Your treatment plant is short-staffed. The lead operator who knew every valve in the system is about to retire. The job posting has been live for two months. You have gotten a handful of resumes, and none of them can run a plant. If this sounds like your week, you are not alone. The water and wastewater sector is staring down a hiring problem, and most utilities are fishing in the same shrinking pool.

There is a talent pool most water utilities never think to open. Veterans. Not as a feel-good hiring program. As a practical fix for a real staffing gap. Military service produces people who already run water systems, fix pumps, manage SCADA controls, and lead field crews under pressure. They just describe the work in a language you have to learn to read.

This guide is for the hiring manager or operations lead at a midsize water or wastewater utility. Not a Fortune 500 with a veteran-hiring office. A real plant or district that needs operators, maintenance techs, SCADA staff, and field crews now. Here is how to find these people, read their resumes, and bring them on without slowing down.

Why is the water sector facing a hiring crunch?

The math is not on your side. The EPA reports that roughly one-third of the water sector workforce is eligible to retire in the next 10 years. These are the people who hold the institutional memory. They know the plant. They know the system. And they are walking out the door.

The federal data backs this up. The Bureau of Labor Statistics tracks about 132,400 water and wastewater treatment operator jobs as of 2024. Even with the headline employment number projected to dip, BLS still expects about 10,700 openings every year over the decade. Nearly all of those openings come from one source. Workers retiring or leaving the field.

So you have steady demand, a retiring bench, and a system that gets more technical each year. Automated controls. Tighter regulations. More complex treatment. You need people who can learn fast, work safely, and stay calm when a pump fails at 2 a.m. That is a tall order for the usual candidate pool.

It is a normal day for a lot of veterans. The military runs water systems all over the world. It maintains heavy equipment in the desert. It teaches young people to operate critical gear and own the outcome. The skills already exist. You just have to know where to look and how to read what you find.

What military jobs map to water and wastewater roles?

This is the part most water utility hiring managers miss. They see a military resume, do not recognize the job code, and move on. That is a mistake. Several military jobs map almost one-to-one onto utility work. Here are the ones that matter most.

The four jobs above are direct water-systems work. A veteran from any of these has already done a version of the role you are trying to fill. The Navy Utilitiesman is the gold-standard match. The Army Water Treatment Specialist, the Marine Water Support Technician, and the Air Force Water and Fuel Systems Maintainer all do the same core work in their own branch.

What about the rest of the utility, not just operators?

A water utility is more than the operators. You have maintenance crews, electricians, SCADA and controls staff, and field teams digging up mains. The military fills those seats too. The Navy Equipment Operator runs heavy machinery for excavation and pipe work. The Navy Construction Electrician wires and troubleshoots power systems, which maps to the electrical side of pump stations and controls.

For the maintenance bay, the Navy Construction Mechanic keeps diesel and hydraulic equipment running. The Army Utilities Equipment Repairer fixes the pumps, valves, and refrigeration gear that keep a plant alive. These are not soft skills. They are the exact hands-on trades your field crews need.

How do you read a military resume for a utility job?

Here is where most hires fall apart. A great candidate sends a resume full of job codes and acronyms. The hiring manager cannot parse it. The resume gets ranked low and never surfaces. The skills were there. The translation was not.

An applicant tracking system makes this worse. The ATS racks and stacks resumes by keyword match. If a veteran wrote "operated ROWPU" instead of "operated water treatment system," the resume sinks down the list. It does not get rejected outright. It just never reaches the top where a human reads it.

The fix is simple. When you read a military resume, ask what the work was, not what the code means. ROWPU is a Reverse Osmosis Water Purification Unit. That is a portable treatment plant. TWPS is a Tactical Water Purification System. Same idea, newer gear. If a candidate ran these for four years, they can run your plant.

Look for the verbs. Operated. Maintained. Tested. Repaired. Led. Those translate cleanly. A veteran who "maintained a 1,500 gallon-per-hour purification unit" was doing real treatment work. The unit was smaller and on a trailer. The job was the same.

Where do you find veteran candidates for utility roles?

Posting a job and waiting does not work for this group. Many strong veteran candidates are still in uniform, weeks from separating, and not scrolling job boards. You have to go to where they are. There are four reliable channels.

SkillBridge is worth a closer look for a midsize utility. It is a Department of Defense program that lets transitioning service members train with a civilian employer. You can learn more about it on the official SkillBridge site. The service member keeps their military pay during the internship. You get to see how they run a shift before anyone signs anything. It is the lowest-risk way to bring a veteran into a plant.

How do you handle licensing and certification gaps?

This is the honest part. A veteran who ran a field water system does not automatically hold your state operator license. Most states call for a certified operator to run a public treatment plant. The military experience is real, but the license is a separate step. Plan for it, and the gap stops being a problem. For a closer look at hiring straight into the licensed seat, see our guide on hiring veterans for water treatment operator roles.

The good news is that many states give credit for military water-systems experience. It can shorten the path to certification. The veteran already knows the chemistry, the equipment, and the safety rules. What they need is the exam and the state paperwork, not a full re-education. Check your own state board, because the rules vary.

A smart play is to hire the veteran into a role that does not call for the top license on day one. Bring them on as an operator-in-training or a maintenance tech. Let them work toward certification while they learn your specific plant. You fill the seat now and grow the license over the next year. The retiring lead can train their replacement before they leave.

The same logic applies to field crews and SCADA roles. A Navy Construction Electrician may need a state electrical credential. An equipment operator may need a commercial license they often already hold. The skill transfers fast. The paperwork is the part to map out before the offer, not after.

What should a midsize utility change in its hiring process?

You do not need a giant veteran-hiring program to do this well. You need a few practical changes to how you already hire. Midsize utilities win here because they can move fast and skip the corporate red tape.

One reason this group works out is reliability. Veterans show up. They follow safety rules because they were trained that the rules keep people alive. In a plant where a missed step can foul a water supply, that mindset matters. The federal data even shows male Gulf War era II veterans had a lower unemployment rate, 3.4 percent, than male nonveterans at 4.3 percent in 2025. These are people the broader market already wants.

If you want a deeper look at the broader sector, our pillar guide on how to hire veterans for energy and utilities roles covers the wider field. For the maintenance side of a plant, our guide on hiring veterans for facilities management is a useful companion. And if your work skews toward digging and pipe replacement, see hiring veterans for construction roles.

Where does BMR fit for a water utility?

Best Military Resume runs a growing pool of veteran candidates. More than 1,000 new veteran profiles are added every month. Over 60,000 resumes have been built on the platform. That is a steady, fresh supply of people, and a real chunk of them come from the water-systems, equipment, and trades backgrounds your plant needs.

Instead of waiting on a job post and hoping a qualified operator finds it, you can reach into a pool already built around military skills. You search for the background you need. You see candidates who ran the systems you run. Then you start the conversation.

The retirement wave in water is not slowing down. The plants that solve their staffing now will be the ones that are not scrambling in three years. Veterans are a practical answer that is sitting right in front of the sector. If you want to see who is in the pool, reach out through BMR's hire page and we will connect you with veteran talent for your plant. You can also partner with us to build a steady pipeline for your utility.