| For immediate release: July 1, 2011 |
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LOVELAND – Congressman Cory Gardner, R-Colo., presented the Patriot Award to Debra Delk on Friday at the Medical Center of the Rockies.
The Committee for Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve awards the Patriot Award to recognize employers and managers who support employees who are members of the Guard and Reserves. Delk is MCR’s director of emergency services, respiratory, surgical units and clinical education.
“Ordinary men and women do extraordinary things in standing up for their country, and it’s a process they participate in not only with themselves and their family but with their employers as well,” Gardner said, adding that 48 percent of the nation’s military manpower comes from the Guard and Reserve participants.
Delk was nominated for the award by Captain Rodney Gorman, a nurse manager in the Ortho-Spine unit at MCR who also serves in the U.S. Air Force Reserves.
“It’s a privilege and an honor to have Debbie as my supervisor. She’s tough, but she’s fair,” Gorman said at the presentation. “When I came here for an interview, one of the biggest things I worried about was my military background and some misconceptions that sometimes society has about us – if that would be an asset for Poudre Valley Health System or if they would figure that as a liability. Well, clearly they valued it as an asset. And it is such a privilege to be part of a system to be in a community such as this that actually values our active duty folks, our Reservists, our Guardsmen.”
The award presentation also included tributes by State Rep. B.J. Nikkel of Loveland and State Rep. Brian DelGrosso of Loveland, John Clarke, a volunteer from the Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve organization and PVHS President and CEO Rulon Stacey.
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