CINCINNATI — If Brian Stussie shows up on time, he’s late. At least that’s his mindset. A mindset that was ingrained into him in 1993. That’s when he was jumping out of planes at Ft. Bragg in North Carolina. It’s a mindset he says will never change.
Just look in his sock drawer. Stussie tells me he still folds each pair into space-saving rolls — exactly how he learned in the Army.
“I couldn’t let my hair grow long even if I wanted to,” Stussie said.
See how a Cincinnati railway honors veterans in the video below:
Stussie is the vice president of the Indiana and Ohio Railway's Ohio Valley Division. His company owns more than 500 miles of railroad and delivers steel products and other materials for Procter and Gamble, Lowe’s and Menards.
On a tour of its headquarters in Pleasant Ridge, Stussie points out it’s going to be 95 degrees. It's a hard job working here. That's why he says the railway industry is full of veterans like him.
"We usually find that people who come from a 9-to-5 office job ... it doesn’t usually pan out very well," Stussie said. “The only difference between the railway and the military is we don’t make you get your haircut."
And to show their appreciation, his team recently painted a locomotive with camouflage and the American flag.
“It just fit,” Stussie said.
He tells me the company plans to paint another locomotive like it later this year. Because it’s about more than just paint. It’s a way to honor employees like Nathan Cardino, who fixes locomotives here.
“Well, I try to at least,” Cardino said. “Sometimes they give me a run for my money.”
Cardino might be the loudest person in this mechanic shop, he says, but other than that his story is unremarkable. Then, he tells me he met his wife in the military. She was checking IDs at the gates and his old Chevy caught on fire while he tried to drive through.
"It’s not too hard of a job — a lot easier than working on an F-16," Cardino, who used to fix jets in the Air Force, said. "I can actually climb in here and get my hands in it."
He laughs. Because he says his job at the railway is dirtier.
“There’s times I wish I stayed in (the military), but then I find jobs like this and it changes your mind a little bit,” Cardino said. “You can’t help but feel a little pride.”
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