Today we’d like to introduce you to Jon Charles Bennehoof
Hi Jon Charles, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I would like to think I have led a consequential life.
I try to be a good husband. I believe I have been a good father and hope that I succeed at being a good GrandPa (Pi). These are the most important things in my life.
Growing up, to become almost 76 years of age, I have traveled through a number of phases and have been caught up in the, “chasing a career” thing where, I know that I was neglecting family. From that I can not recover, but I will always try to accept and take responsibility.
I grew up, the reference here is about my youth, not my entire life’s journey, in a working middle class family. If we were not well off, I sure as hell did not know it. When Dad, an electrician at the Steel Mill,, was laid off or on strike, he would get another fill in job until the mill was operational again. Sometimes it was with the Gas Company other times with the Otis Elevator Company. Each because of his older or younger brother. Occasionally, Mom’s mother would stop by with a bag of groceries, when Dad was in between, but it never felt like charity. It’s what families do…
We went to church, school, had an occasional summer vacation, frequent larger family get togethers; reunions, holidays, et cetera. I was a Cub Scout, Webelo, and Boy Scout. I made it to Life Scout with God & Country Award before I discovered, the fumes: perfume and gasoline…
I bought my bicycle to get to work at the car wash, at which my brother was able to get me a job. He was old enough to work, but I was not. The owner looked to other way with respect to my age. He needed the ‘slave’ labor.
We were paid by the car and it was divided amongst the workers. After the owners cut, worker division, taxes, and UNION DUES, I calculated that we were making about $.25 an hour. I began looking for a different job immediately after standing up from that calculation, as well as coming of working age. Using the money that I had saved up from the car wash, I bought a motor scooter, when I needed to travel to go to work at the Warner Theater, down town. I was able to double my hourly wage at the age of 16 and, I did not have to pay union dues.
I had a uniform, I got to see lots of movies, MANY times, and I did not mind scootering home in the rain and occasionally snow.
I held other jobs, summer and otherwise. Cutting grass, working at the soda bottling plant, and shoveling snow in the winter time, were sources of income to finance my motor vehicle purchases. My first car was a bottom of the line, four door, six cylinder, roll down windows, 1958 Chevrolet, that my Dad bargained Up from FREE to “Make the kid give you twenty five dollars!”
A year later I paid ten times that much for a year older car; a TWO door hardtop, fuel injected V8 engine, Black 1957 Chevrolet BelAir.
The summer between junior and senior year I tricked that car out as much as I could afford and enjoyed having a cool car my senior year at school. I sold it to go to college.
I attended the College of Architecture at Kent State University for two years before dropping a five hour course due to a tough schedule the spring quarter of my sophomore year. The lie I tell is, that my notice to appear for a qualification physical beat me back to my apartment from dropping the class. But it was pretty prompt in its arrival in the spring of 1969.
Reporting to the military intake center in Cleveland, Ohio a month later, to be assessed for fitness to serve, I was standing in a long, wide hallway, in a line with those being ‘qualified’ for service. Across the abyss of this very wide hallway were those chosen for induction into active duty. Their next step for them was a bus or train ride to boot camp. The Drill Instructor had them count off by fours. With that task complete he yelled out, “What number do you want Gunny?” A deep booming voice responded, “Give me the Three’s!”
The direction was then given, “All you three’s take two paces forward!” Task complete, the LARGEST, blackest Marine, I have ever seen, emerged from the cross corridor with, “Ladies, (sarcasm) I want to add my thanks to that of your nation and your president for volunteering for the United States Marine Corps! Left face,… MARCH!”
My first call upon returning to my apartment in Kent was to my World War II Veteran father, to whom I conveyed the actions just witnessed, with the declaration that I did not want to go to Vietnam, the Marine Corps, nor Canada…
“What should I do?” …
“You could join the Navy…”
Which is what I did.
My older brother was winding down an enlistment in the United States Navy. He had been to Vietnam, he assisted in the recovery of two Apollo Space missions, was the first to speak to the returning astronauts of Apollo 11, as he was in charge of hooking up and testing the communications equipment once they splashed down, crossed the equator multiple times, circumnavigated the globe, and rounded the Cape of Agulhas (the southern tip of Africa, often misstated as the Cape of Good Hope, which is north of the southern tip of Africa) and Cape Horn, served on three aircraft carriers, one of which is a museum in Charleston, SC.
I went off to boot camp in Great Lakes, Illinois and graduated in time for Christmas at home. I then traveled to Newport Rhode Island for class A school to become a Signalman. The guy with the flashing light for Morse code and flags at the top of the ship, back in the day. That rate is now defunct and the duties are occasionally undertaken by the quartermasters that navigate the ship.
After Class A school, I was sent off to Alameda, California Naval Air Station to await the return of the U.S.S Ranger, (CVA-61), an aircraft carrier returning from a tour of duty in Vietnam.
We turned the ship around with a short stint at the South San Francisco Shipyard, a short sea trial to test out the ship as well as the ship’s complement, and then bringing on the Airwing. The assemblage of various aircraft that would wage the war the ship was about to return to.
This made me a U.S. Navy combat veteran. Although I did not serve “in country”, I, and more than a few of my comrades served in the recovery and, for me, never a rescue, of our downed pilots or others that were destined to take their “final” trip home. This and other events, a couple onboard, scared me. This was later exacerbated at the reserve center at home, while I awaited separation from the military, where I helped render final military honors for more returning fallen. Sometimes, more than what probably averaged out to once a week for something like three months.
I was at the Reserve Center due to my Dad being terminally ill. The commander’s mission, with respect to me, was to assist my civilian job search. Once I had a position, I was discharged.
Once discharged from the service, I began a new career with IBM. With a need to assist supporting my family I embraced a career in business and forwent my desire to return to Architecture and went to night school for a business degree.
I graduated from college, with departmental honors, ONE quarter prior to my Mother graduation from the same institution. She had asked me to take an underwater basket weaving class or anything just to stay in school and graduate with her.
I had been going to night school for so long that I just could not see spending ONE MORE month, let alone three just to graduate with my Mother. Looking back, I must say, I regret that impatience. It would have been a cool story…
Having worked for eleven years in the field supporting all the new equipment that I could become trained on in Office Equipment and Office Systems, and attaining my college degree, I expected my career to take off.
There was not that much opportunity for upward mobility at the time, in the field of work that I was engaged. So, I looked around, identified an opportunity at one of IBM’s largest manufacturing plants as a Test Equipment Engineer and was able to land the job.
Cutting my lawn twice before I flew up to Vermont, landing in the Burlington airport and driving through canyons of snow that were higher than the rental car, I did not think too much about the weather impact. I was more interested in furthering my career and building a future.
I spent the night and interviewed the next day. I returned home to Northeast Ohio, to go back to work, cut my lawn again, and wait for word.
I was offered and accepted the opportunity.
The day I sold my home, packed up and drove out of town, I was caught in stopped traffic on the Steel Street bridge, and got to observe the 40” Rolling Mill and blast furnace get blown up. Youngstown was imploding. Most of the the steel mills had closed down, businesses moved out, and the population dropped by 50 percent. Seemingly overnight.
While in Vermont, we got married, had our first child, and I moved my career forward. I also went to more night school with the intent of attaining my graduate degree in Organizational Development.
Life progressed, we lived in a certain degree of isolation from family and having a new baby / toddler, we needed to get closer to family. I started researching opportunities closer to home and family and was able to identify an opportunity in Columbus that would get us much closer to family, as well as be a positive career move. I forsook my graduate degree pursuit, thinking that I could finish out the few hours and thesis from afar or, at an other establishment.
I never got back to it. I regret not completing that effort but I do not think that it was a career limiting act. In fact, it was good for the family, and a positive for my career, which was not the motivating factor. The family was.
After a number of career turns, mostly within IBM, a few years away from IBM as the manager for most of IT for a Software Development company and then the Deputy CIO for the State of Ohio Department of Taxation, and then back to IBM as a Business Transformation Executive, I retired and took a Senior position with a Health Industry firm, then turned to consulting the State of Ohio then five years consulting the IT side of Medicare and Medicaid at the State of Michigan before taking the Director of Operations and Ohio Practice lead for the firm for my final two years of paid employment before FINALLY retiring just before turning 70 years old.
Along with my professional career I became involved in Public Service and was elected to City Council. I served on council for 12 years, was on three committees, lead two of them, Served as Vice Mayor and Mayor, and became involved in Serving Veterans ,as well as disadvantaged populations. I was the fund raising director for the Ohio Gold Star Families memorial located at the National Veterans Memorial and Museum in Columbus Ohio. I founded the Delaware County Veterans Treatment Court with our Judge, formed the Ohio Supreme Court compliant processes and procedures and served as the first Veteran Mentor Coordinator, was a Mentor as well, and serve as the Chair of the Executive Committee that assures continued Supreme Court compliance.
I additionally founded the Patrick J Tiberi Leadership Institute along with the former congressman and the Delaware Country Treasurer. We have conducted four classes and are restructuring and curating the next class and syllabus. I have served on the Dementia Friendly Powell Committee. I was a member of the Service Academy Selection Board for our Congressman, and his Veterans Advisory Board. I am a Blue and Gold Officer for the United States Naval Academy and am on the Board of Directors for Stockhand’s, Horses for Healing, an Equine Therapeutic organization serving Veterans, Military, First responders (Police, Fire, Doctors, Nurses, and EMT’s). We also serve individuals with special challenges for Autism to whatever affliction begins with a Z.
If I was to have a tomb stone, and I do not intend to, I would hope that people would think to have:
Good provider, partner, friend.
inscribed below the dash…
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I try not to think of my life as having been difficult. Everyone has hurdles and stumbles. How we get over them or pick ourselves back up is what is important.
Being ‘almost’ drafted, my father’s affliction with leukemia, my wife’s post preatrium depression, then cancer, then my prostate cancer diagnosis, along with a few less consequential hurdles, have reinvigorated my PTSD, which i am open about and receiving a variety of therapy modalities.
My veteran centered work grounds me and serves as self therapy…
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Stockhand’s, Horses for Healing?
Getting out of the Navy, I worked for a large computer, services, and consulting company. I left that company after 16 year and took the reigns of most of the IT organization for a “blooming” software company. Three and a half years later, after a number of acquisition and mergers, we were acquired and I was eliminated with all of my IT organization. I was able to land everyone that wanted to continue to work a position before we were even off of a three week transition period prior to our severance period. I landed a position for myself and signed the deal on the last day of my severance.
I agreed to start in two week and took my family on a vacation.
Three and a half years later, as the Governor was leaving office and a new governor was coming in, my position was in jeopardy. I was the lowest level employee that was in jeopardy, but still at risk. A friend / Vice President of the company that I had left seven years earlier, came into my office and said “Let’s go to lunch.”
I was being recruited back to the International Business Machines Company. I said I did not know I could come back and was told, “You left standing up, there is opportunity for you.”
I have spent my career serving with integrity, honesty, and compassion. My career provided me with considerable growth and
opportunities. Retiring from IBM I moved into a senior leadership position with a health care distribution company and a few years later in a downsizing, I moved into a consulting role, that, through the next seven years I continued to expand my horizons.
I would say that my brand is Commitment, Compassion, and Dedication. I have also never shirked responsibility, and accountability. But, I must admit that I was very centered on my career, which at times was to the determent of my family. My attempts to make up for this shortfall, was to, at least, make sure we did nice vacations.
I would say that my brand is dedication to a cause and focus on service to the community. After Public Service I have migrated to serving the Veteran Community through Stockhand’s, Horses for Healing, The Delaware County Veterans Treatment “Mission” Court, and working to raise the funds to erect The Ohio Gold Star Families Memorial & Monument. I am very proud of these and other public service that I work at. I need to point our that I never called myself a politician but rather a Public Servant. Upper Case P for elected service. Now that I am no longer pursuing elected office my service is lower case P, public service. A nuanced difference but a distinction WITH a difference.
Let’s talk about our city – what do you love? What do you not love?
Having lived in Powell, Ohio longer than any other location that I have ever lived, I find the small town charm, near a larger metropolis, Columbus, Ohio, to provide just about everything that an individual could desire for a living condition. Central Ohio is a very diverse environment with State Government, Insurance, Industry, Banking, Distribution, Higher Education and so much more, is virtually recession proof and provides a diversity of entertainment opportunities for it’s inhabitants.
Powell is a clean, efficient, well run small city, (IF I do say so myself) that is resident centric and truly interested in serving the community with activities and recreation for just about everyone to appreciate and participate. The City has the BEST Police Force and the community has the BEST Fire / EMS Department that I have ever lived amongst. Having been a Public Servant I feel I am a reliable judge of these things coupled with my experience, having lived in thirteen different communities in five different states at least gives me perspective.
I am always frustrated with that group of people that want to be the LAST ones to move into a community. There is nothing more constant than change, yet the Not In My Back Yard, “NIMBYs”, people can often get in the way of progress. The general public should be more aware of the law, zoning for their area, and know that there is a desperate need for civic income that is not generated by residential rooftops. Commercial and mixed use are essential to the economic health of a community.
People should be well informed but they are not, but feel entitled to oppose perfectly legal and logical development. That has happened in Powell more than once…
Pricing:
- Stockhand’s, Horses for Healing is a non profit organization that survives on contributions, grants and awards.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.stockhands.org/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stories/stockhands/3590455151586538651/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/stockhands/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/stockhands-horses-for-healing-trc/posts/?feedView=all
- Twitter: https://x.com/Stockhands
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=stockhands+horses+for+healing
