The Bobby Bones Show - (SPONSORED) Back in Action: An Injured Soldier’s Path Forward

Episode Date: March 7, 2018

Chris Bruer joined the Army in 2006 with the hopes of helping others while serving his country. 10 years and 27 countries later, Chris was forced into medical retirement after suffering a devastating spinal injury. After a decade in the military, Bruer wanted to forge a new path forward and turned to Express Employment Professionals to help him continue his personal mission of helping people in need. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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of the journey Chris had taken. After a year, both men are sure they've made the right choice. On this edition of On the Job from Express Employment Professionals, we meet a young man whose life took a radical detour and who landed on his feet in a job where he can help others every day. If you want to find your next job, or if you're a company hoping to grow your workforce, Express Employment Professionals is for you.

Find more information at ExpressPployment, Pros.com. Chris Brewer and I are driving around his hometown of Vancouver, Washington. He tells me that he dropped out of high school at age 15. Just quit going. And then I started working, got my first job at a golf course, and worked there for about a year, then just started working odd jobs, then worked for less Schwab tires. For about a year, then I quit that job and joined the Army.

What did you do with the golf course? I worked on the driving range show I was a moving target. That's how that, that's all that was. I watched golf carts and did the driving range and literally turned into a moving target whenever I got in that golf cart to go get the range balls off the driving range. There's a funny commercial you've probably seen with that same theme, so you can probably picture Chris under fire from golf balls. But it's all part of something we'll learn about him in much more depth.

he's unstoppable. What'd you learn from that job? Golf balls hurt. But it taught me a lot of responsibility too because I was there by myself. So I had in that part of the golf course, so I had to stay on top of getting golf balls for the driving range and having enough golf carts ready for when people would show up for the twice. I like golf at about 2.30 in the afternoon.

But just a lot of self-responsibility because you had to work by yourself and stay up on top of everything. After the golf course, there were odd jobs, then the tire store for a while. But an event in 2003 inspired Chris to make what he thought was a move into a lifetime career. And it's one day I just up and quit and was like, I'm going to go join the R-ring. My friend Kane, who I went to high school with, was killed in Iraq in 2003. And he was the first person from Vancouver to be killed in both con or in either of the two conflicts. And I was like, well, I got to do it. I finally do it.

And so I did. And my parents were not happy at all about me joining the army. I walked in because I just disappeared for two days. And I was like, I was walking. I was like, hey, I joined the army. I leave for basic training. in a week and they're like

so that's how that went how old were you 21 Chris didn't really know what to expect from basic training the army takes raw recruits and tries to toughen them up well the hardest part for basic training

and like I told kids when I was a recruiter it's like if you've ever went to a sports camp basic training will be a cakewalk for you but so Fort Knox Kentucky has these hills that are notorious throughout the army called heartbreak, misery, and agony. And they are just so insanely long and steep.

Like, one of them, it's so steep. Like, when you're going up, you can actually reach your arm out and touch the asphalt is that steep. So that was the hardest part for me was those three hills, because I had despised to them. So they were not fun. Other than that, it was easy. Korea has been in the news a lot lately. Both the South, where the Olympics were held, and the North, where the political situation

has us on guard. Chris served two tours of duty in South Korea. And that place is the most beautiful country I've ever been to. The people are super friendly, very welcoming in when they find out that you're an American. And, yeah, I would recommend anybody goes to Korea in a heartbeat, not be afraid of the guy that's in North Korea. So, yeah. When you're deployed to Korea, what's your day-to-day like there?

In all honesty, is the exact same as it would be stateside for me. Because my job, I worked with a Patriot missile system, so, like, we trained a lot, but I still woke up and did PT at 6.30 in the morning. And PT stands for? Physical training. All right, so exercise and so forth. Every morning, Monday through Friday exercise. After that, it was onto the motor pool for maintenance of the vehicles, and the time was filled with plenty of training on their specific job responsibilities, which Chris can't go into in too much detail. But his overall impression of the people of Korea and the country was overwhelmingly positive.

Now, talking with Chris, you can hear how life in the Army goes in cycles. Korea, then back to Fort Hood, Texas, then Korea again. But Chris's life was about to undergo another big change. After a chance meeting sparked a conversation. This was one of the first things Chris wanted to tell me, as we were having breakfast on the day of our interview. Like most everything else, Chris says, he sounds a bit nonchol. about this, but his eyes are sparkling. And then 2010, I got stationed in Fort Bliss, Texas, which is in El Paso, so the middle of the

desert, and that's where I met my wife. She worked at a gas station or a convenience store, whichever he preferred to call it, and I just happened to come in one day, and I got to talk and do her, and I got ready to leave about 30 minutes later because she looked really bored. I was like, I go, I started talking because I was like, you know, I started talking because I was like, look bored is what I let off with. I got sock it and I went to a walkout. She's like, well, you're not going to ask me for my phone number?

And I was like, well, can I have your phone number then? And here we are all these years later. Now we're married. We've been married for February 26 will be a year. That happy event was still far in the future when Chris was sent to the Middle East. In 2011, I got deployed to Bahrain, which was the most miserable year of my life. I don't know if you've ever been there, but Bahrain's 11 miles wide. 31 miles long. So it's crazy small and take you about an hour to drive around the whole entire

country. And I was on a little itty-bitty air base, which was Rifa airbase. And our job was ballistic missile defense, you know, from anything that might be coming like out of Iran or anything like that. To pass the time and stay fit, Chris lifted weights. Now, when I was preparing to meet him and learn about his life. I did hear that he'd had an accident when he was in the service, but I pictured something service-related. The incident that was to end his dream of serving 20 years in the military happened in the gym

and was just an unfortunate and awful fluke. It happened when I was in Bahrain. What happened that day? Actually, I was just working out at the gym. I mean, I really was just trying to, because I had a good amount of downtime, so I'd work out two times a day. And so I tried to go for a new record for weight for me, and my back didn't like it.

I just heard a pop and just dropped the weights. That wasn't quite the end of Chris's military career. He was assigned to work in Northern Virginia for a while and then became a fantastically successful recruiter. But Army doctors caught up with him, found his extensive injuries, and realized that he shouldn't stay in the service. So I got medically retired because of my back. I would have did the full 20 if I would have had the chance. How do they tell you? Do they send a letter?

Do they call you into the office? How do you get this news that your whole life is about to change? So what you do is it's called a medical board. So your case gets presented to Army doctors and you go through the med board process, which takes about seven or eight months. And at the end of that process is when you find out yay or nay that you can either stay in or you got to go. So, and I knew that I wasn't going to be staying in. So I started preparing, started getting everything all packed up and ready to go.

And then I got the letter in the mail, said, I took all my 95 days of vacation that I had saved up, and I came home to Washington. All right, you're here. Now you'd have to take sort of a left turn. This wasn't what you planned. You had a different plan. So what are the kinds of things you start doing once you're back home? So there for about a month or so, I went into a pretty dark space. And I was just in a downward spiral.

And thankfully, I have my friends Jason and Sherman and Richard, who won the brewery. They were like, hey, Chris, you want to come help us build the brewery? And I was like, sure. So I did that for the first six months that or after that initial depression phase. because it's a lifestyle that you get so used to, you know, do it for 10 years, and then they tell you you can't do it anymore, and I didn't know what to do with myself. So then I helped them, and I got to get really, really, they weren't my friends per se then. There were acquaintances that I knew, but then over the six months of us building that place,

we became really, really good friends, and it altered my life. Like, they were great, and it made me feel like I had a purpose again. as you're starting to get to know Chris Brewer, you can probably tell that having a purpose is key to his sense of well-being, whether it was working on Patriot missile systems or switching to recruiting before he was, as he says, med-boarded out of the army. After the break, we'll learn more about how he helped his friends

build their microbrewery in Vancouver, Washington, and once that volunteer gig was done, how he pursued and earned a job at the Express Employment Professors, Office in Vancouver as a staffing consultant. You're listening to On the Job, the podcast from Express Employment Professionals. One company is on a mission to put a million people to work each year. Sounds like a big number, doesn't it? Not to express employment professionals, seeking a skilled labor position, or administrative work.

Maybe you're an executive looking for a career that fits. We take pride in connecting the right people with the right company. Express Employment professionals. is on a mission to put a million people to work each year. Let us help. We'll open doors for you. Go to expressprose.com to find a location near you. Welcome back to On the Job and the story of Chris Brewer, who found meaning helping others find jobs after his own career reached a turning point. Chris didn't go directly from the Army to Express Pros. He did what many people recommend when thinking about life transitions. He dove into an all-consuming volunteer.

job to acquaint himself with civilian life and get his mind focused on positive energy. In an industrial area of Vancouver, Washington, a microbrewery is becoming a destination for beer lovers. Brothers Cascadia is open every afternoon and evening with food trucks out front for those who love fine beer. Jason, the brewmaster, is showing me around. So in the fermenters, this is where we're going to add yeast and let fermentation happen. the beer will sit in there for roughly two to three weeks while it's finishing. We may add more secondary ingredients to that or not, depending on the beer. And then this is also where we'll carbonate the beer and then package it as well.

So where did Chris fit in here? Well, once he had reconciled himself to leaving the army and spent a month or so with his head down, he offered his services completely as a volunteer to help build this brewery. Yeah, my name is Sherman Gore. and one of the owners of Brothers Cascadia Brewing here in Vancouver, Washington. Sherman Gore has poured himself a glass of Cascadia's best beer and sits down to talk with me about his friend. How I met Chris was basically about how I met everybody that is a part of this family here at Brothers Cascadia. The three owners, Jason, Richard, and myself, we were all bartenders and servers and brewers that put an

a place called Northwood up in Battleground, Washington. And we were able to get a bunch of people behind us for the brewery. And Chris happened to be one of our regulars there, and we got to know him. And through circumstances, since Chris didn't have a job at the time, he started volunteering down at the brewery and became one of the family members down here. And he was here at least five days a week helping us out. It was incredible. Incredible.

He wasn't just someone that showed up every day. He actually, he brought something every day. You know, so it was fun to be around, but he was also, he was willing to learn from some of the electricians and contractors. And also, he was willing to do research and all sorts of stuff. So he became, I mean, we asked him, you know, after a little while, it was, hey, Chris, would you like to help with this? You know, this has become, became kind of a thing that, uh, that Chris really made himself invaluable just through hard work. Even with he didn't even have any skills in a certain area, he made himself valuable

in that area and became just like, well, Chris is going to help us with this and we're going to help us with that. And, I mean, he really, it's just kind of a, one of those old, old school stories to where he really got involved and, and he made himself that, that we couldn't imagine it without him now. So, and it's, yeah, I mean, he's just part of the family now. It's, that's just how it is. Became such a part of the family that he had his wedding here. Part of the family, maybe, but remember two things. Chris was a full-time volunteer in the effort building the brewery, so he didn't have a salary during that time. And there was never any promise made about the future there. It's a

micro staff as well as a microbrewery. So, one of the first of a microbrewery. So, one Once the hard work of constructing the place was over, Chris was once more forced to confront the future. Where could he go from here? On the hunt for paid work now, Chris attends a job fair. Eric Schubert, who with his wife Julie, runs the Express Employment Professionals Office in Vancouver, Washington, had sent someone from that office to the fair. And the story behind it was, before I met Chris, was that Chris was at this job fair, he was

coming out of the military, looking for his first civilian job, and he met Michelle. And the first thing that Michelle noticed was, now this was after the fact, of course, we found this out, but noticed that his hair was long, and he was nice and really looking forward to starting a new job. but he came in the next day, completely high and tight haircut, ready for an interview with his suit and tie and all this kind of stuff. And Michelle didn't even recognize him when he walked in the door. But he obviously took it serious. I mean, he was ready. And that's when he ended up meeting with me.

All right. Now you have a lot of meetings. I've been in the office for a while. A lot of people come in and out of there. when you had that first meeting with him, what stood out to you? Well, to me, I could instantly tell he was polished, which was kind of funny in the beginning because that's, Michelle was like, I don't remember him looking all polished when I saw him at the interview,

but it was fun and it was a big joke for a while. But that was my thing is he came in looking all polished and he just had a good attitude about life in general and just wanted to help people. And he spent the first few minutes of our meeting talking about his recruiting experience for the military. And that's helping people get into the military. And we're also helping people find jobs. So it seemed like that was a good match.

And I just said, well, what do you think about working in here for us? And that's where it's kind of started. And I said, well, can you, I mean, can you start tomorrow? because we were in need of some help at the front desk. I said, because I think you'd be awesome at it. And he says, actually, Eric, I appreciate it, but I'm going to have to turn you down. And of all things, when Eric offered me the job, he was like, so can you start tomorrow? And I was like, no.

And he gave me this funny look. Like, I just offered you a job and you're telling me no. And I was like, and I was a little thrown off by that because I'm like, what do you mean? Like, you're going to be great. Like, why are you going to turn me down? while he was getting married the next day. Like, well, in my defense, I'm getting married on Sunday. I'm a well, she's my fiancee then with wife now.

And I was like, she's flying in in a couple hours and where everything's already paid for and we're doing everything. So he ended up having, I said, oh, well, why didn't you say so? I'm like, you made me think that I was like offering you a bad position or something. And so then he ended up going off and got married and then he started shortly after that. I've been here ever since. It's been almost a year now, and it's been a great experience so far, and I love waking up and doing what I do and helping the people that we get to help, because Eric and Julie took me in and helped me out when I was in a bad, bad situation, and I just love the end of the day. I feel like I truly accomplished something

by helping people find their jobs. I'm getting them working so they can still take care of their family, and that's a really, really good feeling to me. A busy bee. That's Tunisia Williams, a fellow staffing consultant at Express Pros. That's what I call him, because bees are a very important population insect for this world to go around. So I call him a busy bee because he does whatever he can to help the team, to help his self, to help everyone around him.

So being a busy bee, he's always moving and doing whatever he can to make sure that everyone is successful, not just his self. When he was talking about his resume, he was real proud that he was one of the the best recruiters in the country from a, from a statistic standpoint. And, and that, that appealed to me as well, because I'm like, he's obviously got the drive. And my own dad was a recruiter for the Army in the past. So I know how much it takes to go to all the high schools and to go to all the career centers. And, and, I mean, there's a lot to be considered one of the best in the country as a recruiter standpoint. And so I knew, I knew he would be successful here.

Like just knowing that drive in itself, I knew he could do it. So that was one of the big decision-making factors for hiring him, too. I would say someone who is definitely having a heart of helping people. I think that's the most important thing. The actual staffing consultant position can be taught, but you have to have a heart for people. That's the only way you'll be successful. And tell me about some examples in the last six months of how you've seen that in Chris, that he's just not doing the job, but has that, as you say, a heart for people?

Well, Chris, his willingness to help people is not just an associates, is also in his clients as well as even us as co-workers. He's always there in the mornings. He's there kind of waiting for us, ready to go, kind of prepping us on everything we need to do that we may have missed. So he's very verbal and he cares about us a lot, even on a professional and personal level. Chris's path at Express Employment Professionals has borne out everyone's confidence in him. He started as a front office coordinator, really the heart of the

operation in some ways, helping people who come in the door find their way through the system to jobs. After six months, a position opened up as a staffing consultant, and that's what he does now. So he's also interfacing with clients as well as associates. There's a great example of how Chris has gone above and beyond to help everyone. And it really just depends on, um, Like, we really try to take care of our associates. So we have, like I said, the gummy bear vitamin factory. So the production is done here in Vancouver right down the road. It's about two and a half, three miles from here.

The packaging and sorting and all that for the gummy bear vitamins is done up in Ridgefield, which is just up the highway, I think eight exits from here, nine exits. But I was talking to our local public transportation, and they have a bus that, runs out there a couple times a day and I spoke to them I spoke to their like president of the division that does the planning for the routes last week to see if maybe we could get them to shift the pickup time a like a few minutes earlier so we could because then if we could I could get associates that are on public transportation out to work at the Ridgefield factory with public transportation. So I told them how many of people we have working out there and they're

strongly considering changing the the bus schedule so people or our associates can get to work. I don't know. I mean, I've been doing this a long time. I've never had somebody called the bus station and ask them to change their schedule for a bunch of people looking for work. That was pretty neat. That was pretty neat. We don't have any answer yet, but he did say that it was a good possibility. He's been a great asset to the team, and it's fun to have him around, and he's just soaking all this stuff up like a sponge. And I can just tell him in his heart he really loves to help people. So I think this is a good long-term fit for him. I get the sense that you're a bit of a spark plug here in the office, that people kind of count on

your good energy and your high spirits, and it kind of helps bring the office forward. Is that sometimes a struggle for you? Or is that something that comes natural? Or how does that work with you? It comes naturally. I've always been a wiry person when it comes to move. I'm sure they said my co-worker said and my boss said something about it. I move it up 100 miles an hour.

If you catch me moping or going slow, there's something wrong. And they will call me out on it. Like, what's wrong, Chris? You're not your normal self. And it's happened before. And it's just how I am. So my boss, when I was in Korea, his name was staff,

so then he was staff, Sergeant Keel. He used to tell us every day, he's like, if you're not going to give me 100%, why are you showing up? He's like, I need people that are trained and ready to go to war and want to do what they have to do if we have to do it. So that's how I've been ever since. 100% no matter where I go, what I'm doing. And you're not going to, well, no one's going to change me.

I'm going to be myself until the day that I'm gone. So I may not be as fast in 20 years, but I'll still be given it 100%. That's Chris Brewer, a staffing consultant with Express Employment Professionals in Vancouver, Washington. And that's all for this edition of On the Job. Find out more at ExpressPros.com, and you can listen to every podcast this season

at ExpressPros.com slash podcast. This podcast is produced by your host, Steve Menscher for Mench Media, IHeart Radio, and Red Seat Ventures. You can subscribe on IHeartRadio, and iTunes, where we hope you leave a nice review that helps other folks find us too. And, of course, you can listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. See you next time. On the Job.

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you can have everything installed and armed in under an hour. No technician needed. And it's not just a camera. It's a full ecosystem of sensors, cameras for inside and outside, and 24-7 professional monitoring. If there's ever a break-in, a fire, or a flood, SimplySafe's agents are on it immediately. They were also named America's best customer service by Newsweek, which honestly tracks. Right now, you can get 50% off your new system by visiting SimplySafe.com slash bones.

That's half off at SimplySafe.com slash bones. There's no safe like Simplysafe. Service opens doors. And at American Military University, it can open doors for the whole family. If you have a loved one who served in the military, you may qualify for reduced tuition. AMU offers flexible online programs designed to fit your schedule so you can keep moving forward wherever life takes you. Learn more at AMU. APUS.edus.edu slash military. Open doors to the future for you and your family with the help of American Military University.

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