Dennis resident, retired U.S. Marine named to state group tasked with protecting veterans

Since his retirement from an international company, Mike Dunford has devoted much of his time to helping veterans transition to new careers and working with the Cape and Islands Veterans Outreach Center.

Now the retired lieutenant colonel of the U.S. Marine Corps has been named by Gov. Maura T. Healey to the new Veterans’ Homes Council.

“I want to underscore that this is an opportunity to give a voice” to the 19,000 veterans on the Cape and Islands, he said Thursday at the Outreach Council offices in Hyannis, after being sworn in and doing an ethics exam for the new organization. He is one of seven members appointed by Healey to the council that was formed by state legislation last year and includes other veterans housing officials.

“The governor’s recognition of Mike and his tireless service to his fellow veterans is a tribute to his character and the value of his talent," Outreach Center Executive Director Jim Seymour said.

Dunford said the new council is part of the response to the deaths in 2020 of at least 78 residents of the Holyoke Soldiers Home from COVID-19 or its complications. The crisis prompted a gutting of its top management and criminal charges against two of its former leaders, the convening of a special legislative committee and plans to build a new, $400 million facility by 2026.

“The idea of the council,” Dunford said, “was that we don’t want anything like Holyoke to happen again. Our role is to make sure they (veterans) are taken care of.”

The advisory body will make recommendations to the Secretary of Veterans Services, a new governor’s cabinet post “to ensure the health, well-being and safety of residents of state-operated veterans’ homes and access to equitable, high quality and competent care for the veterans across the commonwealth,” according to a press release from the Cape and Islands Veterans Outreach Center.

Dunford volunteered at the center since he moved from Bridgewater to Dennis about seven years ago. He made the move after retiring as chief human resources officer and senior vice president of human resources for Covidien, a $19 billion medical devices company. He is currently president of the center’s board of directors.

For five years, he headed the FourBlock National Leadership Council in Boston. The council is a formal advisory board to help service members and veterans to transition to meaningful civilian careers with a 10-week career readiness program. Dunford now is a coach for that program.

He is focused on the work of the Outreach Center that has expanded its services considerably in food distribution and transportation, two areas of great need on the Cape and Islands. The center expanded its food pantry on Stevens Street in Hyannis last year. The number of clients increased from 1,700 in 2019 to 2,700 in six months from last July to December. The center now has refrigerated vans that allows it to bring food directly to veterans on the Cape and Martha’s Vineyard.

The transportation program also expanded last June with the help of a state grant and funding from the state Department of Veterans Services. It provided 700 rides free to local veterans in the first six months, using a variety of transportation, that takes them as far as the Veterans Administration Hospital in Providence, Dunford said.

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“Transportation is a fast-growing program and we hope to continue it and grow,” he said.

Other services at the center include mental health counseling and housing. The center manages three homes for veterans, one built in Dennis for five veterans, transitional housing in Hyannis and a new transition house opening in the spring in Hyannis.

“We do a ton of outreach,” Dunford said.

Barnstable County, he said, has the highest number of veterans per capita in the state with an average age of 68 to 70.

His father is a retired Boston police officer and his oldest brother, Joseph Dunford, was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and senior adviser to Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump.

Dunford lives in Dennis with his wife, Kathy, and they have two grown daughters.

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This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Gov. Healey appoints Cape vet Mike Dunford to Veterans' Homes Council