There are anniversaries we celebrate, and anniversaries we observe.
September 11 belongs to the latter.
Twenty-five years after the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, the images remain fixed in our national memory: smoke rising over Manhattan, the Pentagon burning, and an empty field near Shanksville, PA. We remember the tragedy. We look back. But one of the things that makes America unique is we’re not the types to stay down. We use every attack on our Republic to rise up. To rebuild. And to build better.
After September 11, Americans stepped forward in extraordinary numbers. They enlisted and reenlisted. They volunteered. They joined federal service, entered the intelligence community, supported military operations, and built careers around a renewed sense of mission. Across government and industry, organizations confronted the enormous task of strengthening the institutions responsible for safeguarding the nation.
I was one of those individuals impacted by 9/11. Watching the Twin Towers fall from my high school classroom, I vowed to give back to my country through a career in national security. I wasn’t sure what it would be, sitting in a small town of 1000 in rural Iowa, and with no bigger connection to the government than my dad’s Vietnam service. But I only applied to a singular college – in Washington, D.C. – and I knew I wanted to be a part of protecting this nation.
I vowed on 9/11 that I would work in national security. And I’m grateful that thanks to the work of others, that pathway could become easier for hundreds of thousands of individuals and companies.
Inspired by 9/11, ClearanceJobs Becomes the National Security Community
Evan and Rachel Lesser understood from their previous work in government that national security depended not simply on policies, budgets, or technology, but on finding the people qualified and trusted to perform the work. At the time, there was no dedicated marketplace connecting security-cleared professionals with the agencies and contractors that urgently needed them.
Working from their kitchen table, Evan and Rachel decided to build one.
ClearanceJobs launched on July 7, 2002, as a direct response to the workforce needs emerging after 9/11. The original idea was straightforward: create a secure and private place where employers could find cleared professionals, and where those professionals could find meaningful work supporting the national security mission.
Nearly 25 years later, that idea has grown into the nation’s largest career community for professionals with a federal security clearance. More than two million candidates have joined ClearanceJobs since its founding. Thousands of recruiters use the platform, and hundreds of thousands of national security positions are on the platform at any given time.
Those numbers demonstrate reach, but they do not fully capture the impact.
Behind every profile is a person. Behind every job posting is a mission. Behind every successful connection is an analyst, engineer, investigator, linguist, cybersecurity specialist, intelligence professional, program manager, technician, recruiter, facility security officer, or veteran bringing hard-earned skills to the next assignment.
Most national security work never makes the news. It happens in secure facilities, federal offices, laboratories, command centers, shipyards, military installations, and contractor workspaces across the country. It is often technical, demanding, and deliberately invisible. The public may never know the names of the people doing it or the threats their work helped prevent.
But the work matters.
That belief has guided ClearanceJobs from the beginning. As Evan said when the company celebrated its 20th anniversary, ClearanceJobs is not just a business. Helping the people who perform national security work makes the country safer.
Our mission has expanded with the community we serve. ClearanceJobs began as a job board, but it has become a career community, an industry publisher, a convener, and a source of national security workforce intelligence. We help candidates understand the security clearance process. We help veterans translate their military experience into civilian careers. We give recruiters better ways to reach specialized talent. We provide facility security officers with information they can use. We bring government, industry, and workforce leaders together to discuss the policies and challenges shaping the mission.
The threats facing the United States have changed significantly since 2001. Counterterrorism remains part of the national security landscape, but today’s workforce must also contend with strategic competition, cyberattacks, insider threats, disinformation, emerging technologies, space operations, artificial intelligence, and increasingly sophisticated foreign intelligence efforts.
The jobs have changed, too. Some of the roles now considered essential to national security barely existed 25 years ago. Yet one truth remains constant: no strategy, platform, weapons system, or technology succeeds without qualified people behind it.
National security is ultimately a human enterprise.
That is why workforce issues are security issues. Delays in hiring, failures of clearance reciprocity, outdated personnel vetting systems, skills gaps, and barriers preventing talented people from entering or remaining in public service are not merely administrative inconveniences. They affect readiness. They slow innovation. They make it harder for agencies and contractors to accomplish the mission.
Supporting this workforce means recognizing both the importance of its work and the people performing it. It means helping a service member discover that the skills developed in uniform still have tremendous value. It means helping a cleared professional find a new opportunity without compromising privacy. It means helping an employer fill a critical position before a vacancy becomes a mission vulnerability. It means giving the national security community trusted information in a landscape often filled with complexity and uncertainty.
In July 2027, ClearanceJobs will celebrate its own 25th anniversary. It will be an opportunity to recognize an entrepreneurial idea, a post-9/11 vision, and the employees, candidates, recruiters, customers, contributors, and partners who turned that idea into a community. We are excited to use that time to celebrate how an idea has become mission impact, and the thousands of stories we’ve been honored to be a part of.
But this September, the focus belongs where it should: on remembrance.
We remember the lives lost on September 11, 2001. We remember the courage shown that day and the service inspired in the days, months, and years that followed. We honor the military members, intelligence professionals, federal employees, contractors, first responders, and countless others who have carried the responsibility of protecting the nation over the past quarter-century.
ClearanceJobs exists because special individuals recognized that responsibility and saw a practical way to support it. The company’s history is intrinsically tied to the post-9/11 national security mission. That origin is not a marketing story. It is a continuing obligation.
Twenty-five years later, remembrance must be more than a moment of silence. It must include a renewed commitment to the people who safeguard the nation and to the institutions, opportunities, and communities that enable them to serve.
For ClearanceJobs, that commitment remains unchanged: connect the people, strengthen the workforce, and support the jobs that safeguard our nation.
