2013 Military Appreciation Month – Feature #4

May is Military Appreciation Month!

In honor of this, we are featuring employees from all subsidiaries of Barrett Industries who are or were active in the military! In addition, we will also feature employees who honor and give back to military families and organizations in their communities!

BARRETT PAVING MATERIALS, INC. – The New York North Region (NYN) of Barrett Paving Materials Inc., located in Watertown, NY, is our forth featured article where they are very active in the local military community of Fort Drum.

For the second year in a row, NYN has “adopted” a new platoon of 28 soldiers from Chinook Company through the Adopt a 10th Mountain (Mt.) Platoon Program. “The Adopt a 10th Mountain (Mt.) Platoon Program is how one community helps to reduce the adverse impacts of deployments on Soldiers and their families.” Since 1992, the program “has ensured that every platoon that deployed from Fort Drum had a sponsor (business, school, church group, civic organization, etc.).”

The NYN region of Barrett Paving sits directly inside of the military community of the 10th Mountain Division near Ft. Drum, NY.

This is a much bigger platoon than they had the pleasure to sponsor in 2012. This year, the NYN region adopted an Aviation Unit that is one unit out of eight that will serve in Afghanistan for the next 9 months. There are more than 900 soldiers in this deployment called TF Phoenix which have company names of Chinook, Blackhawk, Apache, Medevac, Escort and fuel Support. This platoon was deployed on May 5th, 2013 to the area called Shank (south of Kabul). Many of the other Companies will go to Eastern Afghanistan.

Out of the 28 soldiers in the platoon, 20 of them are married, some with children. It kind of puts a perspective on them when you meet them and interact via email and letters. These young men and women put their lives on the line for us every day and this is a great way to let them know we care and that we are proud of the work they do for us.

Barrett plans on sending out packages to the soldiers starting next month and would love it if anyone would like to personally send them items in our care package as well. Some items they like to receive are magazines such as Sports Illustrated & Mechanic Magazine. They love to receive cookies, candy, games (old or new), books, stationary items and pens…the list goes on and on.

If anyone is interested in helping to send packages or adding items to the packages, please contact Sue Ann Messick at the Barrett Paving – NYN Regional Office at SMessick@barrettpaving.com or (315) 788-2037. Sue Ann has the names and interests of all the soldiers in the platoon.

Thank you to Sue Ann and everyone else from the New York North region for giving back to those who give so much more!