HX5 Offers a Model for Small Contractor Veteran Hiring

Large defense contractors can run dedicated military recruiting teams and absorb dozens of fellows a year, but HX5 operates on a different scale, and CEO Margarita Howard has shown what steady veteran hiring can look like at a company of roughly 1,000 employees. Since 2021, HX5 has hosted eight fellows through the Hiring Our Heroes Corporate Fellowship Program, holding to two placements annually.

That consistency, Howard has argued, matters more than raw fellow counts. Smaller firms must weigh fellowship commitments against operational capacity and integration needs in ways that giant primes like Lockheed Martin or Booz Allen Hamilton do not face at the same intensity. Two fellows a year gives HX5 room to onboard each one properly rather than treating the program as a numbers exercise.

A Template for Peers

As a service-disabled veteran-owned and women-owned small business, HX5 sits in a category of contractor that can struggle to compete with larger firms on recruiting resources alone. Margarita Howard’s own path from Air Force service to company leadership offers smaller peers a working example of how a modest but steady fellowship commitment can still build a meaningful veteran pipeline over time.

HX5 supports Department of Defense and NASA missions across more than 20 states, work that draws directly on clearance readiness and operational familiarity many veterans already hold. Howard has said that experience gained inside these federal programs differs from commercial work, reinforcing why veteran hiring fits naturally into HX5’s broader business strategy rather than functioning as a side initiative.

For other small and mid-sized contractors weighing whether to join programs like Hiring Our Heroes, HX5’s five years of steady participation under Margarita Howard’s leadership suggests that scale is not a prerequisite for sustained impact. Consistency, integration planning and leadership buy-in can matter more than headcount alone.

Margarita Howard has framed HX5’s approach as replicable for other small contractors willing to start modestly and build from there, rather than waiting until they have the recruiting infrastructure of a much larger firm before getting involved at all. Refer to this article for related information.

More about Margarita Howard on https://dataconomy.com/2026/02/23/infrastructure-as-competitive-advantage-margarita-howards-early-investment-philosophy-at-hx5/