MEDIA ADVISORY: Retraining wounded veterans for career as UXO Technician

WHAT:  UXO Detection Demonstration
The Texas Engineering Extension Service has been training Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) Technicians to detect, identify and clear ordnance items from U.S. Army Corps of Engineers UXO sites for over 10 years. More recently, courses in Humanitarian Demining have been added to the curriculum to gain international certification for remediation work around the globe.

The need for trained UXO technicians has never been greater, as many areas of the world, as well as former military bases in the U.S., must be cleared of UXO. This is a high-paying career, and is now attracting some veterans in the Wounded Warriors program, who are looking for retraining in a new career after returning from the war. A veteran of the war in Iraq with a prosthetic leg will be demonstrating the possibilities for wounded veterans to participate in this career field.

WHEN:
Thursday, Nov. 18, 2010.
The best time for media coverage of the demonstration on the UXO search grid will be 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. A briefing outlining the purpose of the demonstration and the UXO training program will begin at 10:15 a.m.

WHERE:
Texas A&M Riverside Campus in Bryan, located on Highway 47. Meet at Building 7751, on the corner of Avenue D and Fourth Street. Call for directions to the UXO search grid.

INTERVIEWS:
Please contact TEEX to arrange an interview with any of the participants in the event, which include Army Veteran Tyler Sloan, along with officials from the VA Rehabilitation Center in San Antonio; the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Huntsville, AL; National Association of OEW Contractors; and PIKA International, Inc., of Houston, an environmental remediation and ordnance disposal company.