Silver Spring, MD 20910
(202) 585-4000 x127
RWeidman@VET-Force.org
www.vva.org
Richard F. “Rick” Weidman serves as Executive Director for Policy & Government Affairs on the National Staff of Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA). As such, he is the primary spokesperson for VVA in Washington. He served as a 1-A-O Army Medical Corpsman during the Vietnam War, including service with Company C, 23rd Med, AMERICAL Division, located in I Corps of Vietnam in 1969.
Mr. Weidman was part of the staff of VVA from 1979 to 1987, and from 1998 to the present, serving variously as Membership Services Director, Agency Liaison, Director of Government Relations, and now Executive Director for Policy & Government Affairs. He left VVA to serve in the Administration of Governor Mario M. Cuomo (NY) as statewide director of veterans’ employment & training (State Veterans Programs Administrator) for the New York State Department of Labor from 1987 to 1995.
Rick has served as Consultant on Legislative Affairs to the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans (NCHV), and served at various times on the VA Readjustment Advisory Committee, as a consumer liaison on the Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Serious Mental Illness at VA, the Secretary of Labor’s Advisory Committee on Veterans Employment & Training, the President’s Committee on Employment of Persons with Disabilities – Subcommittee on Disabled Veterans, Advisory Committee on veterans’ entrepreneurship at the Small Business Administration, and numerous other advocacy posts in veteran affairs. He is currently Chairman of the Veterans Entrepreneurship Task Force (VET-Force), which is the consortium of most of the major veterans’ service organizations and military service organizations regarding expanding opportunities for veterans, particularly disabled veterans to create, own, and successfully operate their own small business.
Mr. Weidman was an instructor and administrator at Johnson State College (Vermont) in the 1970s, where he was also active in community and veterans affairs. He attended Colgate University (B.A., 1967), and did graduate study at the University of Vermont.
He is married and has four children.