Smoothstack Earns Gold at the 2025 HIRE Vets Medallion Awards
The U.S. Department of Labor has awarded Smoothstack a 2025 HIRE Vets Medallion Award at the Gold level, recognizing excellence in veteran hiring, development, and retention. Fedstack is the Federal arm of Smoothstack, and veterans and military spouses are central to the cleared, mission-ready teams we build for federal agencies.
What Gold recognition requires
The HIRE Vets Medallion Award is issued by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Veterans’ Employment and Training Service (VETS). It is the nation’s only federal-level recognition for veteran hiring, development, and retention.
Gold recognition is earned against verified criteria rather than nominated. Employers have to hire and retain veterans at nationally recognized thresholds, and demonstrate the programs behind those numbers: veteran-focused leadership, pay protections, and career development initiatives that treat military experience as a foundation rather than a gap in a résumé.
Why it matters for federal delivery
Federal programs depend on people who can operate inside structure, hold a clearance, and take ownership of a mission from day one. That is a close description of what service members and their families already do.
Our Women Veterans and Military Spouses Cybersecurity Cohort, built in partnership with WiCyS and Women in Technology, is one example of what that looks like in practice: hands-on training, certification support, and direct placement into client security roles. Nine cybersecurity professionals, all veterans or military spouses, deployed into client SOC roles out of that cohort.
Veterans bring a level of discipline, precision, and integrity that elevates every team.
John Akkara, Chief Executive Officer
Skills-first pathways into federal technology careers are part of how we hire year round, not a seasonal campaign. The Gold Medallion recognizes that record, and sets the standard we intend to keep meeting.
