BTM144 - Bruce Townshend - Employer Support for the Guard and Reserve

Behind The Mission

Show Summary

On this episode, we feature a conversation with Bruce Townshend, the Chief of Employer Engagement with Employer Support for the Guard and Reserve (ESGR), an office of the Department of Defense that promotes understanding between Reserve Component Service members and their civilian employers

About Today’s Guest

Bruce Townshend, Chief, Employer Engagement, Employer Support of the Guard & Reserve (ESGR), Department of Defense

Bruce Townshend is responsible for the planning, design and execution of proactive ESGR employer engagement initiatives to customers (Employers) and stakeholders (Guardsmen, Reservists and the Department of Defense). In this capacity he establishes frequent contact with corporate executives in a broad spectrum of industries, state government executives, mayors of major cities, and high-ranking military and Department of Defense officials to positively influence, motivate and persuade leaders - many of whom are uninformed or skeptical - on the merits of ESGR programs and services.

Mr. Townshend is a native of Lowell, Massachusetts, where he enlisted in the Army in 1981 as a military policeman. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Criminal Justice from Northeastern University in Boston, 1987. He was commissioned as an officer in the Military Police Corps through ROTC. He is a 2004 graduate of the Defense Information School as a qualified military Public Affairs Officer. He served a combined total of 28 years in the Army and Army Reserve, with assignments in Alabama, Virginia and Washington, and overseas assignments in Panama and Germany. He has served in Korea and deployed to Operation Iraqi Freedom with the 416th Engineer Command from Darien, Illinois, in 2003. For the final three years of his career, he mobilized with the Army Reserve and was a primary developer and implementor of the Yellow Ribbon Reintegration Program (YRRP) as a project and program manager up to his retirement in 2011. He worked for the Army Reserve YRRP as a contract program manager until coming to ESGR in November, 2017.

Mr. Townshend and his wife, Robin, have five grown children and eight grandchildren. He is an avid poker player and is fiercely proud of his Scottish and Irish heritages. He has been to all 50 states. He and Robin currently reside near Front Royal, Virginia.

Links Mentioned In This Episode

ESGR Website

State and Local ESGR Contacts

PsychArmor Resource of the Week

This week’s PsychArmor resource of the week is the PsychArmor the course, Best Practices for Employer Support of National Guard & Reserve Members. This course is intended to help guide employers who hire or are looking to hire National Guard & Reserve members. This course will discuss best practices pertaining to recruiting, training, and developing family support policies.

You can see find the course here:

https://learn.psycharmor.org/courses/Best-Practices-for-Employer-Support-of-National-Guard-and-Reserve

This Episode Sponsored By:

This episode is sponsored by PsychArmor. PsychArmor is the premier education and learning ecosystems specializing in military culture content PsychArmor offers an. Online e-learning laboratory that is free to individual learners as well as custom training options for organizations.

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Theme Music

Our theme music Don’t Kill the Messenger was written and performed by Navy Veteran Jerry Maniscalco, in cooperation with Operation Encore, a non profit committed to supporting singer/songwriter and musicians across the military and Veteran communities.

Producer and Host Duane France is a retired Army Noncommissioned Officer, combat veteran, and clinical mental health counselor for service members, veterans, and their families. You can find more about the work that he is doing at www.veteranmentalhealth.com