Togus VA’s Bubier has made a difference in a hundred lives, and counting

By Patrick Crowley
VA Maine Healthcare System-Togus regional office

CHELSEA — Most of us would be proud to make a significant difference in someone’s life. Allison Bubier, vocational rehabilitation & employment counselor for the VA Maine Healthcare System Togus regional office, does this for a living. She recently achieved her hundredth “successful close.”

That’s 100 lives positively and dramatically impacted by a program designed to assist veterans with service-connected disabilities that either impede employment opportunities or make it difficult to lead independent lives.
For VR & E counselors, a successful close means navigating veterans through the daunting requirements of gaining full employment, completing formal training or, for the most vulnerable veterans, completing a program leading to independent living in their daily lives. While the number 100 is a proud achievement, for Bubier, it is the veterans behind the numbers who really count.
The credentials to become a VR&E counselor are arduous, and the technical qualifications alone are no guarantee of success in the field. However, Bubier has two gifts that are the secret behind her success.
Her first gift, a sincere empathy for veterans, came naturally. Allison grew up an “Army brat” and was always close to her father, a Vietnam veteran who served in the Special Forces.
Her compassion for veterans was reinforced through the love of her husband Harvey, an Army retiree, who deployed once to Afghanistan and twice to Iraq. Through him, Bubier came to understand the stress veterans encounter transitioning to civilian life, with combat experience and service-connected disabilities only adding to their struggles.
Her second gift, a stubborn belief that people are not limited by the labels placed by society or themselves, for that matter — did not come naturally but from a personal and unexpected challenge. In her early 20s, she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. After her initial shock, Bubier was determined to focus on whatever it took to be able to take care of herself.
This zeal for independence led to her first personal experience with vocational rehabilitation through the State of Maine. The state paid for her master’s degree program, which eventually led to their hiring her as a state vocational rehabilitation counselor. In her six and a half years with the state, she successfully closed 30 cases.
As a VA VR&E counselor, she successfully closed 100 cases in only five and a half years. What was the difference? “Veterans know that VR&E offers the opportunity of a lifetime and is a program that will help them succeed,” she said, adding that once they take on this new mission, veterans do what they always do — focus on the successful completion of their mission.
For veterans who come to VR&E not knowing if there is a light at the end of the tunnel, they find one in Allison Bubier. She is empathetic, nonjudgmental and adept at gaining their trust. She is one of VA’s secret weapons in fulfilling Lincoln’s promise of caring for those who have “borne the battle.”

PHOTO: Allison Bubier, Vocational Rehabilitation & Employment counselor for the Togus regional office.
Allison Bubier makes a difference to veterans at Togus. (Submitted photo)