Lt. Joshua Brewer of Wales was given the Employee of the Year Award for the officer category at The Utah Department of Corrections awards ceremony on Sept. 15 at Thanksgiving Point in Lehi.
Lt. Brewer has been working for the department for almost eight and a half years.
More than 150 people gathered at the event center to celebrate those who have gone above and beyond in their quest to make the corrections department one of the best in the nation.
Lt. Brewer is assigned to the demanding Gale housing unit at the Central Utah Correctional Facility in Gunnison. This is an incentive-based behavior modification unit requiring coordination, proper management, leadership and ambition to make it effective on a day to day basis. In addition, he leads the charge against security threat group issues and drug interdiction.
He piloted the Drug Interdiction Recovery Team at CUCF and is heavily involved with training staff on safety and security operations. He is also involved with mentoring staff and sergeant recruitment ensuring staff are top level performers.
“Lt. Brewer tends to make everyone around him better,” said Warden Devin Blood. “It is a unique quality that I admire about him.”
Warden Blood said that Lt. Brewer isn’t looking for fame of for glamor; he is just there to do his job. Anywhere that he is placed he just does his job. He has the nature of leadership to make everyone around him better.
His wife Amanda said that Josh puts a lot of time into his role at the department, a lot more than most people probably realize.
Aside from his time working for the Department of Corrections, he has been in the military for 17 years, three of which he served in the First Infantry Division, where he was deployed to Iraq providing security for convoys traveling through Baghdad. This year he was called to Washington D.C. to help secure the capital during the Presidential Inauguration. He currently serves as a platoon sergeant in the 222nd Field Artillery.
When he’s not working, the focus of his time and dedication is on his family. He and Amanda dated in high school and crossed paths 15 years later. Their big blended family is always busy and on the go. Lt. Brewer said his family is his most challenging and rewarding accomplishment in life.
