ITAMCO helping David’s Courage to give Hope and a Future
“We believe in second chances and are trying to be a positive influence in their life to help making right choices become the easy choices. Our employees have been phenomenal in helping mentor and train Nick and other guys giving them new life skills to be successful and set some roots to make Marshall County their home. It’s really going to be a joint effort among many industries to help make David’s Courage successful.”
— Matt Davis, Training and Organizational Development Manager and Community Outreach at ITAMCO
MARSHALL
COUNTY — Thanks to his perseverance, support from David’s
Courage, and employment from local manufacturer ITAMCO, Nick
Mcculloch continues to recover and hopes to reunite with his daughters.
Securing employment is a critical element of long term recovery. Mcculloch applied at a local manufacturer and passed the preliminary testing.
Two days before he was supposed to start he was notified that he didn’t pass the background check. “I was devastated.”
He prayed that God would provide him with an equal or better employment opportunity. “Two weeks go by and Gregg (Erickson) told me someone was here to do an interview with me. It was someone from ITAMCO.
That was one of my prayers. That it would be the same pay or better and a job that I loved doing. It was answered.”
He started working at ITAMCO about a month ago. “I love it. I’m in the grinding department. It’s a temperature controlled room. It’s nice. It’s not cold. It’s not hot.”
Matt Davis, Training and Organizational Development Manager and Community Outreach at ITAMCO, said, “Nick has been a great employee who has done everything we have asked him to do and actually just talking with him this morning and he is very excited about what he is learning. We have had some guys who unfortunately were not the right fit
for our work that did not work out, but were able to pray with them and continue praying for them that they find the fit God has already destined for them.”
ITAMCO was established in 1955 and is a family owned business in Marshall County. “We believe in second chances and are trying to be a positive influence in their life to help making right choices become the easy choices. Our employees have been phenomenal in helping mentor and train Nick and other guys giving them new life skills to be successful and set some roots to make Marshall County their home. It’s really going to be a joint effort among many industries to help make David’s Courage successful,” said Davis.
Davis said that ITAMCO has always been a strong supporter of Marshall County. “They have always been very active in the community, but like to stay behind the scenes, just being the hands and feet of Jesus, not looking for notoriety because it is not about them but because of God’s blessings.”
Trisha Crawford in
Human Resources is committed to helping people in Marshall County find the right job for their needs. Director of Operations Mark Neidig is eager to help those in the community who want to turn their life around by working with David’s Courage and Marshall County Community Corrections.
“In order to accommodate that, we have to think about things differently. We try not to take too many employees needing that mentoring help on at one time so we have capacity to mentor them, this leaves the need for many other employers to jump in and help as well. We have found they are a great group of people who have made a mistake just like many of us may have made in our life and been caught, none of us are sinless and perfect!” said Davis.
Mcculloch’s goals are to keep working at ITAMCO to save money to reunite with his daughters, Dalynne and Aviana. “I want to be in their life.”
His youngest Ava Grace was adopted earlier this year. “That’s what needed to happen.” He prayed for the baby’s life during the pregnancy. Neither parent was in a position to provide a stable home for the baby, and didn’t want to seek an abortion. “I wanted her to go to a good Christian home, to know God, with structure and discipline, support and love. Come to find out, that’s exactly where she went.”
He was given the opportunity to read the “beautiful letter” that her adoptive parents wrote to Ava’s biological mother sharing their faith in God and the home they could provide. “It was a prayer answered.”
He hasn’t seen his children in-person for some time but he tries to keep in touch. He knows that the process for petitioning the courts to get them back will not be easy, but he is committed to the journey regardless of outcome. “It’s hard to break the silence.”
Determined to be the father he never had, Mcculloch is committed to a life full of love and support for his children. “I want to be the one to help them live a healthy, happy life.”
He wants his daughters to know that he fought to be reunited with them. “I definitely need to be in their life. To show them what a good man is like.”
Parents have a profound impact on their children. “You can be too hard on somebody. But, then sometimes you can be not hard enough. The bottom line is healthy discipline and structure.”
His advice to loved ones is to be supportive without enabling family struggling with addiction. “Be as supportive as you can without enabling them or letting them succumb you too. Support them without letting them overcome your life or letting them have a negative effect on your life. There will come a time when they are ready.”
Parents of Addicted Loved Ones (PALS) support group classes are held every Wednesday at David’s Courage. “For people who have children that are addicts, just be ready to support them when they are ready. Just be there to support them when they need you. That can be any time at any hour. You never know.”
Mcculloch said, “You have this fantasy about how things are going to turn out from this run and it never ever does. It always ends up in jail, a hospital or dead.”
Most people don’t use substances who are at peace. “They do it to hide or muffle the feeling.” Rather than effectively deal with pain, addiction makes things worse. “Eventually you create so much pain from doing it and you can’t get out of it. It’s just a vicious cycle.”
Now, Mcculloch has hopes for his future. “To keep working and saving money to get my kids full time… and be a father to them. And definitely lead a Godly life and hopefully help someone else out along the way.”
In addition to sharing his own recovery story to encourage others that it is possible to heal, Mcculloch also hopes to mentor youth and comfort people on hospice.