Photo By Sgt. 1st Class Mary Junell | Currently, five of the 14 Major Subordinate Command leadership positions in the North...... read more read more
Subscribe
RALEIGH, N.C. - The North Carolina National Guard (NCNG) is comprised of seven Major Subordinate Commands(MSC), each with a command team; the commander and an enlisted leader.
Five of those 14 leadership positions in the NCNG are currently held by females, which means 35% of the senior leadership are currently women.
The NCNG is comprised of almost 12,000 Soldiers and Airmen, 19% of whom are women, making 35% sound like a historic high.
For North Carolina, it is.
This is the first time in NCNG history that this many positions in the MSC command teams have been held by women at the same time. For several of the MSCs, it is the first time a female has been in that senior position within the unit.
“It’s been fairly similar to all the other experiences in my military career,” said Col. Cristina Moore, the first female commander for the 130th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade, Charlotte. “The engineer corps doesn’t have a large quantity of females so throughout my entire career there’s often times when I’ve been the first female to be in those positions and we’ve got a great military and great organization and I’m a Soldier just like everybody else.”
Being women has nothing to do with them achieving this level of success in their military careers, but it is an achievement to be the first to hold their positions, something most of them are still getting used to.
“I don’t know what the difference would be,” said Chief Master Sgt. Susan Dietz, the first female Command Chief Master Sergeant for the 145th Airlift Wing, Charlotte. “No one treats me any differently than they did my male counterparts I don’t believe. I’ve had a little bit more focus for being the first female, but it’s almost a little uncomfortable because I didn’t get the position because I’m a female. I worked really hard to be where I am, it just happens that I am a female.”
Many women who have been in the military as long as some of these historic leaders have seen the service drastically change over the years, making it easier for themselves and other females to achieve their goals.
When Command Sgt. Maj. Diana Staton joined the service in 1982, the only job available to her that was similar to what her male counter parts was driving a truck as a Motor Transport Operator.
“We’ve come along way,” said Staton, the first female enlisted leader for 60th Troop Command in Raleigh. “Now females can go into Armor, Artillery, and other [branches] where women weren’t allowed to go into. It gives them a lot more opportunities to become a senior enlisted leader.”
Over the years, more and more women are being promoted into positions in the NCNG where women have never been before, something that Moore points out as a highlight of the N.C. Guard.
“I think that a true strength and illustration of an organization’s capability to have diversified is that people get into these positions not with the recognition of being a female or a minority, it’s on our merits,” Moore said.
Moore, who started her career with the NCNG in 2002 after serving on active duty, said she has never felt the distinction of being a female.
“It’s along my merits of leadership, my operations background and my experiences that have gotten me to the positions I’ve been in,” she said. “I feel like I’ve been competitive every step of the way.”
For many Soldiers and Airmen in the NCNG today, it is common to see women at all levels of leadership, not because of their gender, but because they happened to be the best person for the job.
Command Sgt. Maj. Elsa Gaver, the enlisted leader for the 139th Regional Training Institute (139th RTI) at Fort Bragg, believes this is why it is becoming a normal occurrence across the NCNG to see women in these roles.
“It is a normal thing for us here,” she said. “We go on who is the best person for the job, when the job is coming open, whether that is a male or a female. Right now, it’s just the time when the females are taking those positions and it’s very humbling to be here at this time because I was given the opportunity to take a command as a female.”
Not only is Gaver the first female senior enlisted leader at the 139th RTI, she is part of the first all female command team with Col. Anita Massey, the unit’s commander.
Massey said she recently came across a speech about equality by Maj. Julie Austin, the daughter of Maj. Gen. (Ret.) Beth Austin who was the first female two-star General to come out of the NCNG.
“She said that ‘Women’s equality means not seeing gender at all. Whether you are a male or a female we possess unique skills that set us apart and by working together as a team, we’re able to make the U.S. Army successful.’ That stands also true in the NCNG,” Massey said. “I totally believe in what she said, because as a team, we don’t look at differences, we look at what we bring together and combine.”
Now that the door to these positions are continuing to open to women, they will not be the last women to achieve this level of leadership in their careers.
“I see other women around the [Airlift] Wing and they say, ‘I want to be where you are one day,’ and I tell them you can,” Dietz said. “I’m not going to be the last female command chief by any means. We will have many more.”
These women are not just leaders, they are also role models, setting the example for younger Soldiers and Airmen, no matter their gender.
“This is our color, this is what we are,” Dietz said while grabbing at the shirt collar of her uniform to illustrate that all service members wear a similar uniform. “It isn’t anything else, and when we see each other like that, it all works better.”
| Date Taken: | 03.15.2018 |
| Date Posted: | 03.15.2018 09:43 |
| Story ID: | 269457 |
| Location: | RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA, US |
| Web Views: | 647 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Women in Leadership: NCNG leads the way with women in 35% of their Major Subordinate Command leadership positions, by SFC Mary Junell, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
