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An Act of Patriotism Rallies Katz School Community Around Soldiers
If you combined the patriotic mission of the USO with the business acumen of an MBA, the result might very much resemble Operation Troop Appreciation. Founded by Kristen Holloway Querriera when she was an MBA student at the Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business, OTA-as it is affectionately known-began with a simple premise: to grant a simple request from troops in Iraq.
Querriera, who works for PPG Industries, had a coworker whose brother was serving overseas. The coworker reported that his brother was a member of the military police patrolling the green zone in Baghdad, where he and the other 48 members of his platoon had to fight temperatures ranging from 90 to 130 degrees. As a result, moisture-wicking Under Armour T-shirts-which are made from a fabric that keeps sweat off the skin-were high on their wish list.
"My first question was 'What's a platoon?' and my second question was 'What is Under Armour?' " says Querriera, who graduated in 2005. "I was a little naive getting into this, I guess."
When she asked friends and family members to donate $25 apiece to sponsor the soldiers, she got enough to buy 117 shirts. And thus a project was born.
"As the thank-you letters began rolling in from the troops on the receiving end of this project, I was just really inspired to do something bigger," says Querriera, who was awarded the 2008 H.J. Zoffer Medal for Meritorious Service from the Katz School.
With an eye toward putting her business education to use, she approached then dean Rick Winter about getting support from the Katz School to create a nonprofit organization.
"He said absolutely, go for it," says Querriera. One classmate who was pursuing joint degrees in business and law helped to obtain a donation of legal fees. Others volunteered to stuff envelopes or provide accounting, information technology, or marketing expertise.
To date, OTA has granted wishes for more than 45,000 soldiers, and 98.5 cents of every donated dollar goes directly toward supporting the troops. In addition to heat-fighting shirts, soldiers also have received children's clothing to distribute to local Iraqis, weight-lifting equipment, fire-retardant work gloves, global positioning systems, mine detectors, and boots, among other items.
Though the military supplies soldiers with essentials, Querriera says OTA provides supplements that are sometimes more luxurious than standard-issue items. On one day in late November 2008, OTA was shipping 2,000 pounds of supplies from its donated space in Pittsburgh's Shadyside neighborhood.
The experience also enhanced Querriera's business school education by giving her a real-world laboratory in which she could apply the skills she learned. The experience "gave me the skill set and the confidence and wherewithal to make a career move at PPG," says Querriera, who left finance to move into a more commercial role in the sales department.
"Just having the day-in, day-out knowledge from OTA really helped me with this job, more so than if I had moved into it from finance without having had this experience," she says.
The personal benefits were tangible, too: In May 2005, she began corresponding with Charles Querriera to get some items for his armored company. The two maintained their connection, and she met him in person when he returned from Iraq in January 2006. The couple began dating and were married in June 2008.
As for the future of OTA, Querriera says it will remain in place for the duration of the war.
"The war touched a lot of lives," she says. "But there are also a lot of people who don't have a personal connection and want to support the troops. We are about the men and women who are over there. We want people to feel connected to these soldiers."
To find out how to support OTA, visit operationtroopappreciation.org.