Tomah VA Medical Center

Veteran Rob Thurman enjoying new position with MasterMold.

Famed Green Bay Packers Head Coach Vince Lombardi once uttered these now renowned words, “The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand.”

Rob Thurman, a Vietnam War Veteran, epitomizes that belief. After various attempts to return to employment following his service in the Army, Thurman has found a place he fits in with and can call home away from home.

“The people here are nice to work for. I had bad experiences in the civilian world as far as work goes and I don’t have that problem here,” said Thurman.

Thurman’s employer is MasterMold, a full-service supplier of custom molded fiberglass reinforced composites.

Tanya English, MasterMold’s plant manager is excited about partnering with the Tomah VA Medical Center Therapeutic and Supported Employment Services (TSES) to employee Thurman and several other Veterans through Transitional Work.

“Some are using this as a stepping stone,” said English. “It helps us too.”

“Tanya has given me so many responsibilities … when a new Vet comes in I’m taking them around, showing them where everything is at,” Thurman said.

“She also has me going to check to see how their morale is doing. By helping them transition in, I am helping myself. I have more responsibilities, but I like it.”

English comes from a patriotic family of military servicemen.

“My parents and grandparents were all Veterans and my spouse was a Veteran,” she shared. “He passed away last year and we have both been involved with Wounded Warriors and anything we could do. My son was a solider in the Army.”

MasterMold has been in business for more than 30 years with capabilities including compression sheet molding, robotic machining/bonding and robotic painting as well as parts assembly. The company manages three facilities located in Johnson Creek, Mauston and Watertown.

The company currently employs 130 people in the Mauston location.

Lee Pingel, the Tomah VAMC Community Employment Coordinator in TSES, was instrumental in orchestrating the partnership with MasterMold after meeting with English. TSES programs provide therapeutic vocational services through Compensated Work Therapy (CWT) and Transitional Work (TW) opportunities.

“Mastermold has been a great CWT/TW placement and employment site for our Veterans. They have went above and beyond in meeting our Veteran’s employment needs,” said Pingel, an Army Veteran. “In turn our Veterans have provided them with reliable, dedicated, and punctual workers. It just has become a fantastic partnership.”

English agrees the partnership fills a need for both MasterMold and the Veterans they employee.

“I am new to MasterMold and to being the plant manager and one of the issues we had right off the bat was employees. We’ve worked with several temp agencies in the area. We do have some big projects coming up next year. Out of the blue, I drive right past the VA each day and I said ‘Tamara can you call the VA and see A is there a program out there that we can work with them to get guys that need to get back to work, or lady. See what we can figure out.’ So, Tamara made the phone call.”

“We made an appointment and Lee came out to meet with us, we did a tour and talked about what kind of positions we are looking for and then Tanya was invited back to do a presentation at the VA,” said Mauston’s MasterMold Human Resource Manager, Tamara Ryan.

“I am glad Tanya brought this to our attention. We had been having a lot of trouble keeping people here. This has really been great. We have nine here now and two new starting today,” added Ryan. “Our goal is they will be hired on permanently. It’s transitional but the goal at the end is to bring them on permanently if that is what they want. As Tanya said we have some big projects coming up and we are going to need more people.”

English discussed the employment opportunities with Veterans at the Tomah VA and received several inquiries following. One of the first to inquire was Thurman and he was the first Veteran in the program to be offered a position with MasterMold.

“Our corporate headquarters are in Johnson Creek but I focused on the presentation on what is going on here in Mauston. I understand that some can’t and some can as far as, do we need accommodations; do we need to do shifted schedules and all of that kind of stuff. Which absolutely we can do that.  There were quite a few guys there the first day for that presentation and as soon as we got all the paperwork and red tape side done, Rob was our first guinea pig,” said English jokingly. “A lot of it was between Lee and Rob, the word just spread that here’s a place that will work with you guys, we will see what we can do. We do rideshare. So, we try to do everything we can to get them here and provide them with a job that hopefully will become permanent.”

Thurman, who has been with the company for three months, gets a kick out of being called the “guinea pig” of the project, is happy with his new responsibilities.

“I like it a lot. It started out with Tanya’s presentation. After she did her presentation I talked to Lee and he brought me up here on a tour. That’s when I decided it was time to take the risk and to transition into civilian work,” he said. “Lee helped me out a lot getting transitioned over, Tanya has been working real hard with me. I do have some issues I struggle with.”

While the state of Wisconsin recently launched a national marketing campaign aimed at attracting Veterans to the state to combat the void for qualified employees, the Tomah VA and MasterMold are taking a more local approach to the challenging issue.

“It’s a big problem in Wisconsin to fill employer’s needs.  I would recommend the program to other employers too. Maybe they are afraid to take the risk, or whatever that risk may be, but it is well worth it.  The guys we have here fit in really well with our current workforce. They are working hard and being productive. It’s a great solution for other employers too,” said Ryan.  

English hopes their efforts will increase as time goes on.

“It’s one of those things where it is definitely up to the individual on what they need. We are building together for future projects. We want to be able to give Veterans a home base for work. It is not easy transitioning out. I know that first hand but once you find a place that is comfortable, that you have got others that you click with, you spend most of your time at work in comparison to home.”