs the West Coast launch range for the whole country. So a steady flow of Guardians, airmen, and other veterans separate near Lompoc every year. Most of them want to stay on the Central Coast. Many never make it onto your radar before they take the first job offer they get.

That is the gap this guide fixes. You are a midsize employer near Vandenberg. You hire for aerospace, launch services, defense, utilities, or tech. You do not run a Fortune 500 veteran-hiring program. You do not need one. You need to find the talent that is already leaving the base and reach them first.

The good news is the match is almost too clean. The people who run launch operations and fix space systems are the same people commercial launch companies want. This guide shows you who they are, how to read their resumes, and where to find them before they sign somewhere else.

Why is Vandenberg a strong source of local talent?

Vandenberg is not a small base. It is the primary West Coast spaceport. The host unit is Space Launch Delta 30. It runs every space launch from the West Coast. That includes polar-orbit missions that cannot fly from anywhere else in the country.

The base manages the Western Range. That range stretches from the California coast out across the Pacific. It supports launches for the Space Force, the Department of Defense, NASA, and private companies. Vandenberg also supports test launches of the Air Force missile force. It has run this mission since the late 1950s.

So the people stationed there are not doing desk work. They run real launch operations on real timelines. They maintain space and missile systems. They handle range safety. They work cyber, communications, and security forces roles that keep the whole operation running.

When they separate, most of them want to stay local. The Central Coast is home now. Their kids are in school here. Their spouse has a job here. That is your opening. They are not chasing a relocation package. They want a good job close to where they already live.

What kind of talent leaves Vandenberg?

The base is built around space and missile work. So the skills that come off it are technical, procedural, and high-stakes. The 2025 BLS veteran data shows how tight this pool is. You will not win it by waiting.

Here are the five talent groups you will see most often near Vandenberg.

One caution. Vandenberg is a space base, but not every person there sits at a launch console. The base runs like a small city. It has medical, logistics, food service, vehicle maintenance, and finance roles too. So read the resume for the work the person did. Do not assume the job from the base name.

If you want to see how a specific space career maps to civilian work, look at career pages like Space Systems Operations (1C6X1) and Missile and Space Systems Electronic Maintenance (2M0X1). They show the real skills behind the job code.

How does space-ops experience map to commercial launch roles?

This is where the Central Coast match gets strong. Commercial launch is booming right next door. SpaceX and Firefly Aerospace are both expanding operations at Vandenberg. Other commercial launch companies are competing for new pads at the base. Launch counts keep climbing year over year. These companies need people who already understand launch.

A Guardian who ran launch operations has done the exact work. They know countdown procedures. They know what a hold means and when to call it. They know how to work a mission timeline where mistakes cost millions. You do not have to teach them launch. You have to teach them your version of it.

The same goes outside pure launch. A space systems maintainer maps to aerospace manufacturing and field service. A cyber tech maps to IT, network operations, and security roles. A range safety lead maps to safety, quality, and operations management. A security forces NCO maps to corporate security and access control.

If you hire for any of these fields, two of our employer guides go deeper. See hiring veterans for aerospace primes and the broader aviation and aerospace roles guide. Both cover how to translate flight-line and space skills into the roles you post.

How do you read a space-ops resume the right way?

This is where good candidates get lost. A Guardian writes their resume in space terms. Your job posting is in commercial terms. The words do not always match. So a strong person can look weak on paper.

It helps to know how your hiring software works. An applicant tracking system ranks resumes by keyword match. It does not reject people. But a resume that uses military words can sink to the bottom of your list. That is not a rejection. The system just does not surface that person to the top. So you have to search both languages.

The skills are the same. The words are different. So when you search your pool or post a job, use both sets of words. Search for "space systems" and "mission operations." Search for "range safety" and "quality control." You will surface people the keyword ranking would have buried.

For a deeper look at this, our guide on how to recognize maintenance and reliability experience walks through it line by line. It is built for exactly this kind of technical resume.

Where do you find Vandenberg veterans before they sign elsewhere?

Timing is the whole game. A separating Guardian starts looking for work months before their last day. If you wait until they hit the job boards, you are late. The good ones are already in interviews.

So you want to reach them while they are still on active duty and planning the move. There are a few clean ways to do that.

The first move matters most. Our guide on how to source veterans before their separation date lays out the full playbook. It is the difference between getting the first look and getting the leftovers.

How do you write a job post that space veterans answer?

Most job posts repel veterans by accident. They lean on civilian buzzwords and rigid degree rules. A Guardian who ran launch ops reads that and assumes the door is closed. So they do not apply.

Fix it with plain words and real requirements. Say what the person will actually do. List the skills that matter, not the ones that sound good. If a degree is nice but not required, say so. Many strong veterans have the skill and the certifications without the four-year degree.

Name the location and the path. "Based in Lompoc" or "on the Central Coast" tells a separating Guardian they can stay home. "Clear path to lead a team in 18 months" tells them you value what they did in uniform. Those two lines do more than any benefits list.

One more tip on pay. Veterans often do not know how their rank maps to a civilian salary band. If your post or your recruiter can speak to that, you remove a big worry. Our guide on mapping a military pay grade to a civilian pay band gives you the framework.

What about hiring for non-space roles near the base?

Not every job near Vandenberg is a launch job. The Central Coast has utilities, telecom, logistics, and field service work too. Vandenberg supplies talent for those roles as well.

A base this size runs power, water, and communications across a huge footprint. So you get people who maintained grid and utility systems. They ran communication towers and kept field equipment alive in tough conditions. That experience transfers straight to local infrastructure work.

If that is your lane, two guides help. See hiring veterans for power grid and transmission roles and hiring veterans for telecom tower and field tech roles. Both show how military field experience maps to those jobs.

This is the bigger point. The base is a feeder for a wide range of work, not just rockets. If you read the resume for the real skills, you find people for roles you did not expect. A logistics NCO can run your warehouse. A comms tech can run your network. A range safety lead can run your safety program.

What mistakes do employers make near Vandenberg?

A few patterns sink good hires. Knowing them up front saves you the loss.

The first mistake is waiting for them to apply. By the time a separating Guardian is on a job board, the best ones are already in final interviews. You have to go upstream and reach them early.

The second mistake is searching civilian keywords only. Your software ranks resumes, and military wording sinks. If you only look at the top of the auto-ranked list, you miss strong people who wrote in space terms.

The third mistake is treating a clearance as a nice-to-have. Many Vandenberg veterans hold an active clearance. That is worth real money and real time savings to you. Federal hiring rules even encourage hiring veterans for these reasons. If you need cleared talent, this pool is gold.

How can BMR help you hire near Vandenberg?

This is what Best Military Resume is built for. We keep a large, growing pool of veteran candidates you can search by skill. You do not have to wait for the right person to find your job post. You go find them.

The pool stays fresh. We add more than 1,000 new profiles every month. We have helped build more than 60,000 resumes. The pool runs deep in space operations, maintenance, cyber, logistics, and frontline leadership. That is the exact mix that leaves Vandenberg.

Reach out through our hire page to get access to the talent pool. If you want to set up an ongoing pipeline for your team, our partner program is the next step. Either way, you stop fishing on job boards and start reaching the talent before it signs somewhere else.

The Central Coast does not have a talent shortage. It has a timing problem. Vandenberg sends skilled people into the local workforce every year. Reach them first and read their resumes right. You build a team that already knows how to run hard missions on tight timelines.