Riester capping career of Army Community Service

Photo By Skip Vaughn | Kathleen Riester, financial readiness program manager and Army Emergency Relief officer, will retire March 31 from Army Community Service.  

UNITED STATES

03.17.2021

Story by Skip Vaughn 

U.S. Army Garrison - Redstone Arsenal

By SKIP VAUGHN
Rocket editor
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Her journey started in Germany and ends 27 years later at Redstone Arsenal.
Kathleen Riester is retiring March 31 from Army Community Service where she serves as financial readiness program manager and Army Emergency Relief officer. She has spent her entire career with ACS.
“It was a great ride,” Riester said.
“When Carl was stationed at Fort Riley, Kansas, our daughter was 5 or 6 years old. I had the opportunity to go to grad school at Kansas State University and I received my master’s in human development and family studies. And I did that because I wanted to work with military families. And so I did for 27 years.”
She started out at Frankfurt, Germany, where her husband, Carl, was stationed with V Corps. After a year at V Corps, they moved to Heidelberg where she did a lateral transfer as manager of the installation volunteer program. She joined the European ACS headquarters at Heidelberg after a few years. In 2003, after nine and a half years in Germany, she arrived at Redstone Arsenal.
She was a GS-7 when she began her career in Frankfurt; and she retires as a GS-12.
After 20 years in the Army, Carl retired in Heidelberg and started working for contractor Northrop Grumman. He was in the gym working out when Riester told him about her job opportunity at Redstone. She had enrolled in the priority placement program and the computer matched her skills to ACS, Redstone Arsenal. She had followed Carl throughout his Army career but now it was his turn.
“And for the first time in my married life my husband followed me,” Riester said laughing. “I said ‘Honey, how do you feel about Redstone Arsenal?’ He said, ‘where the heck is Redstone Arsenal!’”
The Madison resident and her husband of 37 years have a daughter, Cecilia, who resides in Kansas City, Missouri.
Riester’s father was an Air Force pilot when she was born in Charleston, South Carolina. She grew up in south Miami, Florida, and moved to Clarksville, Tennessee, when she was 10.
“First thing I’m going to do is go to the beach with family,” she said of her retirement plans. “And then I’m going to pursue my hobbies of gardening, quilting, reading and travel.”
She and Carl, a logistics analyst with the Redstone Test Center, are pleased with their Madison community. “We’ve got some nice strong roots here,” she said.
Riester quoted a verse from her favorite poem, “The Walrus and the Carpenter,” by Lewis Carroll:
The time has come,’ the Walrus said,
To talk of many things:
Of shoes – and ships – and sealing-wax –
Of cabbages – and kings –
And why the sea is boiling hot –
And whether pigs have wings.’

Jeannie Johnston is the Army Community Service division chief. “Kathleen’s been an excellent employee who will be dearly missed by all her clients and co-workers,” she said. “And I wish her the best in her next endeavors. She’s been a valued employee to the Redstone community.”

• Date Taken: 03.17.2021
• Date Posted: 03.18.2021 13:42
• Story ID: 391741
• Location: US