ARLINGTON, Va. - Tech. Sgt. Dianna Bowen understands and embraces the challenges of recruiting people into a transforming Air National Guard.
Bowen became one of the Air Guard's top recruiters in the nation this year by enlisting members into an integrated Air Force wing, co-operated by Guard and active duty Airmen: the 116th Air Control Wing at Robins Air Force Base, Ga., which flies the JSTARS aircraft (Joint Surveillance and Target Attack Radar System).
"Out of 409 [Air Guard] recruiters, I'm number four," said Bowen.
Bowen hopes to enlist as many Guardmembers as possible into the wing's military melting pot, but she said her success requires a lot of teamwork within. The unit is a product of Total Force Integration (TFI), which officials say enhances retention and recruitment for the total force through personnel cross flow, among other efficiencies in collective resources and efforts.
"I worked a lot," she said. "I did everything I could for my applicants, and because of that, that's how I got my referrals."
The Air Guard announced Dec. 10 that its accessions (new recruits) were up in November. It continues to develop yearly recruiting goals and maintain appealing choices for enlistees. On the front lines, honing themselves as the Air Guard's critical edge are its recruiters. Some, including Bowen, are recruiting through drastic changes in the Air Force from TFI and the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) law.
Bowen and the four other recruiters in her office are proof that recruiters can be successful through TFI. What's interesting about recruiting at the 116th ACW, Bowen said, is explaining to recruits they might have an active duty supervisor as well as a Guard supervisor.
"I explain to [recruits] that you go into a shop here and you are actually going to find active duty Air Force, active duty Air National Guard, traditional Guard; and your going to have [federal] technicians, so you can't pick one person out ... everybody's equal and treated equal," said Bowen.
With the wing near 100 percent manned, she and others in her office must navigate changing manning documents and balance available positions with the positions recruits want and are qualified for.
Part of her responsibilities are to meet with applicants and conduct interviews to determine their qualifications to join the Air Guard. Finding and matching qualified candidates and matching them with available, qualified jobs can be a major challenge, she said. She conducts about 20-25 interviews a week; of those, maybe about eight enlist. Her monthly recruiting goal is three recruits a month and 36 for the year, which is a standard for most Air Guard recruiters.
"Generally, we all meet our goals," said Bowen. "There months when it's kind of a struggle to get people in, but our office has been pretty successful." Unit member referral is one her greatest resources.
As a TFI unit, active duty recruiters also man the shops. But Bowen said there's a major difference between them. The Air Guard recruiters manage their Guard accessions, unlike their active duty partners who man the Air Force through recruiting squadrons. Active duty recruiters are also located off base at the local shopping mall.
"We have the advantage of being right here," Bowen said. This allows them to show potential recruits and their families the shops they might work at and meet the wing's Airmen. She agreed that integrating the family is just as important.
Bowen's advice to new recruiters: "follow up, follow up, follow up," she said. She explained that people sometimes just want information, but she keeps in contact with them, which leads to accessions.
Overall, the Air Guard reported Dec. 10 that its accessions for November were 33 percent above its goal. But for fiscal year 2007, the Air Guard fell just short of its end strength goal of 107,000 Airmen with a reported strength of 106,254 Airmen. It also achieved 99.3 percent of its retention goal and 93.3 percent of its recruiting goal.
Lt. Gen. Craig McKinley, director of the Air Guard, acknowledged the 116th's recruiting success during an exclusive year-in-review interview with The On Guard, the newspaper of the National Guard, as well as the success of other Air Guard units that are maintaining Airmen in the face of TFI, BRAC and other recruiting and retention challenges. But McKinley also said that recruiting will continue to be a "huge challenge."
"The Air National Guard has got to get recruiting to a point where we meet end strength," said McKinley. "The Army National Guard has had a phenomenal record of recruiting new members. We, on the other hand, are very close and well within our two percent margin, but we fell short of our 2007 end strength goal. We should be able to just push through and meet the goal. Once achieved, it will not be as difficult to maintain. So, recruiting will continue to be a huge challenge for us in 2008."
Another unit overcoming the recruiting challenge is the Ohio Air Guard's 179th Airlift Wing in Mansfield. It maintains a top recruiting and retention rate despite an uncertain future: it will lose its C-130 Hercules aircraft by 2011 as a result of BRAC.
McKinley and his staff from the Air Guard Readiness Center at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., traveled there Dec. 6 and met with the 179th's recruiters during a larger, unit visit.
The wing's recruiters achieve more than 100 percent [manning], despite the fact that the wing will convert to nontraditional functions by 2011.
"At this point, we are very fortunate [from] where it was a couple years ago. Rumors have lessened and folks know that we are staying and hopefully we have new missions coming," said Master Sgt. Dana Togliatti, recruiting supervisor.
Togliatti said the unit had to do a lot of damage control when the BRAC announcement came, but unit members came together to tell the community that they were not going anywhere; that the benefits of serving were still the same. "We owe it to most of the people on this base that have spread the word," she said.
At the moment, the 116th's recruiters are averaging four recruits a month in an area where the nearest major city is an hour's drive away.
Togliatti said their challenges include finding qualified applicants, giving applicants jobs to choose from and finding training dates. She also said paperwork can bog them down.
The office develops their own marketing campaigns, which include billboards and sports programs and shopping programs to get their names and faces out into the community. "We want to be there. We want to be everywhere around town and the surrounding counties," Togliatti said.
State tuition assistance provides an additional incentive to recruits: Ohio offers 100 percent tuition assistance for instate schools. Other states offer similar incentives. The Guard Recruiting and Assistance Program (GRAP), which the Air Guard enveloped after the Army Guard's success with it, pays money to those that refer enlistees when they join and complete basic military training.
"GRAP is huge for us, but [referrals] were huge for us before the program," Togliatti said. Now referrals pay big dividends for recruiting assistants, nationwide.
Additional incentives, increases in bonuses and recruiting approaches were introduced across the Air Guard this year. More are coming soon.