Mr. Marcus Goes to VAMC Headquarters

My Thanksgiving vacation has brought me to Missouri, home of my in-laws and VA Mortgage Center. I drove the 35 minutes to the marketing department of VAMC and our main guy behind the scenes, Dipps. I must say, these marketing guys have it nice at VAMC. A spacious office with a view of a nice little lake in Columbia, MO makes for a sweet place to work. It also helps that all the marketing folks are pretty cool. I also got a sneak peek of the editing room where Dipps puts together show highlights (or lowlights) of You Served Radio. There is a HUGE mic in there, so I have no clue why he doesn’t add his own sound effects or voice overs to the recordings. Dipps, get on that.

Dipps and I took a little drive down the road to the main office space where all the loan officers, processors, insurance, and tech dudes do their thing. VAMC has expanded quite a bit over the last several years, and they now occupy a large portion of the offices in their area save for a chiropractor. That must be nice after all the long days sitting in front of a computer. You need your back cracked every now and then, don’t ya know.

The pace is really fast around there. People move around with a purpose, a phone is always ringing somewhere, and copy machines are spitting out reams of paper at a time. It was a good feeling seeing so many people working, happily at that, to serve those of us that have served. They are the front lines for veterans when reaching for a piece of the American Dream; home ownership.

I”m sure many of the people I met thought, “Who in the hell is this guy walking around with a Razorbacks hat in the home of the Mizzou Tigers?” I just smiled and gave a quick nod. I like living on the edge.

I’m currently sitting the break room type of area working on a PC that is hooked up to a wall mounted HD TV. I do believe I could get used to this…if I wasn’t headed back east at the end of the week. The few short hours I spent hanging out was a great deal of fun. So long, VAMC HQ, and thanks for all the fish!