ELMORE – For William E. “Bill” Kieffer, serving his country was never just a career, but a calling.
“I’ve always wanted to be a soldier,” Kieffer, an Elmore native who graduated from the University of Toledo, said. “I have a long family history. My dad was a veteran, my granddad was a veteran, my great uncle was a veteran…I had two uncles and an aunt that were veterans.”
Kieffer served nearly 12 years as an Army logistics officer, from 1985 to 1997, leading missions from Central America to Somalia.
“I supported the Panama invasion,” he said. “When the equipment that our forces in Panama captured [Manuel] Noriega’s equipment, they shipped much of it back to Fort Ord, California, and the unit that I was second in command of, we had the responsibility to demilitarize it. It was cool.”
His service also brought him into the heart of natural disaster.
“I was part of the military response to Hurricane Andrew in ‘92,” Kieffer recalled. “We set up in South Dade County and helped to do all the recovery and restoration work after that horrible nightmare of that hurricane.” He added, “When we went down there to do that work, I saw the best and worst in people; it was truly a society that had fallen apart, and seeing that firsthand and trying to do good work in that kind of an environment…it really left an impact.”
Throughout his 12 years in uniform, Kieffer commanded platoons, companies, and battalions, supporting up to 5,000 soldiers at a time.
“That was the most rewarding: knowing that I was working with and leading really good people to go do work that mattered.”
After his service, the transition to civilian life wasn’t easy.
“My transition out of the military came as a result of a divorce,” Kieffer said. “So, when I left the military, it wasn’t just leaving a job; it was loss of family, it was loss of career and loss of all that, not knowing what the future was going to look like. It was a very tough transition, and that experience motivated me to do what I do now.”
In 2018, after surviving a massive heart attack, Kieffer decided to leave corporate life to start his own business. Kieffer & Associates LLC is a leadership and career coaching firm that has a heavy focus on helping veterans transition to new careers. He later cofounded the nonprofit Veteran Career Journey, an organization dedicated to bridging the culture gap between veterans and employers.
“Employment-related issues are a contributor to veteran suicide,” Kieffer stated. “We not only want to close that culture gap, but we want to do what we can with our skill sets to help reduce veteran suicide.”
Since founding the nonprofit, Kieffer has trained and coached over 2,000 veterans worldwide, often without taking a salary.
“This is passion work for me,” he said. “The moments that I value most is when I get the calls, the emails, the LinkedIn messages from coaching clients that say, ‘Hey Bill, remember when we were talking about this opportunity? I got it,’ or, ‘You wrote something in your book and talked to me about this topic, and that made all the difference in my ability to transition.’ Those things are worth gold.”
“I think the work I do now as a veteran, and with veterans, is to help not just the veteran community succeed, but to help the business world succeed too, and overall society. It’s about helping people better understand each other and the value they bring and the opportunities they present; that’s really what I’m trying to do.”
When asked what he hopes his legacy will be, Kieffer paused before answering, “I hope when I’m gone, people say, ‘He helped.’”
At its core, Kieffer’s story is one of service to his fellow man that never stopped; he only changed battlefields.
