Technology jobs are on the rise in the Northwest, and now a military veteran-owned company in Tacoma has plans to provide short-term immersive training in web development and coding to the military community interested in a tech career.

VetStartups, founded by three military veterans, plans to launch its first 20-week certificate program in web development this spring. Curriculum and teaching instruction will be provided by Code Fellows, a Seattle-based code academy, which within the past three years has graduated 500 students with a job placement rate of 97 percent and an average annual salary of $71,000.

"I want to create more (veteran) startup founders here in Tacoma and create that talent pipeline here in Tacoma," said Maggi Molina, general manager at VetStartups and a co-founder, along with Dan Hall and Bradley Young.

Hall, a U.S. Army veteran who served 14 years, including five years active-duty at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, founded his own online media company and sold it in April 2015 before founding VetStartups in June. Young, an Army veteran, is chief technology officer at VetStartups. Molina served four years in the Air Force and worked both in the public and private sector.

Molina said code academies have only been around for a few years in the United States. Generally, they are not accredited and none are G.I. Bill eligible, with the exception of Skill Distillery in Greenwood Village, Colorado.

Molina said that VetStartups, in association with a nonprofit university, has begun the process of applying to become a G.I. Bill-eligible and accredited-code academy. Pending approval, it will be the first of its kind available in the United States.

Molina said that within the Puget Sound region more than 8,000 potential tech candidates transition out of the Army at JBLM annually, 800 from the Air Force, and 3,000 from the Navy.

"There is a lot of potential talent," Molina said. "We will be the first code academy in Tacoma at the nexus of all the military population."

While the military community is the focus, the program is not exclusive.

VetStartups' web development certificate program launching next spring will instruct students on the three basic web development languages: HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

"These advance to other languages that open to more doors," Molina explained. "In a code academy, you're in a cohort of twenty-five students max, a 5:1 students-to-teacher ratio."

Molina said a common misconception among prospective tech students is that coding is math heavy. It is not, she said.

"Coding is like learning a new language," Molina noted. "It's grammar, syntax and punctuation. You're learning the language and you're telling the computer what to do step by step."

Molina said active-duty military transitioning out and into the civilian workforce are well-suited for the short-term intensive training that a code academy provides.

"It's applicable to the military," she said. "We are taught how to work in a team and to problem solve. And part of the military culture is to mentor each other.

Kevia Cloud, a U.S. Marine veteran, is a success story that exemplifies that transition from military life into the tech industry sector. Cloud committed to teaching himself code, applying the same discipline and methodical training he received in the military, and now works as a front-end engineer in web and mobile development at Hipster Creative, a Tacoma-based tech startup.

He recently mentored the military community on his experience at a Code 101 workshop, presented by VetStartups. He said coding is possibly the hardest thing he's done, but also the most gratifying.

For more information on VetStartups and its programs, visit vetstartups.org or email at maggi@vetstartups.org.