Glen Stell joined the Navy shortly after graduating High School. A native of Oakland, Ca, he moved to Little Rock with his parents during High School. The military took him back to Ca, where he was stationed at Lemoore Naval base. “I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, so I thought I would join the military. I ended up serving from 1991 through 1998 as an aviation electrician.”
After leaving the military, he returned to Arkansas and used the GI Bill to go to college and get a degree in computer science. “Unfortunately, there weren’t many jobs in my field here in Arkansas, so I took a position with the Union Pacific railroad. It turned out to be a great job, and I stayed twenty-one years.”
During that time, Mr. Stell married and had two children, a daughter who is currently a High School Senior and a thirteen-year-old son. Unfortunately, that marriage did not last. He moved up in the company, taking positions all around the country. He obtained a Master’s in Business Management in 2015, and life looked good. Things got complicated in 2017 when he went into kidney failure. He took a year off work due to his health and then returned to the railroad. “But I didn’t take care of myself. I got sicker and sicker and finally couldn’t work. II had multiple hospitalizations and went through my savings. I had no place to live and no place to go. Ten some suggested I call the veterans day treatment center”.
The Day Treatment center placed him at St. Francis House. “I had no idea places like this existed. Truthfully, I didn’t know about my VA benefits. When one of the case managers started looking at my records, I was eligible for a lot of assistance.”
Today, Mr. Stells focuses on taking care of his health, getting his disability benefit from the VA and the railroad, applying for his railroad retirement, and going back to school for a Ph.D. “I am grateful to St. Francis house…and I didn’t realize just how grateful until the weather got cold! It’s a place for Veterans to come, get themselves together, and get back on their feet.”