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    ~The FReeper Canteen Presents~ Road Trip: Tobyhanna Army Depot, PennsylvaniaTobyhanna Army Depot, is a logistics center for the United States Department of Defense (DoD), specializing in electronic systems and located in Coolbaugh Township, Monroe County, near Tobyhanna, Pennsylvania. Established February 1, 1953, as Tobyhanna Signal Depot, today it is a facility for the repair, upgrade and integration of Command, Control, Computer, Communications, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C4ISR) systems for all branches of the Armed Forces.Tobyhanna's unparalleled capabilities include full-spectrum logistics support for sustainment, overhaul and repair, fabrication and manufacturing, engineering design and development, systems integration, Post Production,...

A white man alleges in a lawsuit that a Coolbaugh Township community’s black public safety chief discriminated against him and other white public safety officers while showing favoritism to black and Latino officers. Bryan Rush is suing A Pocono Country Place Public Safety Chief Kurt Cummings and its black human resources director, Cassandra Webster, who Rush claims did nothing to address reverse-discrimination complaints and approved Rush’s termination after Cummings falsely accused him of smoking in a patrol vehicle. Cummings occasionally made “discriminatory comments about protecting his minorities and other insensitive comments about favoring employees based on race,” Rush’s lawsuit states....

TOBYHANNA — Wednesday was the second trip for U.S. Rep. Paul E. Kanjorski, D-10, to the Tobyhanna Army Depot in four months to announce new government funds. He's expecting to be back soon. "I wouldn't doubt we'd be up here in the near future announcing more funding," he said. Kanjorski on Wednesday announced $2.4 million in federal stimulus money going to infrastructure improvements around the depot. Specifically, the money will be used to improve the quality of life at the depot's barracks for military personnel stationed there for training. About 2,000 troops pass through Tobyhanna in a year in addition...

A Virginia man is on trial this week in federal court, fighting accusations that he participated in a large-scale kickback scheme that involved several Tobyhanna Army Depot workers. Derrick Jackson, 47, of Stafford, Va., was indicted in March 2008 along with a Hazleton man in an 18-count indictment alleging conspiracy, public corruption, wire fraud and related charges. Federal authorities began an investigation into contracts New York-based ComputerGiants.com had with Tobyhanna Army Depot. From 2001 until 2005, ComputerGiants.com set up a slush fund for several people — including Mr. Jackson, who worked at Fort Belvoir Army Base in Virginia — who...

TOBYHANNA, Pa. - When New Yorkers and Philadelphians want to get away from the noise and crowds, they often come to the Pocono Mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania. It's a bucolic, tourist-friendly place of forests and streams and lakes, a place where you can play a round of golf, take in a show, angle for trout or simply lose yourself on a country road. A place where a Crip or a Blood would seem ... out of place. Yet, jarringly, they are here: gang members from New York City and its suburbs who authorities say have quietly taken up residence in...

E-mail Author Author Archive Send to a Friend Version November 11, 2005, 2:18 p.m. War & Responsibility “It is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began.” EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the text of a Veterans Day speech President George W. Bush delivered at Tobyhanna Army Depot, in Pennsylvania, as released by the White House. Thank you all very much. Thank you all for coming, please be seated. Thanks for the warm welcome. I'm glad to be back in Pennsylvania and I'm proud to be the first sitting President to visit Monroe County. (Applause.) I'm especially...

WASHINGTON — The route between the Tobyhanna Army Depot and the nation’s capital is getting quite a workout. On Tuesday, 48 union workers at Tobyhanna arrived by bus on Capitol Hill to protest forthcoming personnel reforms at the departments of Defense and Homeland Security. Five days earlier, a group of workers from the depot came to support the state’s congressional delegation urging the Base Realignment and Closure Commission to spare Pennsylvania’s military facilities. Tuesday’s rally brought about 500 federal workers from 16 states to protest the plan that limits the ability of workers to bargain collectively. “They want to make...

COOLBAUGH TWP. (PA) — Starting today the pharmacist at the Tobyhanna Army Depot pharmacy will be working alone. After seven years at the facility, Friday was pharmacy technician Wendy Moore’s last day. After an in-depth analysis by Keller Army Community Hospital at West Point, which oversees the pharmacy, the hospital decided the workload did not demand a second full-time employee, said Maj. Daniel Costigan, M.D., Keller’s chief of preventive medicine. The pharmacy, which provides drugs to veterans across Northeastern Pennsylvania, was just filling between 20 and 40 prescriptions daily, Maj. Costigan said. Ms. Moore, though, said she believes the pharmacy...

The distribution unit is cutting its work force, but growing military needs bring expansion to the depot. By JERRY LYNOTT jlynott@leader.net COOLBAUGH TWP. - Job gains will outnumber losses at Tobyhanna Army Depot despite a plan to reduce by half the number of workers in the shipping and receiving operations at the Defense Distribution Center. The center, a government facility that is a tenant at the military installation in Monroe County, expects to drop the number of full-time workers to 53 from 100 next year in keeping with a proposal tentatively approved to keep the work in-house. The depot, meanwhile,...

Tobyhanna Depot to hire 350 as closures eyed By RENITA FENNICK renitaf@leader.net As the Pentagon continues working on a plan to close some military bases by the end of next year, Tobyhanna Army Depot is looking to hire 350 people. The Monroe County facility, which employs about 3,300, will conduct job fairs Thursday in Scranton and Tannersville. The depot needs to fill the permanent positions over the next few months to meet increasing workload requirements and projected attrition rates. Last week, the U.S. Department of Defense released its final criteria for selecting the bases to be closed. Though the Base...