Army Corps uses furry friends to make dull projects exciting
“You can’t go wrong with gargantuan cuteness.”
So says Chris Gaylord, public affairs specialist with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) in Portland, Ore., speaking about the Portland District’s“giant cat” calendar that went viral in 2023 on Facebook. It’s been downloaded more than 500,000 times.
The cheeky, oversized felines were superimposed over scenic photographs of dams, jetties and ship locks throughout Oregon and Southwestern Washington. The images were accompanied by bite-size highlights of various USACE projects, such as dredging and electrical grid safety, making the engineers’ often-times dry work accessible and fun. Gaylord says the Corps’ global X (formerly Twitter) following tripled in a 48-hour period.
“I knew it would be popular, but no one in our office was prepared for how much it would take off,” he says. “We were in the spotlight in a purely positive way, which is often uncommon for our agency.”
Other USACE offices have followed suit. “The Alaska District Photoshopped a king crab with a hard hat, a moose in one image, a bear in another. It was pretty funny,” Gaylord says.
He was also “tickled” when the nearby Portland Water Bureau took inspiration from the USACE, releasing its own humorous calendar.
People have recommended future calendar subjects to Gaylord: birds, endangered species and the Pacific lamprey, an eel-like creature sometimes described as a “vampire fish” because of its fearsome-looking sucker mouths. Gaylord is most intrigued by them as a possibility.
But this year USACE added a dog calendar, following in those original furry cat steps. Gaylord says eagle-eyed viewers might even spot a tiny finch hidden somewhere in each image.
“This started as just a fun little social media product, and it has turned into so much more since then,” he marvels. “It’s such a morale booster for our workforce, and at this point it is truly a part of our culture.”
He emphasizes that Corps members are first and foremost, public servants.
“The calendars are just a small gift to the world for placing their trust in us..”