The Cruz Family

Jose Cruz is a service technician for restaurants in Spring Hill, Florida. He is a military Veteran and had an extensive career both in the U.S. and in Latin America. He was in the Army for eight years and was stationed at the John F. Kennedy Army base in North Carolina for four of those years. While there, he was trained in “free flow” which trains military personnel how to free fall from airplanes. He was then stationed at the Eglin Airforce Base and trained in the 7th Special Forces, an operation unit of the United States Army.

Jose also lived in Latin American for one year and went to Mexico, Honduras, Columbia, Venezuela to help train and work with other military personnel. His team, Charley 3/7, had to be on call 365 days a year and performed routine drills to practice staging the equipment in case they needed to be deployed within 24 hours.

During the pandemic, when many restaurants were not open, he worked full-time but did not get his usual allotment of overtime. Now that restaurants are open, most days he is super busy, and overtime is now mandatory.

In July, Jose and his wife will be married for ten years and their newborn daughter will be exactly one year old on July 29, 2021. Their daughter was born during the height of the pandemic and luckily, Jose was able to be with his wife in the hospital during labor.

Jose’s wife has worked for Subway restaurants for ten years. She is a General Manger for five different Subway locations. Jose and his wife are in the process of purchasing one of the Subway locations she manages.

Jose and his wife purchased their home just before the pandemic. His experience with Envoy Mortgage and his loan originator, Jessy Bellinger, was in constant contact with him and very helpful. His mother-in-law lives with the family and takes care of their daughter while Jose and his wife are working. When they were purchasing their new home, they made sure there was an extra bedroom for his mother-in-law.

Jose said his most challenging experience during the pandemic was the missing toilet paper!