CINCINNATI — If you’ve never heard of a Helpy Hour then you’ve never been a member of the Total Quality Logistics, or TQL, work family. Employees describe it as a one-part volunteer, one-part happy hour that brings everyone together for camaraderie and a good cause.
During TQL's most recent Helpy Hour, employees put together care packages for area veterans.
The gathering also includes many of the more than 300 veterans and active members of the National Guard who work within the company's locations across the country.
“It gives us a chance to talk to people like us, even though we're like everybody, it's still fun to find that brotherhood and talk to soldiers that also served,” said Tina Sunderhouse.
Sunderhouse served 28 years and retired from the National Guard. She said when she applied at TQL, the hiring manager recognized the value of her guard experience on her resume.
“When they see that military service, they know what they're getting,” she said.
Her daughter Morgan also works at TQL while currently serving in the National Guard. Sunderhouse, who retired as a Master Sergeant, said she was very proud of her daughter, now a Chief Warrant Officer 2.
“I gave her her first salute,” Sunderhouse said.
Morgan Sunderhouse was able to use scholarship money tied to her service in the guard to give herself a hand up when it came to her post-school career path.
“It strengthened my resume, really coming out of college. I've had part-time positions through college, right, but nothing really that stood out on my resume,” Morgan Sunderhouse said. “And actually, my National Guard experience was the game changer there. The leadership experience and the things I learned there were to my advantage.”
She discovered just how supportive the TQL family was when she was activated for deployment.
“We went to Kuwait in 2020 and I was gone from here for a full year,” Morgan Sunderhouse said. “They reached out to me all the time, all my co-workers, my manager, they sent me a lot of care packages. People kept asking me like, where do you work? I get these massive care packages. And they're like, my employer isn't doing that.”
Hiring veterans is nothing new for TQL. In fact, Gary Carr said he was the 13th employee and first veteran hired by the company as it first got off the ground and said TQL appreciates the characteristics that come with someone who served.
“The discipline, hard work, takes orders, you get knocked down you get back up,” Carr said.
He says the Veteran Employee Resources Group has grown and through that amazing ideas come to the table to better serve veterans within the company, those who deploy and nonprofits in the communities where TQL resides with a veteran-centered mission.
“We're blessed to work for a company that does give back — especially to military. And over the last 16 years, we've given about a half a million dollars away, 20,000 care packages,” Carr said. “It's really just the giving back, which I think is very important for our, our military.”
The Military Friendly organization rates schools, brands, employers and more.
Their website says, “Military Friendly® is the standard that measures an organization’s commitment, effort and success in creating sustainable and meaningful benefit for the military community.”
For nine years, TQL has made the list.
Recognition of service within TQL is important and they want other employees who didn’t serve to be able to recognize those who did.
“On the left part of the lanyard a pin we give our veterans, American flag to depict that they were in the military,” Carr said.
He adds that TQL, with the help of their Veteran Employees Targeting Success group, also goes out of their way to promote personal and company growth while providing veteran employees and their families with the necessary resources to be successful.
If you drive by their headquarters on I-275 east of Cincinnati you will notice their American Spirit flying high in the air. They have a 160-foot tall flagpole with a flag that is 30x60 feet in size and during military appreciation month, they light the entire building up in red, white and blue.
You can find out more about TQL and potential opportunities by visiting theirwebsite.
If you have a veteran story to tell in your community, email homefront@wcpo.com. You also can join the Homefront Facebook group, follow Craig McKee on Facebook and find more Homefront stories here.
