Bend Sunds (in orange shirt) on a UN mission trip to Mali with a Chinese Army unit.
Over the last few years, Johnson County Library has closed (and then reopened) during a global pandemic, then faced a cascade of subsequent challenges — from locating personal protective equipment (PPE) to navigating supply chain issues. Throughout this time, the Library has been able to call on the skills of Ben Sunds, the Library’s associate director for customer experience since 2018, whose previous military experience provided the training needed to help navigate these tricky situations.
Before joining the Library, Sunds had a previous 32-year career with the U.S. Army, mostly in special operations. That included command of a battalion at Fort Bliss, Texas from 2013 to 2015. During that time, Fort Bliss was the base where soldiers who had helped contain a deadly Ebola outbreak in West Africa quarantined on their return to the U.S.
“No one got sick,” Sunds says, recalling that successful quarantine operation.
“We all had to go through the PPE training. I thought that was a very military term. Now it’s in people’s common vernacular,” he said. “We all had to learn all the protocols.”
He never imagined he would experience the fallout from another epidemic as has happened in recent years with the COVID-19 epidemic.
“But I’m very thankful for the training experience,” he says now. “It breeds a lot of resilience and perspective.”
Sunds had a fascinating and fulfilling Army career that took him to 26 different countries. He did combat tours in Afghanistan and Iraq but most of his work involved civilian/military cooperation, forging good relations with diverse cultures, including remote villages in Pakistan. One United Nations mission involved helping Tajikistan, in Central Asia, to make sure it maintained a stable government.
“I liked the adventure part of stumbling into something and not being able to communicate. I find that part exhilarating, not frightening,” he said.
He and his wife Shannon always knew they would wind up back in the Midwest; he grew up in Iowa and she grew up in Nebraska and they met at Northwest Missouri State in Maryville. He finished his Army career as deputy director for the special operations education department at the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth.
The family, including daughter Jessica and son Garrett, settled in Shawnee. When Sunds retired from the military in January 2018, he still craved a public service-oriented job and landed in his new position at Johnson County Library in May 2018. He has discovered that, like with military special operations, Johnson County Library is full of “very highly educated people but very united in a common cause.” He enjoys supervising the staffs that handle internal and external communications, in-house support training, and information technology. He appreciates these employees’ skills and strengths and how everyone has risen to the occasion during the recent COVID-19 pandemic.
One of the first things that attracted Sunds to Johnson County Library was the fact that the organization had a strategic plan, and he was impressed with its specific mission and vision. That was familiar to him, coming from a military background, and he’s found this job to be a great fit. He was looking for a culture that embodied community engagement, service and lifelong learning and caring.
“And I think I found all that,” he says, “in the Library.”
More than 26,000 veterans reside in Johnson County, and 200 Johnson County Government employees working in 19 departments have self-reported their veteran status. In honor of Veterans Day, the Johnson County Board of County Commissioners issued a proclamation to recognize all veterans, military members on active duty and reservists in the Armed Forces. The County will observe Veterans Day today at 11 a.m., at the Lenexa National Guard Armory, 18200 West 87th Street Pkwy., located just west of Renner Road.
The event recognizes veterans from all Armed Forces for their military service. It’s open for the public to attend and will also be livestreamed on Johnson County’s Facebook page and online at jocogov.org/JoCoHonorsVets. Johnson County employees who have served in the Armed Forces are part of a veterans slide show featured on that page.
You can also find Library materials related to Veterans Day with one of these lists: