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Ron Brant

Perfectly tailored for his role

Ron Brant is anxious to do more. "Don't get me wrong," he says, "I love my job. I wouldn't have done it for the past 15 years if I didn't like what I do. It's just that I know I have more to offer."

What Ron does is ensure that correctional officers have the uniforms they require on the job and that inmates are dressed in institutional clothing. "We also make sure that offenders have appropriate civilian clothes when they're released," says Ron, Officer Clothing Supervisor at the Warkworth Institution in Campbellford, Ontario. He says that includes a selection of formal and informal clothing. "And they're modern clothes, jeans, windbreakers, sports jackets, stuff like that. If offenders believe they look like they fit in when they're released," he says, "they're more likely to be confident that they do fit in."

But Ron, who grew up on the Tyendinaga Indian Reserve near Belleville, is confident that he can contribute even more. In fact, he was set on becoming a correctional officer when he joined CSC in 1987. That's when he found out that he was allergic to, of all things, tear gas. "I had completed the core training and had already started writing the final exams to become a correctional officer when the allergy was discovered," he recalls. "I still wanted to work in Corrections and, fortunately, there was still an opening for me."

Over the years, Ron has discovered that he's especially interested in assisting Aboriginal offenders. He's even opened up a small counselling service on the reserve and is taking university courses by correspondence to get the education he requires. "I believe it's my calling," he says simply.

Certainly, the CSC was his calling back in the mid-1980s. After completing a degree in electronics engineering at Sir Sandford Fleming college in Peterborough, Ron realized that while electronics "might be great as a hobby," he didn't like it enough to make it his career. "So I left a job I had in assembly after a year and came back home," he says.

He had been home for only a few months when someone in the Band office asked if he might be interested in a job with the Correctional Service of Canada. "I jumped at the chance," says Ron. "I loved the challenge as well as the job security. And the people I've met are just great."