Having spent July Fourth serving in the U.S. Armed Forces overseas, Ameren employees Patrick Owens and Darin Hendry have seen the red glare of rockets and heard bombs bursting in the air. The two want current Ameren military personnel and colleagues with immediate family members serving in the U.S. Armed Forces to know they are not forgotten this Independence Day.
Owens, a lieutenant colonel, infantry officer serving at the Joint Forces Headquarters in the Illinois Army National Guard, and Hendry, a former Army Ranger, are two of the founding members of the Ameren-Military Veterans Employee (AMVE) resource group. AMVE’s 150-member group regularly sends care packages to those employees who are on active duty.
“I will definitely take a moment this July Fourth holiday to reflect on my co-workers who are serving, and Ameren colleagues with loved ones who safeguarding our nation’s freedoms,” said Owens, a customer accounts credit manager in Decatur who served in Kandahar, Afghanistan.
“We are supporting 19 Ameren employees or an employee’s immediate family member who is deployed,” said Hendry, who served in the Persian Gulf. “AMVE also provides support to those family members back home in Illinois and Missouri as well as our military veteran employees.”
More than 600 of Ameren’s 9,300 employees are veterans. Kevin Ford, a gas pipefitter working for Ameren, is a sergeant in the Army Reserves. Ford was a recipient of several care packages from AMVE. He returned to work in November 2011 after serving 10 months supporting Operation New Dawn in Qatar and Afghanistan.
“I received three or four care packages and all sorts of personalized letters from AMVE. There was a lot of thought that went into those letters and cards. It meant a lot to me,” Ford said. “It was also comforting and nice to be able to tell my wife that Ameren was taking care of me and that I would have a job when I got back. I was with guys over there who didn’t even know if they were going to have a job when they came back home. I really looked forward to coming back to work when I got back home.”
Ameren was awarded the 2011 Department of Defense Employer Support Freedom Award. The award is the highest recognition given by the U.S. government to employers for their outstanding support of employees who serve in the National Guard and Reserve. The company has also been recognized as a Top 100 Military Friendly Employee by G.I. Jobs magazine. This ranking was created based on the strength of military recruiting efforts, the percentage of new hires with prior military service and company policies toward National Guard and Reserve service.
“We owe the brave men and women serving in the Armed Forces our full support; at all times,” said Richard Mark, president and CEO, Ameren Illinois. “We should routinely thank our military veterans for the sacrifices they have made. I cannot say enough about the efforts of our employee resource group, AMVE, who go the extra mile in helping our own employees or their family members who are deployed feel closer to home with the care packages and letters they send on a regular basis.”
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With assets of more than $23 billion, St. Louis-based Ameren Corporation owns a diverse mix of electric generating plants strategically located in our Midwest market, with a generating capacity of nearly 16,000 megawatts. Through our Missouri and Illinois subsidiaries, we serve 2.4 million electric customers and more than 900,000 natural gas customers in a 64,000-square-mile area. Our mission is to meet their energy needs in a safe, reliable, efficient and environmentally responsible manner. For more information, visit Ameren.com.
CONTACT: Stacey Stockton-Shangraw, 309.677.5073, SStockton-Shangraw@ameren.com