How to Recruit Veterans Near NAS Fallon (Reno Region)

Reno is growing fast. The warehouses, distribution centers, data centers, and factories east of town keep hiring. Most of that growth sits in the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center, one of the largest industrial parks in the country. If you run hiring for a midsize company in the Reno-Sparks area, you feel it. Good people are hard to find and harder to keep.

Here is a talent pool most local employers walk right past. About 65 miles east of Reno sits Naval Air Station Fallon. It is the Navy's top air combat training base and the home of TOPGUN. Every year, trained sailors finish their tours there and leave the Navy. A lot of them want to stay in northern Nevada. They own homes here. Their kids are in local schools. They are ready to work.

This guide shows you who these veterans are, what jobs they fit, and how to reach them before your competitors do.

Who comes off NAS Fallon into the Reno area?

NAS Fallon sits in Fallon, Nevada, in Churchill County. It hosts the Naval Aviation Warfighting Development Center, the Navy command that trains the whole fleet on air combat tactics. TOPGUN moved here from California and now runs out of Fallon. That means the base is packed with skilled aviation crews and the people who keep their aircraft flying.

These are Navy sailors, not airmen and not soldiers. Their job codes are Navy aviation ratings. When they leave the service, they bring hands-on trade skills and years of running high-stakes work on a tight clock.

Here is the kind of talent that comes off the base each year.

Why is the Reno region a strong place to hire veterans right now?

The Reno-Sparks economy runs on warehousing, logistics, data centers, and advanced manufacturing. The Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center alone holds dozens of distribution and fulfillment centers, plus factories and a fast-growing set of data centers. All of them need skilled hands and steady shift workers.

That growth is not slowing down. New data center and manufacturing projects keep breaking ground east of Reno. Each one needs technicians, maintenance crews, and operations staff on day one. The demand is real, and the local supply of trained people is tight.

Big coastal companies fight over veteran talent with full-time recruiting teams. Most midsize Reno employers do not. That is your opening. You have a trained talent pool 60 miles away and far fewer companies chasing it.

Two things make these hires stick around. First, the sailor already chose to live here. Second, a midsize company can give a veteran real ownership fast, which keeps them from job-hopping. You can check the local hiring picture on the Bureau of Labor Statistics page for the Reno metro area before you plan your roles.

If your growth is warehouse or distribution heavy, it helps to see how other operators do this. Read our guides on hiring veterans for 3PL and warehousing roles and for logistics and supply chain roles.

What roles do NAS Fallon sailors fill for a Reno employer?

The trick is matching a Navy rating to your open job. The skills carry over cleanly once you know what to look for. Here is how the most common Fallon ratings map to Reno work.

An Aviation Machinist's Mate is an aircraft engine mechanic. In your shop, that is a maintenance tech, an equipment technician, or a production line mechanic. An Aviation Structural Mechanic works airframes and hydraulics, which fits facilities and heavy-equipment upkeep.

An Aviation Electronics Technician and an Aviation Electrician's Mate both test and fix complex systems. Those skills fit data center technician jobs, industrial electrician roles, and controls work. An Air Traffic Controller is used to running fast-moving operations. That maps to operations, dispatch, and logistics coordinator roles.

Do not stop at the flight line trades. An ordnance or supply sailor tracked and moved sensitive gear with strict counts and records. That fits inventory control, warehouse operations, and shipping and receiving roles at a distribution center. An operations sailor ran schedules, safety programs, and training. That maps to shift supervisor and coordinator jobs across the industrial center.

What makes a veteran hire pay off for a Reno employer?

A Navy tech from Fallon brings more than a trade. They bring habits that are hard to teach and expensive to miss.

They led people young. A second-class petty officer may run a work center of 6 to 10 sailors in their mid-20s. That is real supervision, not a title on paper. They also live by safety checklists and tool control. In a plant or a data center, that habit stops the small mistakes that cost real money.

They show up. Military work runs on being on time and on standard, every shift. Many of these sailors also held a security clearance. That means the government already ran a deep background check on them. You get that vetting signal for free.

Data centers and warehouses run around the clock. Sailors are used to watch rotations and night shifts, so odd hours do not scare them off. That fit matters more in Reno than in most markets.

How do you read a Navy aviation resume the right way?

Two things trip up hiring teams. The first is the job title. A rating like "AD1" or "AT2" is easy to skip past if you do not know the code. So look at the work under the title, not the code. Ask what they fixed, what they ran, and how big the team was.

The second is your applicant tracking system. It ranks resumes by keyword match. It does not reject people on its own. A great Navy tech can sink to the bottom of your list just because their resume uses Navy words. So search both languages. If you want a "maintenance technician," also search for "aircraft mechanic" and the rating codes.

Here is a simple way to test a resume. Look for numbers and scope. How many aircraft did they keep flying? How many people did they lead? How fast did they turn a repair around? Those details tell you far more than the rating code ever will. A good Navy resume shows a track record of fixing hard problems on a deadline.

Do not screen out a candidate just because they lack a civilian job title you know. A sailor who ran engine maintenance has done the work of a lead mechanic, even if their resume never uses that word. Coach your team to read for the skill, not the label.

Our guide on how to read a military job title on a resume walks through this in detail. When you get to the interview, how to interview a veteran candidate shows you the questions that pull out real detail.

Where do you find these veterans near Reno and Fallon?

You do not have to guess. There are clear channels to reach sailors as they leave the base and settle in the region. The key is timing. Most sailors start looking for work a few months before their separation date, so you want to be in front of them early.

For the details on each channel, see our guides on working with base transition offices, recruiting through chambers of commerce, and building a sourcing calendar around PCS and ETS cycles. If you plan to visit the base itself, our guide on getting base access to recruit covers the steps.

What about SkillBridge before a sailor separates?

The Department of Defense runs a program called SkillBridge. It lets a service member spend their last few months on the job with a civilian employer. The military keeps paying them during that time. You get to try out a worker at no wage cost to you.

This is a great way to test a Navy tech in your shop before you commit. But treat it as a tryout, not a done deal. The sailor is still on active duty and still gets a military paycheck. You can make the real job offer before they separate. They start on your payroll after. Set clear goals up front so both sides know what a good fit looks like.

SkillBridge works well for skilled trade roles near Reno. You get a few months to watch someone fix real equipment on your floor. If they are a strong fit, you already know it by the time they leave the Navy. If they are not, you part ways with no long-term cost. Either way, you learn far more than a resume and one interview could ever show you.

How does a midsize Reno company start hiring veterans?

You do not need a big program or a full recruiting team. Start small. Pick one or two open roles that fit the ratings above. Search both military and civilian language. Then get in front of sailors leaving NAS Fallon through the channels in this guide. If you also hire near other installations, the same playbook works for Las Vegas and Nellis AFB and Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

BMR makes the last step easy. We add more than 1,000 new profiles every month, and we have built over 60,000 resumes for the military community. That means a fresh, growing pool of veterans who are job-ready and want to be found by employers like you.

The Department of Labor veterans employer page is a solid starting point for the basics of hiring veterans. When you are ready to reach the talent, reach out through our hire page to get access to BMR's veteran talent pool. You can also partner with us to set up a steady pipeline near Reno and Fallon.