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Microsoft Earns Award for Support of Guard, Reserve
(September 23, 2009) | 
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Army Maj. Tom Castellano is a reservist as well as a Microsoft employee. Microsoft's support of Castellano and other Guard and Reserve members has earned the company a top Defense Department award. Courtesy photo |
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WASHINGTON, Sept. 16, 2009 -- When
Tom Castellano was called on to deploy in 2007, his manager at Microsoft had a
parting gift.
“She gave me a GPS device,” the Army Reserve major said. “She told me, ‘This is
to help find your way back to Microsoft.'”
Castellano deployed from his home in Omaha, Neb., to Fort Meade, Md., where he
spent 14 months working in support of Operation Noble Eagle. In addition to the
GPS gift, Castellano received the difference between his military pay and his
Microsoft salary during his deployment. The company also continued medical and
life insurance benefits for Castellano and his family.
For its support of Castellano and several hundred others at
Microsoft also in the reserve-component forces, Microsoft, along with 14 other
employers, will receive the Defense Department's Freedom Award in a ceremony
here tomorrow. |
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“Their support allowed me to focus on the military mission. I didn't have to
worry too much about finances,” said Castellano, a military intelligence
officer. “I got some positive feedback from even some high-level executives at
Microsoft. It made me feel proud to know they were out there supporting me doing
something worthwhile.”
As a matter of policy, Microsoft recognizes the military service of Castellano
and other citizen-servicemembers through newsletters, official Microsoft
publications and public events. Company officials also bent some of the rules
for Castellano upon his return, he recalled.
“Usually the policy is [that] if you don't use your vacation, it would get lost
if it lasts over a year,” he said. “But I was reinstated all the vacation time I
accrued up to my deployment. They made the exception for me so I could get that
back.”
Teresa Carlson, Microsoft's vice president of U.S. federal government sales,
said Microsoft goes to great lengths to alleviate work-related stress that
reserve-component servicemembers on the company's payroll feel while on active
duty.
“When someone goes to active duty, the one concern they have is, ‘Am I going to
have a job when I come back?' Absolutely. Yes, you're going to have a job. Yes,
you continue your benefits, and we give you pay differential,” Carlson said. “So
we try to ensure that when they leave us to go to active duty, they still
maintain those same benefits. They don't have to worry about that -- that's one
thing that's taken off their plates.”
Carlson said employees often mention servicemen and women deployed overseas
during company meetings. “We continually keep them in the conversation until
they come back and join us again,” she said.
When asked if there were qualities in military members that carry over into
their civilian jobs, Carlson prefaced her response by disclosing her own
family's experience.
“My husband was Army, my son's at West Point, and I spent a lot of years as a
military wife. I have a bias,” she said. “They are warm-hearted, good people.
[They have] high values, care about their government and care about their
country. And that absolutely translates to their work life.
“They don't know boundaries of time, because they work until the job's done,”
she said. “Their training is such that you give them a job to do [and] even
though they may not have been specifically trained, they take the hill. They get
it done.”
The Freedom Award, instituted in 1996 under the auspices of the National
Committee for Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve, recognizes U.S.
employers that rise above the requirements of the Uniformed Services Employment
and Reemployment Rights Act. | |
By John J. Kruzel
American Forces Press Service
Copyright 2009
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