That’s how Maj. Marvin “Jay” Baker feels about his role on Marysville’s Diversity Committee.

“Like in planning Marysville’s anniversary,” he said. “We help reach out to different ethnic groups.”

Baker is the committee’s public laison to the Army, for which he is a public affairs officer.

With the Army, he is always involved in equal opportunity events. Such as with some recent leadership training, “Things were don’t necessarily want to talk about” are talked about.

Baker said the Northwest is fairly neutral about the military in general.

“There are not a lot of military folks around here,” he said.

He did say once that someone paid his tab and thanked him for his service.

“But you don’t get that” often, he added.

Baker said he deals mostly with weekend reserves who are citizen-soldiers. He said they are all ambassadors of the military.

He said he is all about connecting to the community and learning from each other.

Providing equal opportunities is a key goal in the military, he said. Every month they have an event to remember things like Black History Month, Women’s History Month, the Holocaust, Native Americans, and so on. They bring in people from the community to bond with the soldiers.

For example, on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, local mayors and school officials came to his station in North Marysville and saw the local NJROTC perform for 300 soldiers.

“To see what we talk about with military diversity,” he said.

Baker said the weekend snapshot was perfect.

“It was MLK’s dream in my opinion,” he said, adding it didn’t exclude people. “It was exactly what he was talking about.”

Baker became involved in the military while going to college in St. Louis with ROTC. After seven years in active duty he joined the reserves for three years. He received a full-time job in 2004 in public affairs, and has been doing that ever since.

As for the Diversity Committee, Baker has been on it for about 1 1/2 years. They meet once a month. He said they are very diverse when it comes to race, sex, gender, religion, ability, etc.

Baker said they are still assessing the community and what the needs are for the committee to be effective. It was to target issues that are important for each ethnic group. The committee will then advise each ethnic group on tactics they need to take to solve the issues.

The goal of the mayor’s committee is to help different populations understand the city better. He hopes to get more diversity in the city’s workforce, Baker said.

He said issues causing racial tensions nationwide are not necessarily bad for the diversity committee in its dealings with the public.

“It’s a gateway to open conversation. It’s still an issue. It’s good for people to know. It’s good to talk about. It shows us where to improve and what not to do,” Baker said.