Photo By Senior Master Sgt. Julie Avey | Tech Sgt. Glenda Schuster, left, and Staff Sgt. Kayla Gallagher, right, are recruiters...... read more read more
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BARNES AIR NATIONAL GUARD BASE, Westfield, Massachusetts – The path to becoming a recruiter in the Massachusetts Air National Guard is unique from person to person.
Tech. Sgt. Glenda Schuster, 104th Fighter Wing retention office manager, enlisted with the 104th Security Forces Squadron right after she graduated from high school, and spent a number of years there before eventually deciding to change careers. The rotating schedule with security forces was tough to balance with her husband, a Westfield police officer, and taking care of their two kids.
The journey for Staff Sgt. Kayla Gallagher, 104th Fighter Wing production recruiter, was a bit different. After high school, she worked in a hospital while getting a degree in psychology from Westfield State University. After graduating with a bachelors, she enlisted in the 104th Communications Flight, transitioned to working in finance sometime later, until she eventually found herself applying for a job as a recruiter.
The recruiters’ diverse backgrounds and involvement with the surrounding communities help them to relate with potential recruits.
“What does this person have that our other recruiters don’t have,” said Schuster. “Diversity is huge on the recruiting team. That’s what makes a good recruiting team. Recruiters that come from different walks of life.”
Schuster said that having diversity within the recruiting office allows potential recruits to talk to whomever they feel most comfortable. This, in turn, helps the 104th FW bring in personnel that reflect the population that surrounds it.
“It’s important for us to mirror our community,” said Schuster. “Because we are a part of the community."
Schuster said her two deployments to Iraq with security forces allow her to relate to people that have had similar experiences, especially people that are considering switching from another branch of military service.
“I can also relate to prior service because of all of my deployments,” said Schuster.
Gallagher recalled her experiences when she was first trying to enlist and how she needed a waiver to be cleared. She said recruiters were making sure she was able to get those waivers to enlist, and this experience was very humbling. This is something that she tries to do for her recruits now that she is on the other side of the table.
“To me that was important,” said Gallagher. “It’s still something that motivates me now in recruiting, almost a year later.”
According to Gallagher, being able to relate to somebody and enlist them once is one thing, but being able to understand their short and long-term goals, so they are happy enough to reenlist down the road is what matters.
“In my experience, how I’ve been able to be successful as a recruiter, is to care about people,” said Gallagher. “Going the extra mile is what makes the biggest difference. It’s almost like placement counseling. You want to put the right person in the right career field, both for the unit and for them.”
Schuster explained that she thinks it’s important for the recruiters and base as a whole to be involved with the surrounding towns for a number of reasons. Most of all, she wants to share what the Air Force has provided her with the community she calls home.
“Because the Air Force has done so much for me, I wanted to share that with others in the community and be able to help make the Air Guard a better Air Force,” said Schuster. “Unlike other recruiters that come from different places, recruiting for the guard is sentimental in a sense. Most recruiters that are in the guard are from the area. It’s our home.”
Gallagher described some of her involvement with volunteering in the area and said she has done things such as reading to kids in schools, preparing Thanksgiving dinner with the Boys and Girls Club and volunteering with the Special Olympics.
“It’s only the best job in the world,” Gallagher said, referring to the work she’s done. “We get to hand out the medals to the winners. I went from never having seen a bocce game in my life, to being an official Special Olympics bocce judge. It was very exciting to be a part of what was probably the best day of their life.”
Schuster said she wants to stress that it can all be put simply and that they hope to give back to the communities that have done so much for them.
“We don’t have to embellish it,” she said. “It’s a great wing, there are good benefits, and the fact that we get to give back to the community makes our jobs so easy. This is who we are, we are from the area, and this is what the guard has done for me.”
| Date Taken: | 03.30.2018 |
| Date Posted: | 03.31.2018 21:30 |
| Story ID: | 271394 |
| Location: | WESTFIELD , MA, US |
| Web Views: | 622 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, 104th Fighter Wing Recruiters Relate with Community They Call Home, by Randall Burlingame, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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