Supporting Soldiers ... with More than Products

ITT employees are running grassroots programs to meet the "human needs" of U.S. soldiers stationed around the world.

U.S. forces serving in Iraq, Afghanistan and other areas of the world know they can count on ITT.

We are the company with night vision goggles. With battlefield radios. With counter IED technologies ... and with employees who care about the soldiers in the field.

While our products serve the needs of soldiers, our people provide support on a more human level. For proof, look no further than our Defense facility in Clifton, New Jersey, where ITT employees are helping soldiers in too many ways to count.

The undertaking began five years ago as a small effort to send school supplies and a few packages to one soldier. With the help of lead coordinator Joan Damurjian, who works in Clifton's Human Resources department, it spread from there.

Clifton employees held a yellow ribbon campaign to raise money for Fisher House, which enables military families to stay nearby when a wounded loved one is hospitalized. Another campaign enabled them to purchase phone cards for soldiers of several deployed units, and that evolved into the purchase of 70 web cams to allow soldiers to "see" their families. They also assisted in the sponsorship of the Wounded Warrior Project, which assists the men and women in the armed forces who have been severely injured during conflicts around the world.

Care packages are constantly streaming out of Clifton to their "adopted" soldiers overseas. Employees have sent everything from chocolates, books and toothbrushes to holiday trees and ping-pong tables. 

"One senior executive donated his frequent flier miles to a soldier's mother so she could fly to Walter Reed Hospital to be with her wounded son," says Damurjian.

Other ITT sites are seeing their grassroots programs grow in similar ways. In Fort Wayne, Indiana, Jo Bird, an assembler for the ITT Aerospace/Communications Division, leads an annual holiday donation drive to collect gifts for employees with relatives in Iraq. This year's shipment was the biggest ever.

In Roanoke, Virginia, employees at ITT's Night Vision value center raised money and collected supplies to aid children in need in Kosovo, on behalf of a U.S. Army battalion stationed in that country.

And in Rochester, New York, Al McLiverty, who heads the Veteran's Network group for ITT's Space Systems Division value center, recently shipped 17 boxes filled with more than 500 pounds of employee-donated necessities and "goodies" to soldiers in Iraq. 

"Every package goes to a unit that has an ITT family connection -- siblings, spouses, children, nieces and nephews," says McLiverty. "There were 13 different units in Iraq and Afghanistan that received an ITT care package this past December."

From thank you notes to site visits, the soldiers on the receiving end of this generosity show their appreciation in different, but equally heartfelt, ways. One day, a package from Iraq arrived in Clifton. Inside was a dust and sand-encrusted flag that had flown over Baghdad in honor of ITT employees.

"We were told it was a simple gesture," says Damurjian, "but the only way these soldiers could thank us for all we had done for them."

Top photo: Ronald Belczak and Cathy Carmestro from ITT Space Systems Division pack supplies for soldiers in Iraq; Middle and bottom photos: Candy and soccer balls sent to 173rd Division soldiers by ITT employees in Clifton, New Jersey, were passed out to the local Iraqi children.