Pedro Guerrero Keep on Truckin’
P edro Guerrero is one hard-working man
and, at the age of 61, he’s still going strong. His can-do attitude has served him well from his teenage years to his post-military career.
“There I was, 16 years old and getting paid only 50 cents an hour working on car engines,” Pedro said. “So I thought, diesel machines will be around forever. I’ll go into the Army and let them train me to be a diesel mechanic. I joined the military in February 1969 and was trained on many things, but I never was assigned to be a mechanic.”
The Army sent Pedro to Fort Carson, Colorado, and put him in the motor pool as a truck driver delivering boots, food, and supplies that the troops needed. “For me, I thought that was pretty cool,” Pedro said. “I was 17 years old, and I was driving two-ton or five-ton vehicles all over.”
Then when the war broke out, Pedro served in Vietnam. He was put in an artillery battery and assigned to a .50 caliber machine gun mounted on a truck. “I learned that if I could do this one thing, I could learn other things,” he said.
Pedro now works as a machinist and he’s willing to get more schooling any time the opportunity arises. “You need to be ready to work hard to improve yourself and you need to be willing to learn about computers if you want to keep up in this world,” he said.
His skills and excellent work ethic paid off, especially at a time when he worried about losing his job. He was working in a shop where they were constantly laying people off. “They’d bring people in and then as soon as things got slow they’d let them go,” Pedro said. “Then later, they’d hire a bunch more. I thought I would be next.”
That’s when Pedro met Maria Blackwell at Express Employment Professionals.
“The people at Express have been so helpful to me. Maria told me not to worry, that if I was laid off, she’d just go find me another job,” he said. “When she said that, it made me happy.
“Another thing I like about Express is that they do their best to match whatever your qualifications are to the right job,” Pedro said. “That’s what happened with me. I didn’t want to drive very far to get to work and back each day, so when I eventually got laid off Maria found me a new job that was close to my house. I love the people I’m working with, but if I need another job or something happens to the company I’m working for now, I’m sure Express will help me out.”
Pedro plans to keep working into his 70s. And, when he retires he plans to enjoy time with his grandchildren. “I’ll keep on doing whatever I can until the Lord says, that’s enough. I want you to sit back and relax.”
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