Dennis Aaron has had some big life events happen since the fall of 2014. He started a new career when he was hired at Walmart in August through the company’s Veterans Welcome Home Commitment, he purchased his first home in Little Elm in April, and he also will be graduating college on May 30 with his Bachelors Degree.

Dennis is a retired Sergeant First Class with the U.S. Army. After being in the military for 20 years and being deployed around the world, he came home to Tennessee to find himself without a job. He applied with Walmart in Tennessee but soon decided he’d be moving his family to Frisco. The company worked to place him in his current store located in Frisco at Eldorado and FM 423.

“The opportunity for promotion really attracted me to Walmart. I’ve let everyone know I’m interested in moving up as far as I can go in the company,” said Dennis.

This Memorial Day, Walmart will announce it has hired more than 11,800 U.S. Veterans in Texas since launching its Veterans Welcome Home Commitment on Memorial Day 2013, the most of any state. The company is also creating even more job opportunities for transitioning U.S. veterans in Texas by guaranteeing a job offer to any eligible U.S. veteran honorably discharged from active duty since the original launch of the Welcome Home Commitment. The previous commitment was for veterans within 12 months off active duty. In addition, Walmart is expanding its 2013 projection of hiring 100,000 veterans nationwide by 2018, increasing the projection to 250,000 veterans by the end of 2020.

“When I started doing interviews and putting my resume out there, I quickly got discouraged. I heard about Walmart’s program through the military so I decided to pursue it. A lot of companies like to talk about supporting the troops but they don’t act on it. I saw Walmart backing up and acting on its promises,” said Dennis.

Since starting his career with Walmart, he’s been promoted twice already in just about 8 months. He started as an overnight stocker and later was promoted to Second Shift Lead where he supervised unloading the shipments received at the store. After just 6 weeks, he found out his boss was getting promoted so he decided to apply for his position. After interviewing, he found out he got the job. His current position is the Back Room Zone Merchandise Supervisor.

“I feel like my leadership in the military has naturally led me to a leadership role here at Walmart. I want to master my current position and then move into the assistant manager program,” Dennis said.

“If I could give advice to any Veteran looking for a job I would say to give Walmart a chance. Trust your judgment and don’t go on a preconceived notion. In my first two weeks here, I went around to all of the associates and asked if they were happy and the majority were. There is a core group of people that have been here 5, 10, 15 years. It appealed to me that people were happy and liked their jobs. Everyone here has been patient in training me and I want to pay that back to the people that have been so kind to me,” Dennis added.

To learn more about Walmart’s Veterans Welcome Home Commitment and how you can apply, visit www.walmartcareerswithamission.com.