Thousands of jobseekers attend fair

STAFFORD — An estimated 7,000 jobseekers flocked to the University of Mary Washington’s Stafford Campus on Monday for a federal jobs fair. By the end of the day, an additional 1,000 people were still in line, local police estimated.

By 6:15 a.m., campus employees found jobseekers already parking their cars.

Sen. Mark Warner’s office announced about a week prior that he would host a federal jobs fair from 9 a.m. until noon. On March 5, more than 3,000 Virginians had pre-registered to attend. And late in the game, the event was extended until 4 p.m.

But when the senator’s staff arrived they found that the crowd had grown exponentially.

Virginia State troopers were called in to direct traffic on Village Parkway, which connects the campus to U.S. 17. But pure volume created major traffic delays on surrounding area roads.

By 9:15 a.m. traffic into the campus was shut down, as it was nearly impossible to safely drive through lines of jobseekers five to six across that snaked through the parking lot more than four times.

In addition to the quad-county area, job seekers traveled from as far as Norfolk, Richmond, Lynchburg, and Loudon and Fairfax counties.

Warner arrived about 9:30 a.m. and wound his way along the line from the far end of the parking lot to the building entrance, stopping to greet his constituents and attendees along the way.

While in line, John Gambrino jokingly asked Warner, “Can I give you my resume, senator?”

With a good natured laugh, Warner responded, “You’ll get more benefit leaving it with the agencies inside.”

Gambrino, a North Stafford resident who recently retired from the Marine Corps, is seeking a position with an agency that supports Marine Corps operations and programs.

However he allows that he has a slight economic edge on many others that are unemployed.

“I’m on terminal leave,” he said. “So I at least continue to get paid until April 30.”

Those waiting in line spanned a wide range of ages and educational backgrounds, and had different reasons for attending.

A middle-aged woman from the Falls Church area had lost her job in the economic downturn and was seeking a new position, while several young men and women from throughout the state in their early 20s were already employed, but were trying to establish themselves in career positions.

Though he has a job with a defense contractor, a King George resident was seeking a position with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Caroline County residents Gary Finch and Robbie Doggett said they’ve been with the same company for 18 and eight years respectively, but both will be unemployed on March 22 due to a merger and a resulting realignment of positions.

More than 40 agencies were represented at the event including a number of defense and transportation agencies, the FBI, Homeland Security and Social Security.

The Virginia Employment Commission had representatives on site to disseminate information about programs and assistance available in the commonwealth.

Warner’s press assistant and new media representative Riki Parikh said they are trying to determine what was done differently that resulted in such overwhelming attendance.

At about 1:30 p.m. he said, “We have already counted about 6,000 registration forms.”

Warner’s staff was also accepting resumes from people that could not stay until the end of the day to get into the job fair.

Jobseekers were also informed of U.S. Rep. Rob Wittman’s (R-1st District) job fair scheduled at the same location on March 22 form 10 a.m. until 3 p.m. The event will have representatives from the private sector as well as the government.

Due to the massive response, Parikh said Warner’s office is planning to conduct another job fair in the near future. Details will be available on the senator’s Web site at: http://warner.senate.gov

Marty van Duyne is a contributing writer for the Stafford County Sun.