Andrew Hounshell thought the woman on the other end of his phone line was joking last week when she asked him if he wanted to introduce President Barack Obama during his stop in Cincinnati.

“I was just dumbfounded,” said Hounshell, a Middletown resident who is the vice president of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers Local 1943 at AK Steel’s Middletown Works. “I’m not even sure how she got my name or why I was picked. But once she asked me to do it, there was no way I was going to turn it down.”

Hounshell spoke for about five minutes, referencing his and his family’s times in the military, the financial assistance he received to attend college and the auto industry’s resurgence as reasons why he supported Obama.

“Each day, I step into AK Steel and think about how the President and Sherrod Brown stood up for me and nearly a million American workers as they rescued the auto industry,” Hounshell said. “Today my IAMAW is making steel that goes into some of the best cars in the world.”

Hounshell called the entire experience “surreal.”

“I thought I’d be nervous but the crowd was so into it, they really made it easy,” Hounshell said.

Hounshell said he met the President prior to the introduction and Obama helped him settle down.

“He made me feel comfortable, just told me to ‘do a good job’ and put me completely at ease,” Hounshell said. “He’s a very genuine, honest caring man.”

The president referenced Hounshell’s introduction several times during the speech and even joked about Hounshell’s 2 1/2 year old triplets.

“We could not be prouder of Andrew’s service to our country as a veteran,” Obama said. “The thing I’m most proud of is he has triplets and he’s still standing… Triplets, that’s serious, you can’t play man-to-man defense. You have to go into a zone.”

“I hope that my kids can see it and relish it down the line,” Hounshell said. “I don’t think I’ll ever have an experience quite like this again.”