JOINT BASE LEWIS-McCHORD, Wash. – In May, Yakima Training Center employees Bill Cantral and Chiyo Cantral are celebrating two milestones: Forty years of marriage and 40 years of federal service — each.
Chiyo, chief of YTC’s Plans, Analysis and Integration Office, and Bill, a plans specialist for the Directorate of Plans, Training, Mobilization and Security, were recognized at YTC on May 6 for their many contributions by YTC and Joint Base Lewis-McChord’s garrison commanders and command sergeants major.
Chiyo knew JBLM Garrison Commander Col. Joseph Handke and Garrison Command Sgt. Maj. Ronald Hansen would be visiting YTC that day, but she didn’t know Handke would be speaking about her and Bill’s service at a civilian employees’ meeting.
“He gave us our length-of-service awards and talked a little bit about our careers in front of the YTC workforce, and it was just really, really nice that he took the time to come over and do that for us,” she said.
She and Bill described reaching the milestone together as “an outstanding feeling of shared accomplishment.”
Both Cantrals followed in their parents’ service-filled footsteps. The son of a Navy sailor from Idaho Falls, Idaho, Bill’s federal career started in 1980 when he enlisted in the Marines. He was an active-duty Marine for 21 years, serving at nine different duty stations, including Recruiting Sub-Station Yakima.
Bill met Chiyo in Woodbridge, Virginia, in 1984. The daughter of a retired U.S. Army Soldier-turned retired civil servant, Chiyo married Bill at her birthplace, Fort Belvoir, Virginia, in 1986. She started her federal career in 1985, following Bill’s proposal. She was a GS-03, a Clerk-Typist.
Chiyo said her favorite assignment over her 40-year career has been YTC, and the couple said their fondest memories of working at the same duty station were made when they accepted their respective YTC jobs — Chiyo in 1997 and Bill in 2007.
The Cantrals have a son, Neil, and balanced family time with their careers.
“We made a commitment to each other, a promise that we would support each other in the pursuit of our careers and understood the difficulties we would face,” they said. “We created our own family traditions, especially for the holidays.”
Their personal commitment allowed them to keep doing what they love.
“Bill gets to continue serving his country in a different capacity, (and) Chiyo appreciates the sense of belonging to something bigger,” they said.
With a combined 80 years of federal service, the Cantrals have words of encouragement for military families and current and aspiring federal employees:
“What you do is important and it makes a difference,” they said.