Photo By Petty Officer 1st Class Jason J Behnke | 220728-N-KS651-0012 DETROIT (220728-N-KS651-0012) Navy Counselor 1st Class Edward...... read more read more
Subscribe
DETROIT – Some recruiters compare aspects of being a recruiter to being a salesman, especially in times like these when it can be difficult to attract the amount of talent the Navy needs. Navy Counselor 1st Class Edward Hutton isn’t one of those recruiters.
“It's just not me,” Hutton said. “I'll crash and burn if I'm trying to be a salesman, because I'm not. I just connect with people, and I try to imagine that one of those kids that's walking in here, or even older folks, that they're related to me.”
It’s important to Hutton to treat potential future Sailors as family because some of the closest people in his life have served or are currently serving.
His oldest son has been serving in the Navy for six years, and his youngest son ships to boot camp this August. Hutton said he took a similar approach to talking to his sons about joining as he takes for everyone.
“I told them, ‘I do not want you to do this unless you've thought it out that this is something you want to do. Because I want it to be your call, you know, and I want you to build your life based on your decisions,’” he said.
He even encouraged his sons to look at the other branches of the military before they made their choices. He didn’t want them to join the Navy because of their father, but because they did their research and decided it was the best choice for them.
Hutton’s own journey to joining the Navy was partially inspired by other family members who served. His mother retired from the Air Force, his stepfather was an original member of the Tuskegee Airmen and his uncles served as well.
“Yeah, pretty rich family history as far as military service,” he said. “My grandmother had 12 kids: eight girls, four boys. All four the boys were in the military: Army, Air Force and Navy.”
Hutton didn’t originally plan on following in the footsteps of those family members though. He started getting some notoriety as a rapper when he was 19 years old. For the next three years, he found himself touring as an opening act for hip hop icons like Public Enemy, 2 Live Crew, Salt-N-Peppa and Heavy D.
“I was doing it because I was one of those kids that, when my mother said you can do anything you want that you put your mind to, I actually believed that and thought I could do it, and I did it,” he said.
Hutton went on to open his own aquarium business, but when he had his first child, he sold it and began working in advertising for Nickelodeon and MTV. Later in his career, while working at the headquarters for a large security company, the Sept. 11 attacks happened, and things changed for him.
“I joined because of 9/11. I stayed for what it did for my family, and how it made it possible for my kids to live an entirely different life,” Hutton said.
Hutton’s life experiences helped shape him into the recruiter and leader he is today. His approach of looking at everyone who steps into his office as family isn’t just because he has many family members who served and who are currently serving. Being in his early thirties and getting ready to go on his first deployment to Afghanistan as a Seabee, it was another family that helped develop that closeness he feels with potential future Sailors.
“There was a young kid in my group that was going with me, and his mom and dad walk up, and they asked me, ‘Hey, petty officer, you're going to be going to Afghanistan with our son,’” Hutton said. “The mom says, ‘I just want to tell you, he was adopted. We’ve tried for years to have a kid. We adopted this young kid, and we've raised him from an infant to right now. All I ask is that you bring him home.’ And I'm telling you, when she said that, you know, her eyes welled up, and I thought, this is way bigger than just going on some deployment.”
Hutton felt a deep sense of responsibility to honor that mother’s request. He credits that moment, and the entirety of that deployment, for giving him a different view on life because it wasn't about him anymore. It really was about that kid.
As leading petty officer at Navy Recruiting Station Detroit, Hutton works to instill some of the same values he holds into his fellow recruiters.
“Nobody joins the Navy to be a salesman, nobody, at least that I know,” Hutton said. “So, where they may lack in the sales ability, I put that second to who they are as people. And when it comes to integrity and holding your word and doing right by every single person that walks in that door, that's my legacy."
Navy Recruiting Command consists of a command headquarters, three Navy Recruiting Regions and 26 Navy Talent Acquisition Groups that serve more than 1,000 recruiting stations across the world. Their combined goal is to attract the highest quality candidates to assure the ongoing success of America’s Navy.
For more news from Commander, Navy Recruiting Command, go to http://www.cnrc.navy.mil. Follow Navy Recruiting on Facebook (www.facebook.com/MyNAVYHR), Twitter (@USNRecruiter) and Instagram (@USNRecruiter).
| Date Taken: | 07.29.2022 |
| Date Posted: | 07.29.2022 15:30 |
| Story ID: | 426140 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 332 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, From Spitting Rhymes to Changing Lives: The Journey from Rapping to Recruiting, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
