When I look back, What is Something I am Proud of...as a Veteran?

It's been a while since I pushed out an article. With Veteran's Day fast approaching I wanted to reflect on some things from my career in the Air Force that I am proud of. During my 22-year career I was involved in many operations, deployments, PCS moves, and TDYs. I had traveled and accomplished missions in over 36 countries and led numerous Airman.

My final assignment though was one of note for me...

I was blessed in 2019 to be presented with the opportunity to lead the Air Force Philadelphia, PA recruiting team of 9 recruiters. I was finishing up my tour as a Military Entrance Processing Station (MEPS) Liaison in Brooklyn, NY (Compliance/Onboarding) and was thrilled to start my next assignment.

Many prior Flight Chiefs (which is what we call Recruiting Managers) reached out to share with me that this next role is the best and most rewarding job I will have in the Air Force.

Why is that? I always asked.

My mentors would tell me that the blend of directly leading a team on the ground, but also having your foot in at the strategic level was like the best of both worlds. You could influence and develop your recruiters as well as have direct input into how the total force operates at the regional and national levels.

Boy, were they right!

My goal and intent when I took that team was to accomplish several things:

1. Maintain the work-life balance of my recruiters
2. Develop and prepare them for a rank or positional promotion
3. Influence the team at large, strategically
4. Make Goal

Steve, why was making goal at number 4 instead of number 1?

IMO, crushing our goal at the expense of my recruiter's professional development, home life, and mental health was not worth the squeeze. I am of the belief that If I gave them the opportunity to grow, balance their life with their families, and have the space to fail and learn to pick themselves up, the production would follow suit.

Every previous Flight Chief of the team I took told me how they were the top flight and they crushed all in their path. I heard about all the gold badges and AFRS national awards. That's cool, but those were not my focus.

So how did I accomplish my objectives? What did I do to meet them?

1. Maintain the work-life balance of my recruiters:

I began by getting back to the basics, structure (time/task management). Old school recruiting, not processing. We are going to plan our work and work our plan. Daily, weekly, monthly, and annually. By doing this, we are not going to work weekends. Weekends will be family time. We will prioritize and accomplish all our tasks Monday-Friday. Thursdays will be the weekly review to ensure any tasks not met are validated and tasked for completion on Friday.

I showed them how to get out of the office and engage with the local communities in their area of responsibility. Post-secondary education centers, High Schools, Vo-Tech, Community Colleges, 4-year Universities, and Chambers of Commerce. Walk-in markets are cool, but walk-ins tend to have significant law violations, low test scores, and other issues that take longer to work out before we can process them. We still work with them, but we cannot maintain our FLOW with just walk-ins. The applicants you also want to target are the ones that have options. They have options because their academics are high, they may be athletic, or they simply have their lives together. These types of applicants consistently pass the ASVAB test and the medical physical, and move through the process quickly.

We developed a FLOW rotation for testing and processing our applicants. We would schedule appointments and set up our rotation so that every week at a minimum we were testing and processing at least one applicant to start and then growing that number from there. This would keep us in a structured schedule that would allow us to plan appointments and other tasks around our flow in order to maintain production. If you know you are testing and processing applicants every Tuesday, you are now able to plan all other tasks around that schedule and have minimal interruptions in your schedule. 1 qualified processor every week is 4 a month and 48 a year. A typical recruiter goal is 2-3 a month, so this at a minimum got them into a rotation that set them up to make or exceed goals every month. If one member of the team had a slower month but another had a better month, the flight would be consistently able to maintain and exceed production.

This gave my recruiters the structure to meet their tasks and maintain a healthy home-life balance. They were able to dedicate their weekends to family time and if they were meeting their tasks I encouraged them to attend important family events during the week.

2. Develop and prepare them for a rank or positional promotion:

We started with the initial feedback session. What are your personal goals? What do you need to do the accomplish them? How are we gonna get there? Do you know how to document your accomplishments? Do you know what it takes to get to the next level?

We tackled these topics and more.

Based on these conversations I gave them clear and direct targets to have completed by the end of the year in order to gain the the performance rating they desired. All targets were attainable, but not easy and would take effort to accomplish. Whether it was completing 6 classes by the end of the year, exceeding goals, knocking out a Professional Development Courses, and/or shadowing other Tier 2 and 3 recruiters to gain insight on other roles in recruiting service to assist at the squadron or group level.

We had an initial bullet writing class internally (performance review writing) in order for me to show them how to document their accomplishments and keep track of them. Every month they had to submit 12 bullets to me outlining their most notable accomplishments (Production, Education, Professional Development, Volunteerism, Teamwork, Leadership, Time/Task Management, and etc...). Every quarter I would then have them write their own performance award and send it to me. I would utilize the bullets they sent me each month to validate, review, and make edits to share back with them. Together we would correct and refine them before submitting them for consideration. This developed their ability to write and be effective as a leader once they were promoted to the next level for their employees.

I encouraged each of them to get involved in Squadron (local), Group (regional), and Wing (national) projects and additional duty positions to expand their knowledge of the total picture and increase their experience levels above their peers as well as fostering an ALL IN mindset and culture(Teamwork).

3. Influence the team at large, strategically:

We did this as a team by being involved in projects and positions in the squadron, group, and wing. We were squadron RSTs (Recruiting Shadow Trainers), Group MRTs (Military Resiliency Trainers), Physical Training (PT) Testers, and Wing WIT compliance inspectors (Wing Inspection Team(IG)). Every new Flight Chief that came into the squadron got a checklist from me on how to structure their weekly to-do list to get them started. Every new recruiter in the squadron had a shadow trainer come out in their first couple weeks on the job to help train them. Every member of the region had a shoulder to lean on if they needed it, mentally. Every member of the squadron could reach out for their PT testing needs. We also filled gaps in other areas and lent best practices to the entire team at large via monthly and quarterly rookie recruiter training.

4. Make Goal:

By accomplishing the first 3 objectives, we exceeded our flight goal every month during my tenure. Not only did we meet or exceed the goal every month, but in 2021 we surpassed the flight's production records previously set, going back 30 years.

Every member of the Philadelphia team accomplished their goals. The 30-year Flight production high contributed to our squadron as a whole becoming the Top Recruiting Squadron in the nation in 2022 as well as setting a 30-year production high. For those that do not know, there are 2.5K recruiters and 28 Squadrons in the Air Force Recruiting Command. Our Flight garnered 4 promotions and 30 Awards at the local, regional, and national levels. Every marriage stayed intact (Recruiting has one of the highest divorce rates) and the team members finished their degrees and/or completed their professional development goals. I did not have one disciplinary issue on my team during the entirety of my tenure. Half of the team went back to their original career fields with shining performance ratings and the others were promoted positionally into Tier 2 and Tier 3 assignments within the recruiting command.

In closing:

• Was I the best Flight Chief in recruiting? Nope.
• Were we the Top Flight in the command? Nope.
• Did we accomplish what we set out to do and influence those around us? Yep!
• Did we Inspire, Engage, and Recruit what the Air Force needed? You betcha!
• Am I proud of that? Your damn right I am!

This Veterans Day I look back and am thankful to have been a part of the A-Flight and 314th Team. As recruiters, we bring in the next generation of those who serve and I am thankful for every single one of them too. That assignment positioned me to continue to give thanks to veterans from all branches as I continue to Inspire, Engage, and Recruit them into Verizon when their military service ends.

To the Veterans out there, what are some things you are proud of as a veteran?

If you are not a Veteran, what are some things you are proud of that our Veterans do?