Just for info, the minimum CIVIL experience to hold a Part 66 B1 or B2 engineering license is 5 years. This can be mitigated by doing an approved ab-initio course which will reduce the experience requirement down to 1 or 2 years (normally the duration of the course). As far as I am aware no credit is given for military experience under EASA rules. If an ab-initio route is followed there will be no certification rights issued until a year after the issue of a license.
As can be seen there is no easy route to 'open a box of engineers'
An interesting problem for the 2 companies.