Robert Walicki The Autobiography of…….

2008

Robert Walicki 2/10/2008

 

Name: Robert Joseph Walicki

Born: April 16^th 1966

Birthplace: New Britain General Hospital

                   New Britain Ct.

Elementary School: Sacred Heart School

                                New Britain Ct.

Education:

From Spring 2007	To Present	Naugatuck Valley Community College		Credits attempted   12	Total after spring 08   36	Program   Business management
September 1980	June 1984	High School E.C. Goodwin Tech New Britain Ct.	Electro-Mechanical
From	To		Course Name
Apr 1985	June 1985	US Navy	Basic electronics training
June 1985	December 1985	US Navy	Advanced electronic training
Dec 1985	May 1986	US Navy	WDS MK-14 SYR-1 Maintenance training
May 1986	September 1986	US Navy	WDS MK-14 CTS/ AN-SYR 1 maintenance training
May 1986	September 1986	US Navy	AN-SYR 1 communications tracking set training
September 1986   February 2006   March 2004	September 1986   February 2007     June   2004	US Navy       US Postal Service     US Postal Service	Leadership Management Education and Training     MDO Developmental Program     Associate Supervisor Program

                                My journey began on April 16^th 1966 at New Britain general hospital, New Britain Connecticut.  I attended a catholic elementary school and was an altar boy for several years.  I played little league baseball for the Walicki little league in New Britain Ct.  Our team “The Cards” won the championship both at the farm and major levels.  I was a third baseman and made the all-star team every year I played ball.  After graduating elementary school I went to E.C. Goodwin Technical High School.  I chose the trade of electro-mechanical and excelled at the trade.  At age sixteen my priorities changed and a job and a license became a goal.  I started as a stock clerk for the Sears Roebuck Co. and worked for them until I graduated with honors and enlisted into the United States Navy at age eighteen which subsequently ended my volunteer work as an EMT with Capital County ambulance Co. for my hometown.  In February nineteen eighty five two months before my nineteenth birthday I departed for Orlando   Florida and The U.S. Navy boot camp.  After completing basic training I attended basic electronic training then advanced electronic training in Great Lakes Ill.  My rating of choice was fire control technician, and I was responsible for the computers on board the USS Biddle CG-34 that controlled the ships missile system.  I joined Biddle while she was deployed on a Mediterranean cruise and off the coast of Libya and steaming towards the “Line of death”.   While stationed on Biddle I made several Caribbean cruises and we assisted the Coast Guard with drug interdiction Operations.  We made port visits to Isle’s all over the Caribbean, Puerto Rico, Cuba, St. Thomas, St. Maarten, St. Croix, St. John.  I also made two full and one partial Med cruise.  My first partial was when I joined the ship in Eighty-Six, I did make two full Med deployments after that. After returning to homeport Norfolk Virginia from “The line of death” our ship was slotted for a one year complete overhaul in Philadelphia Pennsylvania.  During the year in the yards we were sent to specialized training for the newer better weapon system that was being installed.  I had the pleasure of going to Mare Island Ca. for several months with a view of the Golden gate bridge out of the barracks window.  Prior to going to school in California I received a much needed knee surgery for an injury sustained in boot camp.  After our year in the shipyard we made shakedown cruises in the Atlantic off the coast of Virginia known as the VACAPES, as Biddle luck would have it when we tested our anchor and went to hoist it up the anchor windless room failed and the motors which hoisted the anchor from the ocean floor burned out.  The crew of over three hundred men formed a line along the port (left) of the ship on the main deck and all at once tugged on a mooring line attached to the anchor chain, in unison, for over eight hours.  Inch by inch foot by foot we pulled as a crew until the anchor was hoisted by pure brute force back into its cradle.  During my first deployment we were peace time steaming and visited places like Toulon France, Monte Carlo, Nice, Cannes, Naples Italy, Sorrento Italy, Palma Spain, Alexandria Egypt, a trip to Cairo and the pyramids.  Other port visits included Istanbul Turkey, Haifa Israel and the Isle of Crete.  During my first six month cruise the night after leaving the port of Naples Italy the U.S.O. in Naples was bombed by terrorist.  After returning home from my first six month cruise we were going to do three to five day cruises for the next year and also do more drug operations in the Caribbean.  In April nineteen ninety ten months before my six year hitch in the Navy was up, the most important thing to ever happen to me in my life; happened, I met who would become my wife.  The night I met my wife she was out with a girlfriend and it was dollar beer night, so her girlfriend pulled out a dollar told my wife it was hers if she hugged him.  Yes she had pointed at me and the rest is history as we went on as a couple and then married.  August was approaching as I was scheduled to deploy on a six month cruise which would take me to my discharge.  My second deployment began August nineteen ninety which was supposed to be a normal peace time Mediterranean cruise.  After leaving port and two days at sea we received word our orders had changed and we were on our way to the Red Sea to participate in Operation Desert Shield because Kuwait was just invaded by Iraq.  My future wife wrote me letters daily and sometimes twice and three times a day.  This was back when there was no internet, cell phones blackberry’s etc.  Keeping in touch with loved ones, was a two week turn around via the U.S. mail.  Our mission in the Red Sea was to be part of a blockade and to board all cargo vessels and unidentified maritime vessels.  My function during the mission was to man the fifty cal topside and police deck activity on the vessel that the boarding party was inspecting.  When I was not manning the fifty cal it was my turn on the boarding party as I belonged to the weapons division and we had all the small arms training and boarding tactical training needed for the job.  During our first month of operations in the Red Sea our rudder fell of its post and we lost steering capabilities.  We were rescued by tug boats and tugged up the Suez Canal to the Mediterranean Sea.  We traveled across the Med to Toulon France via tug boats and our ship was placed in dry dock while we awaited a rudder to be flown in from the United States.  Within days it was full steam ahead and back to the Red Sea and resume our position on station.  As we entered the Suez Canal on our way back to the Red Sea “Highway to Hell” by AC/DC blared over the ships 1MC (loud speaker).  Our captain nick named gung-ho Harlo was an excellent motivator of a crew about to go to war through the use of pump up songs and war movies shown on the ships mess deck on Saturday nights!  With January approaching and my February 10th discharge date closing in I was summoned to the captain’s cabin.  The old man (naval term for the captain) asked me if I was interested in reenlisting and staying aboard Biddle as she was being extended on station beyond my discharge date.  I did volunteer to remain and extend until we returned home but was told no I must commit to at least two more years, so I declined.  The captain said fine son, pack your sea bag and be on the helicopter deck when you hear the word to muster over the 1MC.  The time came petty officer second class Walicki report to the flight deck sounded over the 1MC.  I was issued a helmet, life jacket and ear muffs and hoisted up by a horse collar dangled about one hundred feet from a helicopter.  I was flown to the USS Detroit ammunition and fuel supply ship.  That night when the general quarters alarm sounded (had a three day stay on Detroit) I knew that the deadline given to Iraq had been reached and Desert Storm was beginning.  After the first three days of the air campaign on Iraq my journey back to civilian life began. After leaving the Biddle the way I met her in nineteen eighty six and returning home it was the most awesome feeling in the world to put my arms around my wife and be able to be in her arms again.  After receiving an honorable discharge from the Navy My wife Janice and I were married by a Navy Chaplin in our town home in Virginia Beach, Virginia.  When I married Janice I inherited the best two candidates for step sons a man could ask for.  We went on to have two sons, of whom the eldest has been diagnosed with PDD/NOS a form of autism that is on the high functioning end of the spectrum.  My first job after the Navy was working as a temp for the Unisys corp. in Waterbury Ct.  Ironically I refurbished the exact radars and computers I worked on in the Navy.  Finally I landed full time employment with benefits at the EDRO Corp in East Berlin Ct.  There I worked as a technical representative and did all their field service for their industrial clothes washer machines.  After two years of employment my wife and I qualified for a mortgage and bought our first house in New Britain Ct.  I started my career with the U.S. Postal service in nineteen ninety three as a mailhandler in a processing plant.  After eleven years of working in the craft and in the trenches I made a career move into management and entered the U.S. Postal Service’s associate supervisor program.  Graduated the program and was a line supervisor for only the duration of the program.  I was swiftly moved into the manager distribution operations position which is where I have been for the last three

years and recently was promoted to the lead

manager of the second shift in the processing plant in Wallingford Ct.  With goals of climbing the corporate ladder within the Postal service I returned to college in two thousand seven to earn my business management degree.

I am an active member of the special Education Parents Council an advocacy group for parents with children with special needs and a member of Autism Speaks. Former member of Lincoln elementary and Slade Middle School Pta’s.   I am a member of the Disabled American Veterans. Member of the Sgt. J. Sakowicz post.  Active member of the Postal Service Veterans committee.

Postal achievements as follows:

I received a meritorious step increase from the postal service for performance as a mail handler and a letter of commendation for reporting to work with a blizzard forecasted.  After completing the Associate Supervisor program in February 2005 I have been assigned to the Southern Connecticut P&DC. I participated in a function 1 audit at the Waterbury P&DC from 6/26/05 through 7/02/05. The week after graduating the asp program I was trained as a backup MDO at southern ct P&DC. I have been the DBCS supervisor and involved in automation since March 2005 and have been successful in obtaining goals and dispatch discipline on the tours that I have ran.

                    From February 2005 until the present I have been an acting MDO on all 3 shifts at So. Ct. P&DC and I have run all tours solo as an asp level 15 on Sunday and Monday, for many months. Monday dispatches have been timely with zero late leaving trucks since running the tour solo. Southern Ct. P&DC has achieved 100 % EXFC scores for Monday since I have been solo tour 1 MDO on weekends. In April 2005, I spent three days at the Meriden office conducting a mail arrival profile audit from the plant. I observed what chronic complaints there were and offered solutions in both the Plant and the associate office. I also received an incentive award from the So. Ct. P&DC Lead MDO and Plant Manager for continued dedication and performance as an (A) MDO.  I have been recommended as a candidate for the Postal Service mentoring program.

                              February 2006 I entered the MDO development program level 18 and successfully completed the program in August 2007.  I was also a participant in a mock decon drill at the Southern Ct. P&DC.  My Son participated in the Postal service EAP poster contest and won his age group 2 years running.  I was an instrumental advocate of raising and maintaining the day shift productivity to levels that exceeded goal and other Connecticut plants consistently.  Summer 2007 detailed to a dps% improvement team with a Postmaster and operations support specialist.  Identified mail flows from the plant which was contributing to a lower percentage and implemented a process to repair the leakage. Spoke on behalf of the plant manager at town hall assemblies for Veterans Day 2006 and black history month February 2007.  I am currently the Lead manager of distribution operations on the second shift at the Southern Ct. Processing and Distribution Center in Wallingford Ct. with a three year running perfect attendance record.