An engineer, a chief petty officer, and an inspiration

Beep. Beep. Beep.

At 3:30 am, Kate’s alarm goes off alerting her that it’s time to start the day. She spends most of her time in the engine room of a submarine, focusing on the mechanical maintenance of the pumps, valves, and turbines that fill the space. Once her job is complete, she knows it’s time to head to an intense training session to help her stay physically and mentally fit. After a full day’s work and a hefty bit of training, Kate ends the day by heading to bed around 11:00 pm, ready to rest so that she can tackle tomorrow.

This has been Kate Pagendarm’s typical day since August of 2020, when she was mobilized to active duty for the United States Navy, leaving behind her career as a Bench Testing engineer at Cook Research Incorporated (CRI) in West Lafayette, Indiana.

A deployment, an overhaul, and a promotion

After joining the Navy and serving nine years of active duty, Kate later on went into the reserves. More recently, in August, as a Reservist for the US Navy, Kate was deployed alongside 1,629 other Reservists to help reduce the amount of backlogged work during the COVID-19 pandemic.

During her deployment, Kate has been stationed at the Portsmouth Naval Yard in Kittery, Maine, and she is currently working aboard the USS Virginia and aiding in the ship’s complete overhaul. When she arrived for duty, Kate was ranked a First-Class Petty Officer and began working toward her upcoming promotion. In January of 2021, Kate was “pinned” with her anchors and officially promoted to the rank of Chief Petty Officer and is the only woman in this class–meaning that she is only woman serving on the regional leadership team in her region.

“Now that I have been promoted to Chief Petty Officer and after my training phase, I will be directly responsible for my unit of Sailors and also for the manning requirements for part of the Midwest by ensuring that the SurgeMain program has all of the Sailors they need with the right skills in the right positions,” Kate said humbly.

Support, a nomination, and elation

When she first learned about the upcoming, abrupt mobilization, Kate was worried about the strain that would be put on her CRI team in her absence.

“I know that losing a member of a team is difficult at any time. During COVID it was even more painful, as we had a lot of work, and more restrictions on how we could work,” Kate said.

“When I first learned that I was going to mobilize, I felt so guilty,” continued Kate. “I didn’t want to let my team down! So, I did what I could to minimize the impact and was very grateful for their support.”

Because of their amazing support, Kate wanted to recognize her team, and nominated her manager at CRI, Ray Boudreaux, for the Employer Patriot Award. The Patriot Award is given to a supervisor who has supported a “citizen warrior” by granting them things like flexible schedules, time off prior to and after deployment, caring for families, and granting leaves of absence, if needed.

“Ray was instrumental in this process and I feel he is the best representative of this team and the company for this award,” said Kate with a smile.

After nominating Ray and her team for their support and understanding, Kate and the team at CRI were notified that they had won the Employer Patriot Award.

“I was, of course, elated to learn that CRI was selected for the award!” she said.

“The fact that the team not only worked together to overcome the loss of a team member but also showed their support for me and my service really shows what an amazing team and company I joined,” Kate continued.

For more fun