Cubeit helping Team Rubicon to Get to Communities in Crisis

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June 27, 2023

When it came time for Toronto’s Drew Robertson to retire from a successful career in finance, he knew that it was time for him to give back to the community.

Service was always important to Drew. In fact, it was that draw that lead him to enrol in thew Canadian Armed Forces in his younger days. Now in retirement, he longed to get back to an environment similar to what the Armed Forces provided him when he served in the 1990s.

However, he wasn’t sure how to go about doing finding that. Then one day he read an article in a national newspaper that talked about the work that Team Rubicon was doing to help communities facing a crisis.

Drew instantly saw that Team Rubicon – a disaster relief deployment organization that utilizes the unique skills of former Military personnel -- was offering exactly what he needed.

“When I left the military, it was a very difficult transition,” Drew said. “I found it very, very challenging – it was a personal mission that had to be conquered.”

That transition challenge was still there, despite Drew having retired from active service nearly 30 years prior.

“When I finished my civilian career, I was still missing the military,” he said. “So, when I saw that article in the paper. It really spoke to me. I realized that this was a mission that I wanted to undertake.”

Helping former Military personnel transition into civilian life, or to return to a life of service that they had been missing, is central to what Team Rubicon stands for. It, along with the great work they do re-building communities that have experienced a disaster, is why Cubeit and Access Storage are excited to partner with them to support the great work that Drew and others like him do.

That work has taken Drew all over Canada since he joined a bit more than a year ago. He’s been to the Near North to assist in clean water projects on aboriginal land, in British Columbia to help with wildfire clean-up, in the Maritimes after hurricanes and in small town Ontario after a tornado.

There is something uniquely rewarding to getting your hands dirty on the front lines after a disaster, Drew says.

“Team Rubicon provides me an opportunity to go out and serve again,” he said. “Not only that, but to serve in a way that is greatly enhanced from what I could do on my own.

“We all take the same job satisfaction. When you are finally working face to face helping someone on their worse day. It’s one thing to see a flood from an aerial shot; it’s another to see it when you are standing with a homeowner helping them re-start their life.”

With an added personal benefit of connecting with like-minded individuals that share the same values you do, as former Military personnel.

“(Being part of a Team Rubicon mission) is like homecoming week,” Drew said. “It’s great to be involved with people who had a shared experience of service. We all have a common purpose.”

Drew says that the work that Team Rubicon does is dependent of the generosity of Canadians and Canadian companies like Cubeit.

“One of the worst places for us to be is to be sitting on the sidelines when there is an operation going on, he said. “We don’t always have the finances though. What allows us to expand is the financial and in-kind donations we receive from companies like Cubeit.

It’s our pleasure, Drew. Thank you for your service and thank you to Team Rubicon for helping communities get back on their feet after a crisis.