Matt Starkey has seen a variety of service. From Desert Storm as a medic to National Guard to Veterans Affairs, he knows the military.
Starkey is the new veterans service officer for Seward County, accepting the position in January.
He was born in Ashland and moved with his family to Lincoln in junior high. He graduated from Lincoln High and attended the University of Nebraska-Lincoln for a year.
“I floundered. I was not ready, not motivated,” he said. “I walked to the recruiting office and joined the Army.”
In 1989, he was sent to a tank battalion in Germany and went with it into Iraq for Desert Storm. As the unit’s only medic, he was in the lead company of the Third Armored Division.
When the Army downsized in 1992, he didn’t have many chances to reenlist, so he joined the National Guard. He moved to Seward the first time in 1995 and was on fulltime active duty with the National Guard until 2001.
In 2003, the Guard moved him to Kearney, then McCook and Beatrice before he retired in 2013.
He went to work for the state Veterans Affairs office and continued to travel the state. In 2017, he became the outreach and training coordinator and traveled to all 93 counties in Nebraska.
They were sent home in March because of COVID-19 and just went back to the office in February, he said. Despite working from home, he continued to help veterans, although he had to learn new ways to do so.
After seven years with Veterans Affairs, he decided he wanted a narrower focus. He always liked Seward, and when Jeff Baker, the previous veterans service officer, decided to step down, Starkey decided to step in.
“I’m very qualified on the law and benefits,” he said. “I specialize in being a problem solver.”
He said he likes to help veterans solve issues and is looking forward to helping them cut through the red tape.
“Government is not meant for normal people to understand,” he said. “It gets more technical all the time.
“Helping with benefits is what I like to do.”
His goal is to increase outreach to veterans and surviving spouses to help them get the benefits to which they’re entitled.
He hopes to have alternate office hours for veterans who work during the day and can’t get to his office between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.
“I want to carry on what Jeff did,” he said.
Because he comes from state employment, he said Seward County is a test to see if that might work for other counties.
Starkey currently lives in Lincoln with his dog, a 7-year-old Airedale terrier/German Shepherd mix “who is developing a personality,” he said.
He likes to fish, travel and camp and cheers for the Denver Broncos.
He enjoys sports, he said, and is looking forward to watching more local teams, something he liked doing as a recruiter.
He’s planning an open house in May to meet more Seward County veterans and residents. He encouraged all veterans to contact him to make sure they’re in the database so any new benefits can be applied.
Starkey can be reached in the office at (402) 643-4105, via email at mstarkey@co.seward.ne.us or by cell phone at (402) 641-8808.
