Wesley Julian isn’t just another guy in an orange Home Depot apron lugging bags of mulch, corraling stray shopping carts and pointing customers to the right aisle.

He’s the guy who flashes a smile as he hoists propane tanks and grabs that stray cart before it dents your precious Prius.

Always smiling, always hustling, eager to assist. He’s a goodwill ambassador for the home improvement store.

In fact, his go-getter attitude and hustle earned him “Goodwill Community Employee of the Year.”

Wesley is a graduate of the Goodwill Industries skills training workshop for people with developmental disabilities. He’s come a long way from his days stuffing envelopes.

He has been the front-end guy at the Broadmoor Towne Center store for five years. Now the Paul Bunyan-strong man in a flannel shirt is getting recognition beyond the parking lot.

He will receive the $500 Goodwill award at a banquet on Thursday. Other winners are on my blog at yourspace.freedomblogging.com/.

“It’s pretty cool that they did that for me,” says Wesley, 30. “They said I deserved it.”

He was recognized before, at the company picnic when he came in second in the hot dog-eating contest. “I ate like around 20,” he says. Or so it seemed.

He brings that same tenacity to his job.

Anything you ask him, he does,” cashier Cindy Edge says. “If it’s 5 degrees out there, he’s still getting those carts. And he gets it done.”

Between muscling carts, mulch and tanks, he does customer service.

“How’s the battery on this drill?” a shopper asks.

Wesley says he used that drill and the battery worked well for him, then offers tips on keeping a charge.

From flooring to lawn-and-garden, Wesley gives a straight answer, not a sales pitch.

“You ladies doing all right?” he asks two women scrunching up their faces at the dizzying display of plumbing parts.

With his help, they are.

Shoppers ask for him, says store greeter Randy Rushing. “Especially women.”

“He’s just an all-around good guy,” Rushing continues. “I’ve never seen him in a bad mood.”

Wesley has a simple explanation for this: “My dad raised me up not to think negative things.”

His dad drives him to work at 6 a.m. Wesley wants to get his license. He and his dad restored a ‘59 Bel Air for him to drive. But a freak tornado wind picked up a boat-and-trailer and plowed it on the car.

“I was like, ‘Was that a sign I didn’t need that car?’” Wesley says, laughing. He cried at the time, though.

His love of cars might be why he’s so adamant about keeping his fleet of 300 shopping carts in orderly trains.

“I don’t like to see them flying into vehicles,” he says.

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Home Depot worker Wesley Julian, named the Goodwill Community Worker of the Year Photo by Photo courtesy of Goodwill Industries

Andrea Brown, Your Space Columnist Photo by