On November 10, 2011 TIPS held our annual Fall luncheon, “Great People Doing Great Things”at the Sheraton Hotel. 309 people supported TIPS and raised over $68,000 to support our internship program.
From left to right: 2011 TIPS intern Jonathon B., TIPS Executive Director Cathy Michalec, TIPS Founder Maureen Brotherton, 2011 Intern of the Year honoree Captain Griffin Day, 2011 TIPS interns Stella J. and Iman B.
TIPS honored former intern and United States Army Captain Griffin Day for his dedication to service, and Microsoft’s Citizenship and Public Affairs Team as an outstanding community partner. This team has supported TIPS by educating Microsoft employees about giving back through TIPS, providing volunteers for TIPS’ committees, and donating funds to TIPS for the hours its employees volunteered with TIPS.
Griffin Day was an intern at the Rotary Boys and Girls Club in 2001. At his internship, he assisted in the annual summer camp and mentored the young children. Griffin said he got to be a kid again as he worked with the club members. TIPS honored this former intern for service of country. As Griffin is discharged from the army in December he will resettle back in life in Seattle. We wish him the very best. His Commander, David Wilson wrote of his service and Joey Brotherton, Griffin’s friend and fellow intern in 2001 read the remarks at the luncheon. The remarks are below.
“The first thing that comes to mind is the relationship Griffin has with the other Soldiers in the company. He is the type of person who naturally endears himself to other people with his sense of humor and genuine interest in other people. More than most any other officer I’ve known, he is keenly aware of the pulse of the company because soldiers open up to him in a way they don’t open up to most other officers.
Second, Griffin is an absolute workhorse. He is a constant man in motion spending every hour of every day finding ways to improve the company. He requires very little guidance to initiate some sort of project and works around issues with persistence and creativity. As a company we get saddled with constant tasks from higher that seem mundane and unimportant but ultimately have a great impact on our company and our ability to get stuff done. Griffin would knock these out without much fuss or requests for further guidance which made mine and overybody’s life so much easier in ways that too often went unnoticed.
Griffin began the deployment with a very safe desk job that was out of the line of fire. When the battalion commander asked him to return to his old job in the company to fill in for another officer who was struggling, he did so with little hesitation and remained eager despite being sent to the most difficult district in our entire brigade and one of the most dangerous areas in all of Afghanistan. When his heir became ready to replace Griffin, he expressed the desire to stay with us at Charkh rather than being sent back to the relative safety of battalion headquarters. He wanted to be wherever he could have the greatest impact on the organization and felt obligated to ride out the deployment with the company he had been part of since long before I took command.
Griffin will always be one of the most memorable officers both personally and professionally that I have ever had the pleasure of serving with. He has a larger-than-life personality and approach to the job that makes him a pleasure to work with. More than anything, he was simply enjoyable to be around on a daily basis for the better part of a year. The Army will miss him dearly and I know he will experience great success in whatever he pursues in the future.”