Dan Welch
Director of Human Resources and General Counsel
BRB Contractors, Topeka, Kansas
Colonel, U.S. Marine Corps
After nearly 25 years of military service, Col. Dan Welch could have walked away from the U.S. Marine Corps with honor. A veteran of Operation Desert Storm and Operation Desert Shield in the 1990s, Welch went to war for his country and faithfully stayed on as a reservist when he returned.
Back home in Kansas, the father of four had established a solid career as general counsel and director of human resources for BRB Contractors in Topeka. When the call to duty went out after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Welch willingly accepted the new mission. He spent the next four-and-a-half years fulfilling that promise with tours in Afghanistan, Kuwait and Iraq.
"If I had said [in 2001], 'I'd had enough', that wouldn't have been a problem," Welch says. "But they indicated to me that what we were doing was important. They asked if I would stay on, and I did. It's hard to say no when they say you're really needed."
Among his duties, Welch worked as a military planner under Gen. Ricardo Sanchez during the critical initial phases of the Iraq ground war. Welch and his counterparts logged 15- to 20-hour days, dealing with the combined mission of beating back insurgents and rebuilding Iraq.
"We had so much to do and so little time to do it," Welch says. "We needed to develop their infrastructure, their oil pipeline capacity, their refinery capacity, their electrical capacity. The whole time we were dealing with bandits taking down what we were putting up."
Although he was serving as a Marine, Welch also felt a kinship with the contractors working in Iraq. "They were as equally at risk as the troops," he says. "The guys trying to build the electrical towers and the highways and the water treatment plants, they were putting themselves at risk, too, but they weren't trained to defend themselves."
Amid moments of desperation, Welch also saw reason for hope. In northeastern Iraq, he helped negotiate a plan to bring South Korea in to provide humanitarian relief to Kurdish areas. During the trip, the Kurdish authorities took a group of South Korean officers to a local wedding. "All of a sudden, the Korean officers were out there dancing in the middle of the party," he recalls.
"The whole event assured the South Koreans that they were welcome," Welch says. "It showed how well they would be received. It was a great example of the generous spirit of the Kurdish people."
From AGC’s Constructor Magazine Nov/Dec 2006.
