Kimber Hill

Share your military spouse story:
In September 2017, I walked into my former CEO’s office to tell her my new husband had been given orders 500+ miles away to rural Florida. I choked on my words as I forced myself to say it out loud. I had dug my heels in for years at this company to reach leadership trajectory in Government Contracting; an industry that requires on-site presence with CAC authentication. I felt my career slipping through my fist like sand, and with it, a part of my self-worth. With a racing heart, I stared at her waiting to be gently let go. To my surprise, instead of laying me off, she almost doubled my annual salary and sent me out with a promotion and a blessing in a remote role. That act of kindness was the triggering event that led me to create VirtForce. By recognizing and honoring my value, she empowered me to do the same for other Military Spouses. I joined my first Spouse Club, Spouses of Student Aviators, and it felt like every single milspouse I met had the same story minus my happy ending. I met tenured project managers working for free, lawyers & CPA’s cut from their firm, and the list goes on from Entry Level to C-Level. I felt like I was a swimming in a sea of forgotten talent, and I had to do something about it. VirtForce was the answer. We’ve succeeded in bringing hundreds of employers with distributed workforces together with military spouses to include over 4,000 hires. Because of our work at VirtForce we’re seeing an average of $150m in annual compensation going back to military families all over the world. Our biggest win to date was finding a government contract to hire 11 milspouses located in Kadena, Japan. A huge success for our OCONUS families. In 2020, I met with the CEO mentioned above to thank her for giving me space to support my husband and continue my career. She asked, "do you still want to be in leadership with a company?" I replied, “Yes, but now I prefer to be CEO.” She laughed and said, "that’s how I felt when I started my company."

Share an example of your leadership experience within the military community:
In 2017, as a new milspouse I joined Spouses of Student Aviators which governed 3 bases, Whiting Field, Pensacola, and Corpus Christi, and encompassed 350 milspouses. I served as Secretary and then President exiting in 2019. My measurement of successful leadership includes positively impacting our base, members, and community. In my terms we reported over 1k volunteer hours to our base which helped it qualify for more government funding. I established quarterly mentor sessions between Command Spouses and newly married spouses. I grew our event attendance from averaging 5-10 attendees to 70 attendees. I used our size to positively impact locally owned businesses by renting their shops for our events. Ultimately, our growth and participation exceeded the capacity of one board; therefore, it was voted that each base establish their own chapter of SOSA. I was privileged to be a part of base sanctioning process and bylaw standardization for each chapter as my final presidential act.

Describe your involvement in the military community:
At the personal level, I’m a mom of 1 and have my 2nd child on the way! Oh, and my husband is deployed! So, I take refuge in our FRG as an Active Member and Mentor. I have 3 Officer and Enlisted Spouses as mentees who I support through the ups and downs of life. I participate and when possible, facilitate social functions to include potlucks, meal trains, game night – you name it, your military sister Kimber is there for it! At my base level, I collaborate with the USO to help milspouses find employment. This spring I’m excited that VirtForce is sponsoring Portraits for Patriots to help our military spouses at NAS Jax get a free headshot from a professional photographer and in person career coaching from me all in the same day. On the global level, I interact with military spouses across the world every day. On average I’m having about 1million outreach interactions with military spouses each month who follow my career coaching and remote work content via email and social media.

Describe how you support your community:
Inclusivity and service are words that encompass how I support our community. Every military spouse matters: Veteran, Transitioning, New, Seasoned, Enlisted, Command, Gold Star – we all deserve career continuity accommodating of our service-based lifestyles. In a recent interview with Newsy I was asked, "What is the most popular career for a military spouse?" The truth is there is no one size fits all option because we come from such varied experiences. And, if I abide by the ideology of equality in my approach to serving spouses, I must meet the full variety of employment needs. I support my community by delivering inclusive and vetted location flexible careers through my private job board which is customized to the milspouse user experience. I offer a full variety of opportunity from ad hoc gig based work to C-Level 40-hour work weeks. I support all industries from medical to finance. If you’re a milspouse ready to work, I am here to help you take the first step.

What do you advocate for? Why?
When a military family is ordered to PCS, a milspouse loses friendships, childcare, housing, and often their job. I believe we can kick “losing their job” off that list because every military spouse is entitled to a location flexible career in which they can maintain fulfillment through relocation. We know that military spouses are 24% unemployed and 68% under employed, but did you know that for every year a milspouse is unemployed they lose up to 30% of their earning potential? These challenges not only impact milspouse self-worth, but also diminish our national preparedness, because 40% of service members exiting the service prematurely report their motivation is their spouse’s happiness. My favorite success story is how I helped a military spouse find a role she loved so much that she no longer needed her antidepressant medications. I advocate to restore milspouse career continuity and career progression to its rightful place for her and to make our country stronger together.

How have you spread the message of your platform/advocacy?
I’ve found that the best way to increase our advocacy is to show up and do the work for my community. So, for 208 weeks, my team has not missed a weekly job round up alert. As a result, every single day I see a military spouse recommending VirtForce to another military spouse. It started with a private Facebook Group in 2018 that became the largest known hub for Military Spouse networking. From day one we used our group to convert candidates to an Applicant Tracking System. Now, we reach over 100k milspouses. In 2021, my group caught the attention of Meta and through that relationship I’ve since been involved on Meta diversity panels informing decisions made internally and advocacy work in Washington DC alongside Meta (a trip my 1-year-old daughter joined me for!) Furthermore, I have an incredible milspouse podcast available on audio and Youtube with over 250k cumulative downloads! https://www.youtube.com/@KimberHill_VirtForce/videos

What do you hope to accomplish with the AFI Military Spouse of the Year^® title?
First, I’m honored to be included in the 2023 cohort of amazing spouses. The AFI MSOY platform is the perfect demonstration of how spouses are in fact stronger together. Thank you for considering me. Winning the AFI Military Spouse of the Year title will help me further grow awareness about the employment challenges faced by military spouses and to advocate for their needs. As the winner, I will use the title to educate change makers in our country to stand up for military spouse employment and inspire my community to pursue their ideal flexible employment. Finally, if bestowed this honor, I will seek to further the Mission, Values and Goals of AFI. I will elevate the voices of other spouses, foster community through service and inclusion, and recognize my military spouse peers for their outstanding dedication to our military family.