Erickson named new MVPN peer services coordinator for tri-county area

CHEROKEE COUNTY – Army veteran Bradley Erickson of Rusk recently was named coordinator of the Military Veterans Peer Network peer services, taking over duties Sept. 28.

Erickson is an Iraq/Afghanistan combat veteran who originally hails from Wisconsin and has worked as a field geologist for Chesapeake Energy in the Northeast and served as a sales director for a renewable energy company in Mansfield.

Working in East Texas, he said “one of the most humbling things” he has experienced is seeing “how supportive the entire community of Cherokee County is” of its service members.

In May 2011, the county formally became a military-friendly community with the public signing of a community covenant with the City of Jacksonville and with Cherokee County; the following month, Anderson County and Palestine followed suit.

“How humbling is that?” asked Erickson, whose area covers Cherokee, Anderson and Rusk counties. “To come into a community that rallies around the vets … it’s an amazing thing to see, and I want to work to plug back into that.”

According to www.texvet.org, “with the peer-to-peer network, veterans go through a training course that teaches them how to facilitate groups of veterans. Once trained, they are tasked with going out into their local communities and creating peer groups. Because members of the group set the rules, no two peer groups are the same.”

Erickson said that first and foremost, his job is to find vets in the area, regardless of the era they served. Then, he said, he can connect them with resources they need.

“I’d like to create a transparency between vets and service awarded to them,” he said. “We’re looking at employment, property taxes, state parks fishing permits, things like that – you name it, I want to be there.”

Other goals are to work with justice-involved veterans.

“There are no diversion programs specific for these veterans, where we can separate them from the civilian population to create specific programs to decrease recidivism,” he said. “Traditionally, there is an 87 percent rate for any offender.”

However, those numbers would drop – drastically – if a program tailored to veterans were to be set in place, he explained. “It would be down to 10 percent because we would be giving them that guidance.”

Ultimately, Erickson said, he wants to bring onboard vets who would volunteer their help to grow the peer network and to create a network where veterans and their families can come together.

"We encourage vets to get to know each other ... we're trying to build community," he said. "A lot of times, just being able to talk to another vet is pretty healing."

Erickson and his wife Angela are the parents of Mercedes, 14, Christian, 12, and Leif, 16 months.

To learn more about the Military Veteran Peer Network, contact Peer Services Coordinator Bradley Erickson, [email protected], or call 903-721-2078.