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SYRACUSE, N.Y. – New York Army National Guard recruiters had hoped their annual recruiting effort at the Great New York State Fair here would generate at least 450 people interested in joining the Guard during the fair’s run August 21 to September 2.
They were pleasantly surprised when the final number of “leads” ready for follow up reached 747.
“This is the best year I’ve ever seen,” said 1st Sgt. Christopher Harvey, a recruiter in New York’s Recruiting and Retention Battalion’s Company C. “We almost doubled out leads from last year.”
In 2018 recruiters had finished the fair with 397 leads, Harvey said. A lead is somebody interested enough in joining the Guard that they provide some background information in order to speak to a recruiter at a later time.
Recruiters from across the state were part of the effort at the state fair, where from 70,000 to 124,00 people visited each day.
Attendance at the 2019 fair was over 1.32 million, according to fair officials, setting a record for the fourth year in a row.
This was the biggest recruiting event of the year for the New York Army National Guard, the recruiters said. Additional Soldiers and equipment from the various units of the New York Army National Guard were brought out to support the effort.
There were 17 recruiting Soldiers placed on duty to support the fair along with four Soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 258th Field Artillery Regiment and four from the 642nd Aviation Support Battalion, assigned to assist the recruiters, Harvey said.
“They had a great attitude and worked hard without complaints to assist my recruiters,” Harvey said.
“We’re out here at the state fair trying to capture leads from individuals 17 to 35 years old,” said Sgt. 1st Class John Poyneer, a recruiter and station commander for the Watertown area. “We are also looking for prior service members who can do a combined total of 20 years by their 60th birthday.”
The potential to reach a wide audience and meet potential Soldiers is a big win for recruiters.
“We have a goal of 40 leads a day and so far we have exceeded that,” Poyneer said during the fair. “Every year I try to turn in five enlistments out of a two-week fair for my Watertown area alone, which is huge.”
Recruiters such as Poyneer come to the fair from the different recruiting regions of New York State but worked together to recruit for all of the units of the New York Army National Guard.
“We’re around 30 plus people working different shifts at this event for the whole two-week period,” said Sgt. 1st Class Richard Manarra, the section chief for the Syracuse recruiting office. “We probably have close to 1,000 people I would say, who come through here from morning to night just walking through, stopping and talking to us and checking out our equipment.”
Adding a hands-on element to their fair display, an M119 howitzer, UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter, M1117 Armored Security Vehicle and an explosive ordinance disposal robot and bomb suit, were setup to showcase the various career fields in the New York Army National Guard.
The preparation for this begins at least six months prior, Manarra explained.
It takes time to coordinate the equipment that will be on display, especially with how to land a Black Hawk at the fair and how to get it into the correct position, he said.
Along with the displays, the fair requires knowledgeable Soldiers to work the event who can explain the equipment and the units they came from, he added.
“We’re trying to get people interested in the New York Army National Guard and in field artillery,” said Sgt. Arnan Murphy, an assistant gunner assigned to Charlie Battery, 1st Battalion, 258th Field Artillery Regiment headquartered in Jamaica. “I think it’s very important to be here because it gives the public a chance to see what it is we do.”
Murphy, who was showing off the M119 howitzer to fair goers, said that the equipment on display attracted people of all ages. The visitors ranged from from children who wanted to play with it, to young adults who were interested in the National Guard and retirees who simply wanted to come by and talk about how the equipment has changed since they served, he said.
The equipment display for 2019 was the largest ever for the recruiting exhibit and it made a difference, Harvey said.
“The addition of the M119A3 105mm howitzer and an EOD (explosive ordnance disposal) tech were instrumental in our success,” Harvey said.
During the summer months the upstate recruiting areas usually hold 30 to 40 recruiting events -everything from county fairs to sporting events to car shows, Manarra said. Each event reaches a wide variety of potential future Soldiers, he added.
The opportunity to get money for college is the biggest draw for potential Soldiers, Manarra said.
“People come and see our equipment and say, ‘this is awesome but I don’t want to join the military fulltime,’ well, we offer part time, 100% to SUNY schools, and now they’re interested and the parents are interested and we have the chance to discuss our opportunities with them,” Manarra said.
Getting enlistments is important, but there is a lot of value in just getting out and meeting the public at places like the state fair, the recruiters said.
“I like doing events like this because it gets you in the community,” Poyneer said. “A lot of the people who come to these events live here locally, so for us to be in the National Guard, a community based organization, it gives us a hand-in-hand relationship with them and we’ll see them every year here.”
| Date Taken: | 09.03.2019 |
| Date Posted: | 09.04.2019 14:53 |
| Story ID: | 338376 |
| Location: | SYRACUSE , NY, US |
| Web Views: | 83 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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