Polar Team Profile: Dan Spraker

Polar is going to have to get along without Network Engineer Dan Spraker for the next year. He’s known for about a year that a second tour of duty in Iraq was possible, and he has now received the official word and will be leaving in early 2009.

In addition to being a Network Engineer at Polar, Dan is a First Sergeant for a field artillery battery in the National Guard. He has 93 personnel (all in the reserves) working directly for him and Dan is responsible for their preparation and training on Howitzer cannons. Since he has only one weekend per month with the troops, their training in recent months has been intense. There are eight soldiers assigned to each cannon, and they work a lot of crew drills to sharpen their training. Dan says if one person isn’t performing perfectly, the whole team is off. “We need to be proficient in what we do to be timely and accurate in supporting our infantry troops. If we’re not, we’ve failed our mission.”

Dan joined the US Army as a communications specialist immediately after graduating from high school. He was in charge of working on the Army’s servers and computer systems, and found he loved the challenge and had a knack for it. He then decided to pursue his certification and college training while in the Army.

Dan left the Army in 2001, moved his family to Portland and joined the National Guard.

As for this tour, Dan says he’ll be leaving Polar in January to prepare his team for their departure in May. They will train somewhere in the U.S. for two months, then go to Kuwait and then to Iraq. He will return home in about a year.

“While everybody is going to step up to fill the gap while Dan’s gone, we’ll certainly miss the contribution he makes here at Polar”, says Ken Colton, Director of Operations. “Dan’s a key part of our operation, but we respect and admire his devotion to our country and want to offer support to him in any way we can. We’ll be looking forward to his return to Polar at the end of his tour.”

When Dan isn’t busy with work or meeting his National Guard commitments, he spends as much time as possible with his family – his wife of 15 years, Trudy, and their two children, Tyler (14) and Kylie (9).

We hope that you keep Dan and his family in your thoughts and prayers as I’m sure we all do for all of the brave men and women who are serving our country in the armed forces at home and overseas.