PATRICK AIR FORCE BASE, FL. -- Thirty-seven students from the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute's (DEOMI) Equal Opportunity Adviser Reserve Component Course, Class 13AB graduated from their training Feb. 8 and became the most recent Equal Opportunity Advisers to join their units and assist their commanders in maintaining a positive equal opportunity and organizational command climate.
This group of Army National Guard soldiers and civilians completed 15 online human relations lessons and four weeks of intensive training to prepare them for duty as Equal Opportunity Advisers.
Brig. Gen. Julia Cleckley (ARNG Ret.), the first woman and minority to serve on the Army National Guard Director's special staff as Chief, Human Resources Officer (G1) was the guest speaker for their graduation ceremony.
She told the students that "War fighting in today’s world is about operating across cultural boundaries and functional paradigms. Cultural competencies born out of diversity give us the advantages inherent in diversity of thought and formulating solutions to problems, allowing us to successfully engage in today’s joint and coalition war fighting environment."
DEOMI’s training programs provide an opportunity to acknowledge human dimension challenges and allows an open dialogue on the way ahead for Equal Opportunity, Equal Employment Opportunity and Diversity.
Cleckley told the graduates "It is the duty of each of us to work to make the Department of Defense a workplace of choice that is characterized by equity and inclusion and one that is reflective of this great nation we represent, where all individuals have infinite dignity and worth."
