Ewing resident Mark Wetherbee speaks at a press conference on Jan. 28, 2014 about long term unemployment benefits before he attended the State of the Union address with Congressman Rush Holt, left.
Ewing resident rallies for long-term unemployment benefits
It was about a week before President Barack Obama gave his State of the Union address when Ewing resident Mark Wetherbee got a call from Congressman Rush Holt asking if he wanted to go to Washington D.C. as the congressman’s guest at the speech.
Wetherbee, 62, has been out of work since late last year, and almost 230 job applications later, he has gotten a call back for only one job interview. Compounding the problem is the fact that Congress has failed to approve an extension of long-term unemployment benefits.
For Wetherbee — a decorated two-tour Vietnam veteran who volunteers for the Ewing Township Green Team, Kiwanis and HomeFront — the situation is “degrading.” He had sent an e-mail to Holt expressing his disappointment.
“I’ve been in business for 30 years, but I’m currently struggling to find a job and can’t,” Wetherbee said in an interview with the Observer after he attended the president’s speech. “I said to Rush in my e-mail that somebody needs to talk to congress and straighten this out.”
A short time later the call came from Holt asking if he’d be comfortable going to the State of the Union speech with him and speaking about his situation. Wetherbee agreed, and in addition to attending the speech, he appeared at a press conference with Holt before the State of the Union to tell his side of the story.
Holt has since announced that he would not be seeking re-election this year to a ninth term.
Wetherbee said that after the press conference and the president’s speech, “I was talking to senators and congressmen, and several governors from all over the country, and many of them agreed right up front that you have to protect your people,” Wetherbee said.
“My biggest hurt,” Wetherbee said, “is that I volunteered my time for four years in a war, and this is the way my country is going to treat me? That hurts a lot. And it’s not just me. It’s many others just like I am.”
“I spent all morning today applying for jobs,” he added. “I’m at 227 applications right now. The one interview I had at Bristol Meyers-Squibb I didn’t get — I called them yesterday and they said I didn’t get the job.”
For Wetherbee, it’s been a long time since he was unemployed.
Born and raised in Ewing, Wetherbee joined the U.S. Navy when he was 17 years old and served two tours of duty in Vietnam. He came home in 1973 and worked for a decade at the Naval Air Warfare Center in town, while at the same time going to school studying solar engineering and energy management.
After he got his certification in 1982, he sold his house, bought a 21-foot motor home, and travelled the country with his wife, Joanne, looking for a job working in the solar industry.
“We drove all over the United States — the Northwest territories and the Yukon,” Wetherbee said. “That year, I deducted 18,000 miles of job hunting expenses on my taxes.”
Eventually he moved back to Ewing and got a job at the now-defunct Lawrence Township-based Chronar, a manufacturer of solar panels.
When Chronar went out of business, Wetherbee went to work for Merrill Lynch in Somerset for 20 years. He started as an engineering operations manager and ended up becoming the property and facilities manager. Wetherbee then became vice president of operations at the company’s new complex when it opened in Hopewell in the late 1990s. He worked there until 2008, when he took a buyout.
He next worked for Firmenich in Plainsboro as the facilities manager there for two years, until he went back to work at his old job at Merrill Lynch when the person who had the job quit. He was laid off last year on Oct. 9 after Bank of America sold the property.
“Mark knows first hand that nobody is immune to unemployment. Anybody can lose his or her job at any time,” said Holt in a statement released after the State of the Union.
“The best way to deal with such an expensive, unpredictable hazard is to insure against it. That’s why we insure our homes against fires, our cars against crashes and our property against theft,” said Holt.
“In the case of unemployment, workers in essence purchase their insurance from the government,” Holt said. “They pay a small premium in the form of a tax from each paycheck, and if and when unemployment strikes, they receive a modest weekly benefit until they can find work again.”
Holt pointed out that GOP Congressman Paul Ryan said that social programs such as extended unemployment are “a hammock that lulls able-bodied people to lives of dependency and complacency.”
“I would encourage Paul Ryan to look Mark Wetherbee in the eye, hear his story, see his stack of resumes, and then accuse this man of reclining in a hammock of dependency and complacency,” Holt said.
For his part, Wetherbee said he is happy he made the decision to go to Washington.
“The reason I went was not just for me, but for all the other people like myself who are in this kind of a situation,” Wetherbee said. “I’m a community kind of person. It’s what I do, and if I can help my community and my country this way then I’ll do it.”
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