Been Workin’ On The Railroad

Art Fettig

On the morning of February 16th, 1948 l reported for work in the General Claims Department Office of the Grand Trunk Western Railroad in Detroit, Michigan.  Thirty Five years later I retired from the GTWRR. I’d worked my way up to the job of Corporate Communications Officer, reporting directly to the railroad president..  When someone called and asked me who would be filling my vacancy I replied that I was not leaving a vacancy. I had completed my mission as Corporate Communications Officer. I had delivered my message and now I was moving on to carry that message out to the whole world. 

Since 1953 I have worked in all fifty of our United States of America, In six of the Canadian Provinces, in Mexico and many other countries including Hong Kong, Malaysia, Bermuda.. You know, in seventy two years in the safety field that list of clients really adds up. There were the U.S. Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines, General Motors, The UAW CIO, Toyota, Power Companies,, Nuclear Sites, so many groups like Pest Control People at Purdue University, Students at Notre Dame, General Electric, DuPont, to students and teachers on an Indian Reservation, at a high school where Hillary Clinton had been a student in Chicago. haha….what a ridiculous task remembering the clients… For the crew of a nuclear submarine at Pearl Harbor.  And oh, the joy of those memories.  But enough of that.  And what was my message I carried to one and all?  So simple you could write it on your hand and then repeat it to everyone you meet and read it to yourself too. Simply, “There is greatness in you. ” Then the challenge is to help them discover that greatness. 

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