County names new veterans director
Washington County commissioners promoted the veterans affairs coordinator to director of veterans affairs for the county.
Susan Meighen, who has worked for the county since 2007, was notified April 21 she would succeed Barry Grimm, who retired Feb. 29.
Meighen’s husband, Patrick, is a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps who served on active duty during Desert Storm, followed by service in the National Guard, for a total of 12 years. They live in South Franklin Township.
She has been accredited to handle veterans’ claims by Pennsylvania since 2007 and nationally accredited since 2012.
The position pays $48,301 annually.
“We asked some veterans to help look at all the applications, and they brought to us a few top names,” said Commissioner Harlan Shober, who enlisted halfway through college in the Pennsylvania Army National Guard 110th Infantry, Division 28, in Canonsburg. He was discharged after six years with the rank of E-7, also known as a sergeant first class.
“We looked at the job she’s done,” Shober said. “We took that as a very serious issue. The way she’s helped people, we feel she does a great job for us. The people who walk in the door, they need help. No one had the experience Susan did.”
Even if a veteran was chosen for the position, Meighen said, “I would still have to be the person filing the claims until that person became accredited.”
Meighen worked with Grimm since 2011 and with his predecessor, Harry Wilson.
The two-person office on the seventh floor of the Courthouse Square building secured $1.7 million for Washington County veterans during the 2014-15 fiscal year, according to a report from the state Department of Military and Veterans Affairs
The office deals not only with veterans but widows of veterans and other family members who are applying for benefits from the federal Department of Veterans Affairs. It also monitors the status of claims.
“It’s so complicated,” Grimm, a Monongahela resident who served in both the U.S. Navy and Army, told the Observer-Reporter in an interview last year, and the VA system is constantly changing. “That’s why we have to go to training courses.”