GREEN BAY – Packers assistant equipment manager Tom Bakken is the team's 2020 nominee for the NFL's annual Salute to Service Award presented by USAA.
The award recognizes NFL players, coaches, personnel and alumni who demonstrate an exemplary commitment to honoring and supporting the military community.
Each team nominates one individual and then finalists are announced in January, with the winner recognized at NFL Honors, the league's prime-time awards show that airs prior to the Super Bowl.
Bakken, whose nickname is T-Bone, was chosen for his work in organizing the military flyovers that have been a regular part of the playing of the national anthem at Packers home games. A member of the team's equipment staff since 1994, Bakken began coordinating the flyovers roughly 20 years ago and has done so ever since.
Bakken schedules the events and also hosts the military members involved, often giving them a tour of Lambeau Field.
He was also chosen as the team's Salute to Service nominee back in 2016. More on Bakken's efforts can be found in this previous packers.com story.
Among various military appreciation trips Bakken has organized involving Packers personnel, one took place to the Middle East a little less than a decade ago shortly after the Packers won Super Bowl XLV. A recap of that trip is chronicled in this story.
