NGB honors 167th Airlift Wing recruiter

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt Sherree Grebenstein
  • 167AW/PA
Martinsburg, W.Va. --  Tech Sgt. Tracy V. Myers has only been on the job as a recruiter for seven months, but already she's being honored by the National Guard Bureau for her efforts in expanding the ranks of the West Virginia Air National Guard.
The recruiter with the 167th Airlift Wing was named as a "Top Producer" for December among Air National Guard recruiters across the nation. NGB runs the numbers to see which recruiter is the top producer each month as well as on a weekly basis during that particular time period.
In the first week of December she recruited six people to join the air base in Martinsburg. As a recruiter she is expected to meet a monthly quota of at least three enlistments.
"I've got 200 percent of my goal in the first week of the month," Myers said as she sat in her office on Wednesday morning, Dec. 15. In October she enlisted half a dozen during the entire month.
The Martinsburg resident has been a member of the 167th Airlift Wing for more than 14 years, first as a graphic artist in the unit's multimedia center and then as an information management specialist with the maintenance squadron.
"I'm from a long line of successful recruiters," Myers points out between meetings with potential enlistees. Tech Sgt. Jeremy A. Miller, recruiting office supervisor, and fellow recruiter Staff Sgt. Kevin E. Rhodes II have both been honored in the past by NGB for their recruitment efforts.
Myers said she was inspired to become a recruiter because she wanted to make a difference, one life at a time.
"I can be instrumental making a difference in someone's life," she wrote on the ANG "Top Performer" questionnaire which will be featured in an upcoming newsletter published for recruiters across the nation.
"It is a pretty amazing feeling knowing you are helping someone make the biggest most significant decision in their life," she wrote.
Myers may be new to recruiting among many of her peers, but she is already gaining a stellar reputation. Upon her graduation from recruiting school at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas last May, she was recognized for her outstanding academic achievement and named Distinguished Graduate.
If you ask Myers how many men and women she has recruited for the West Virginia Air National Guard during her career so far, she looks across her desk at a single Christmas card she designed.
"I've sent out 23," she said matter-of-factly. "It's just a way to keep in touch with them."
And each person she has recruited has literally left her with an indelible impression. Everyone that she enlists into the 167th Airlift Wing signs their names on a huge painting of the unit's shield which Myers painted back in 1999 while a graphic artist. The oversized board encased in a wooden frame features prominently on the front wall of her small office.
When asked which Air Force Specialty Code aka job are the most currently sought after, Myers lists maintenance, medical and security forces.
"Maintenance jobs can lead to full-time employment on the base," she said.
As for the two latter: "People want to obtain skills that they can use on the outside."
Myers credits the hands-off management approach by Miller that helps her and Rhodes succeed in their mission to recruit the next generation of leaders at the air base.
"His guidance has been instrumental in my success," she said of Miller. "He allows us the flexibility required to do what needs to be done to get the job done."
"He believes in us, trusts us," Myers said. "He doesn't micromanage and gives us free reign."
Adding" "Obviously we are doing something right."