By Tashi McQueen
AFRO Staff Writer
tmcqueen@afro.com
A year after unveiling a new virtual call center in Baltimore, JPMorgan Chase expanded their efforts to military spouses who live within a 90-mile radius of Baltimore.
“This initiative is piggybacking on some earlier work that the firm had done,” said Mark Elliott, the global head of military and veteran affairs for JPMorgan Chase, earlier this year at the announcement. “We made it exclusively for our active duty service member spouses because we knew that was a main pain point for the military community.”
Satra Astapham-Singh, 36, is one of the newly hired military spouses employed with JPMorgan Chase through this initiative.
“Being a military spouse is challenging, especially when looking for employment,” she said. “We tend to move around a lot. It helps to know that if my husband was to get another permanent change of station, I could still have a job that’s going to help me to provide for my family.”
Dawn Moore, first lady of Maryland, attended the initiative’s announcement and shared her hopes for other organizations and companies to create opportunities like this for military spouses.
“These women and men are assets to our job force,” said Moore. “They have so much to offer to help grow our economy.”
Moore acknowledged JPMorgan Chase as one of the companies currently seeing and “hiring the populations that are being left behind,” like military spouses.
When asked whether she is concerned about the federal government’s discouragement and rollback of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and how that may impact her new role, Astapham-Singh said she’s not worried.
“Chase is its own entity on the private sector side,” said Astapham-Singh. “From what I have experienced here at JPMorgan Chase, they are supportive and have their own policies and procedures in place that they stand behind. I can feel that sincerity coming from them.”
Astapham-Singh highlighted some of the job’s benefits, which she is enjoying, including full health coverage, mental healthcare and childcare support.
“Baltimore, D.C. and Philadelphia are the three regions that we saw a great opportunity in because of the military communities and their proximity to these locations,” said Elliott. “That’s why this was a no-brainer for us.”