Kishwaukee College alumnus SGT Brenda Bramel, serving with the U.S. Army 114th Signal Battalion, has designed the Coin of Excellence for her battalion. “Coins in the Army are given out by Commanders and Command Sergeant Majors as on-the-spot awards. Soldiers receive them for excelling at a task,” explained SGT Bramel. While at Kishwaukee College, SGT Bramel concentrated her studies in art and transferred to Loyola University where she received her B.A. with an emphasis in photography. She has served in the U.S. Army since 2009.
KC alum’s design selected for battalion award
Kishwaukee College alumnus SGT Brenda Bramel, serving with the U.S. Army 114th Signal Battalion, has designed the Coin of Excellence for her battalion. “Coins in the Army are given out by Commanders and Command Sergeant Majors as on-the-spot awards. Soldiers receive them for excelling at a task,” explained SGT Bramel. While at Kishwaukee College, SGT Bramel concentrated her studies in art and transferred to Loyola University where she received her B.A. with an emphasis in photography. She has served in the U.S. Army since 2009.
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
The U.S. Army 114th Signal Battalion Commander will have a newly minted coin to give to members of the unit who provide outstanding support or excel at a task through hard work and dedication and it will feature a design created by Kishwaukee College alumnus SGT Brenda Bramel.
The 114th Signal Battalion, known as the “Signal Masters of the Rock,” has the mission of the command, control, communications, computers and visual information systems that support the National Military Command Center at Raven Rock Mountain Complex and the more than 30 federal, civilian, and military agencies that occupy it. The Center at Raven Rock Mountain in Pennsylvania is nicknamed “The Rock.” SGT Bramel’s Military Occupation Specialties (MOS) is Satellite Communications Operator Maintainer. She explained, “We ensure that the lines of communication are always up and running for our piece of the global footprint.”
SGT Bramel joined the U.S. Army in 2009. This year, a contest was held to create new design for the Battalion coin. She said, “An email went out to everyone in the Battalion that there was a coin design contest and the Battalion Commander would decide the winner. Coins in the Army are given out by Commanders and Command Sergeant Majors as on-the-spot awards. Soldiers receive them for excelling at a task.”
Entering a design contest was something that SGT Bramel was certainly well prepared to do. As a student at Kishwaukee College, SGT Bramel concentrated on the arts program, taking 2-D and 3-D studio art classes. Her artwork as a student was exhibited in the juried student art shows in the Kishwaukee College Gallery. She transferred from Kishwaukee in 2004 to Loyola University and graduated from Loyola with a Bachelors of Arts degree with an emphasis in photography.
After college, she worked as a freelance designer for several companies in Chicago, designing brochures and other publicity materials, and she also submitted work to galleries. She decided to enlist for a several reasons, including following her best friend, a reservist who was being deployed to Iraq at that time, and a desire to do something a little different with her life.
SGT Bramel’s winning design is in the orange and white colors that have traditionally been associated with the Signal Corps, with the addition of black (to denote strength and solidarity) and white (to denote integrity). One side of the coin depicts the 114th Distinctive Unit Insignia and the opposite side includes a mountain with a raven and antenna with the Battalion’s dates of activation in the outer circle and includes the silhouette of two soldiers near the bottom and airborne wings on the right.
SGT Bramel said that the design competition was narrowed to her design and that of another Sergeant’s design. “A few weeks later,” she said, “the Commander shook my hand, said “good job” and congratulated me on my coin design.” The coin will be minted and ready for distribution during the summer.
SGT Bramel’s future plans include a mixture of the military and civilian. “In the near future, I would like to deploy to Afghanistan or Kuwait and later teach and train new soldiers entering the school-house Satellite Communications,’ she said. “In the next five years, I would like to attain my masters degree, I'm thinking Art Education at the moment.”
