Marketplace Chaplains are known for serving the needs of workers and their family members in both large and small companies across the country. Among one of the unique niches of Marketplace Chaplains is their work in the mining industry.

One such mining company, Colorado based Intrepid Potash, has been using workplace chaplains to help their workers in the potash mines above and below the earth’s crust in locations across the Western United States for nearly a decade. They have locations in Carlsbad, New Mexico, along with Wendover and Moab, Utah, with chaplains serving and helping their hundreds of employees and their family members through the ups and downs of life.

Marketplace Chaplain Bobby Fuller, who recently retired from Marketplace Chaplains, has lived in Carlsbad since 1948 and spent 3 years working in the potash mines himself before he began working for Marketplace in 2005.  “When I left the potash mines in 1968, if you had asked me if we would have chaplains there one day, I would have said no way! It’s a tough environment, but it’s changed a lot.”

Without Chaplain Fuller, I don’t think we could have made it,” said one mining employee family member. “He always offered prayers and was a great person for the mines. It’s comforting for the guys to have someone like that, and it’s good to know I (we) can pick up the phone and talk with a chaplain whenever needed.”

Chaplains Sam Azzinaro, Amy Pence, Joe Lopez and Jason Shirley now serve the employees in the mines and in the offices of Intrepid.  Just like Chaplain Fuller, they are there for the employees who daily enter into the ground in what can be a very lonely and possibly even dangerous profession.

The needs of the employees are vital to the innovative companies like Intrepid that strive to care for their topline, their employees and their families. On the company’s website, their core values are listed as, ‘…integrity, honesty and transparency in all our actions; accountability and responsibility for our actions with our employees and our customers; stewardship modeled through the management of our assets, and environment and communities.’”

“I would say we are doing more than most to provide and offer incentives for our employees to make their own healthy life choices,” said Jamie Whyte, Executive Vice President of Human Resources and Risk Management for Intrepid Potash.

As the country’s largest and original workplace chaplaincy program, Marketplace Chaplains works with dozens of different kinds of businesses in more than 3,000 client company locations, across 44 states and 966 cities, in 4 foreign countries and 1 commonwealth, serving the needs of over 552,000 employees and their family members through care and compassion.

“Marketplace Chaplains is providing needed care and hope in this unique mining profession thanks to the leadership of Intrepid Potash as they show they care in this most tangible of ways,” said Marketplace Chaplains Executive President and COO Richard S. De Witt.