By STU CLAMPITT
news@readthereporter.com
Lieutenant Jon Shultz is a reservist in the Army National Guard. Shultz is both is a marksman who has competed at the national level in the Guard and a medevac pilot who flies Blackhawk helicopters. He is also a Duke Energy district engineering working out of the Noblesville Operations Center.
Because of the level of unquestioning support he gets from his supervisors and co-workers, the Office of the Secretary of Defense Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve (ESGR) recently awarded Bill Oldham and Zach Wright with Patriotic Employer recognition.
The Reporter sat down with Shultz, Oldham, Wright and Duke Energy Government and Community Relations Manager Mark LaBarr to talk about the award and the many roles Shultz fills for his country and his company.
“From time to time, he [Shultz] is called into duty somewhere that takes him away from his job,” LaBarr told The Reporter. “His peers and his leaders cover for him while he’s away and he can be confident that his job is still here for him when he returns.”
Given that Shultz is both an officer and a pilot, sometimes his ongoing training for the military can be both time-intensive and scheduling changes can be a challenge.
“Being in the National Guard, we’re still a part of the military in the Department of Defense,” Shultz said. “We still can be called away for a deployment for a year, year and a half.
Shultz has been with e Guard for nearly ten years and with Duke for almost two years.
“I’ve been away on orders four times for anywhere from one week to up to six weeks,” Shultz said. “But I’m also a medevac pilot as well. And so frequently throughout the month – typically it’s about two to three days a month – I’m going up and flying during the work week as well. That’s on top of our drill weekend.”
(From left) Lt. Jon Shultz, Bill Oldham, and Barney Hayes of ESGR. (Photo provided)
According to Zach Wright, Shultz is very good about keeping Duke informed of his shifting schedule.
“But what happens, just like any other organization, sometimes the military cancels that week because it’s just not going to work or whatever, and it’s going to be rescheduled,” Wright said. “And sometimes it is last minute or within the week, it pops back up and that’s when we work to make adjustments.”
While those quick adjustments do happen, they are not frequent.
“The only one that I really remember, like the quick turnaround, was when you qualified for that shooting competition,” Oldham said. “And that was a pretty quick turnaround.”
Schultz was in a shooting competition with the National Guard last fall at the state level. He did well enough that they allowed him to go to the national level.
“It was in the middle of April that I got told about it and the competition was the first week of May,” Shultz said. “Just two weeks ago I was scheduled to go fly on a Thursday afternoon and I found out Wednesday afternoon the day before that training was canceled. Then rescheduled for the next Wednesday. It was just kind of a last-minute change all of a sudden.”
All this is in addition to Shultz’s work as a Duke district engineer serving the Westfield area.
Duke has a veteran hiring mission because, according to LaBarr, they see great value in both the skills these workers bring to the job and also in supporting the American military – which, in the Army’s case, is made up of over 50 percent Guard and Reserve personnel now.
For Shultz, the support he gets goes above and beyond simple company policy, which is why he asked the Pentagon for recognition for his supervisors.
“ESGR is an organization with the Pentagon that is specifically there to help support the soldiers and airmen that are in the Guard and the Reserve,” Shultz said. “They provide resources such as, hey, you have a soldier that’s getting ready to go on a deployment or returning from a deployment. Another piece of what they do is what we did for Zach and Bill doing employer recognition. The big picture with Duke is that I’ve been really appreciative of their support. They give me hours, 120 hours a year that I can report military training. More of a small picture, looking at my environment around me, Zach, and Bill have both been super supportive and just letting me take time off to go meet those requirements for the military. And I just I very much appreciate that. Duke is just such a good team environment where I can definitely count on my coworkers and my teammates to help cover for me while I’m gone.”