The Tobyhanna Army Depot in Monroe County is one of our area’s largest employers, employing around 4,000 people.
Among them is Michael McDermott of Scranton whose working more than 6,000 miles away in Yokosuka, Japan.
“Which is about an hour south of Tokyo. We are at the U.S. naval base,” said Michael. “I'm out here with a team from all across northeastern Pennsylvania.”
Newswatch 16's Ryan Leckey shared Michael's story on Thursday.
Michael is among many of the Tobyhanna Army Depot’s 4,000 employees working outside the gates for several months at a time.
“We have about three hundred fifty to four hundred folks that are off the depot at any given day and doing great things for our service members,” said Col. John McDonald.
It’s all to help to support various missions in 30 countries, including Michael’s most recent one in Japan. One of his jobs is working closely with the U.S. Navy to help keep a self-defense weapon known as a RAM Launcher or “Rolling Airframe missile” in tip-top shape. That’s not the only work he does around warships.
“For the naval systems right now, it's primarily rust control prevention because obviously steel and saltwater are a bad mix. So that's a constant battle that they're dealing with. So we myself and my team come out. We do rust prevention, maintenance, and overhaul, and repairs on systems,” added Michael.
A job in Japan that helps keep America safe and helps support Michael’s family, including his four kids back home in Scranton. Michael has worked for the Tobyhanna Army Depot for 17 years.
“I'm usually on the road on the average of like six to eight months a year,” said Michael.
Ryan asked him, “Michael, what was it like trying to travel in the middle of a pandemic from northeastern Pennsylvania all the way to Japan?”
“Travel is excruciating, long flights, etc., living out of hotels and suitcases and planes. When you add the pandemic onto it, we had a mandatory two-week quarantine in a hotel. You get a keycard and you're in there, and you're basically in prison,” explained Michael. “You don't leave for two weeks. And then a lot of testing's testing, preflight testing, post-flight, every precaution.”
Michael also gave us a sense of pandemic life off the naval base.
“Well, there are curfews going on currently in Tokyo. It's just like back home where you can only get takeout and whatnot. So it's very similar in that other than is just a total different side of the world, basically,” added Michael.
Life on a different part of the planet, doing work that’s protecting America during a pandemic, all thanks to a number of people from our area.
“It's a small sacrifice in terms of myself and my family in comparison to the men and women of the armed forces. They go for way longer spans of time than I do. It's greatly rewarding to go out there and do that and perform the mission for them and with them,” said Michael.
Of course, no matter where in the world Michael is, he never forgets about his four kids in Scranton. He recently found some unique and multiple flavors of the candy bar Kit Kats that’s he’s only seen in Japan and knows his little ones will love.
By the way, in addition to their work in Japan, the Tobyhanna Army Depot also assisted the federal government with something called “Operation Warp Speed,” which helped create and push out the COVID-19 vaccine.