veteran spotlight

In each issue of Prime Ways, we take a moment to highlight the veterans and service members who work at Prime. This issue, we salute Frank Wentz and Michael Jones. If you know a veteran who deserves some time in the spotlight, email us at communications@primeinc.com.

Frank Wentz

Director of the Parts department in Salt lake city

Military History:

Salt Lake City Parts Manager Frank Wentz graduated high school a semester early and joined the Marines, and he didn’t waste a minute. He finished school on a Friday and entered boot camp the following Monday. Wentz worked in field artillery and spent a year in Okinawa, Japan.

“We were not allowed to fire artillery on the island of Okinawa, so every time we were trained, we deployed elsewhere in Asia. It was pretty cool. We went to the Philippines, Thailand and mainland Japan,” he says. After that, Wentz served in two tours of Iraq and trained in Kuwait for a couple of months. He completed his service in 2005, and once he returned to civilian life, Wentz wasn’t quite sure what to do next. To figure out his career, Wentz cast a wide net. “You’re applying for everything you find that you think you could do,” he says. When Prime reached back out to him, he scheduled an interview, and joined right away.

Prime Service:

Wentz joined Prime in 2005 and first worked in the security department. He later went on to run the plaza at Prime’s Salt Lake City terminal from 2013 until 2017. After that, he switched to lead the parts department. He credits his time in the military with helping him succeed at Prime, where he has worked for 17 years. He has no plans to leave anytime soon.

“Discipline and attention to detail helped me be noticed and move up at Prime pretty quickly,” he says. “A lot of people ask, ‘Well, what’s making you stick around Prime?’ I don’t have it in my brain to quit anything that I started,” he says.

Michael jones TNT Instructor

Military History:

Michael Jones knew he needed to do something new when he joined the Marines. “It was something to jumpstart my life because I was going down a bad path and needed to change,” he says. Jones had an idea of what to expect because his dad spent 24 years in the Navy. His dad chose to stay at one base, which meant Jones spent his formative years in California. But Jones welcomed the chance to travel. He served from 2002 to 2012 and deployed to Fallujah twice, as well as Baghdad. He was stationed in Okinawa, Japan, and that included six months in Manilla. When it came time to leave the service, Jones had a good idea of what he wanted to do next. “I had a feeling that I enjoyed driving,” he says. “I told everyone I was going to be a trucker, and they laughed at me. They didn’t think it was a good career path.”

Prime Service:

His sister, though, predicted he would drive because as a child he loved movies and shows with semitrucks. Jones applied to several places, but heard back from Prime within a day. “I liked how they were structured toward safety and family,” he says. “That’s what has kept me staying with them this long.”

He also appreciates that he can learn what he needs to at the company. “They’re very educated and very informative. If they don’t know the answer to something I ask about, they always give me someone who knows the answer,” he says. Now he tries to pass that knowledge along as a TNT instructor. He also appreciates that Prime helps him get home to see his 15-year-old daughter in Fargo, North Dakota. “If you need to go home to see your family, they get you home at a reasonable time,” he says.