THE MILITARY SPOUSE DILEMMA
Personnel Advisory Center to be placed into the military spouse preference Priority Placement Program. But she learned only after meeting with the Civilian Personnel Advisory Center director, that the human resources assistant had signed her up under posi- tions and grade levels that did not exist at Fort Irwin.
“I spent an entire year applying to jobs without one referral,” Raulerson said. Fortunately, leadership at U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Korea was kind enough to extend her LWOP status, since their duty station was remote and far from civilization, and she wasn’t able to gain employment in the first year. According to the G-1 resource guide, if a military spouse is on LWOP, he or she has more options to apply for jobs as a current civilian, in addition to jobs marked open to spouses.
Eventually, she did find a position—a program analyst at Head- quarters, National Training Center, in the G-8 Manpower Office supporting travel and the Mass Transportation Benefit Program—but this was still not the contracting position that she was hoping for, nor did she ever see a position in the field open up.
G-1 GUIDE
The cover of the latest resource guide for navigating Army civilian employment, released last fall by the Office of the Assistant G-1, Civilian Personnel. (Image by U.S. Army)
very important to me to keep that door open by continuing my federal employment,” she said.
“In the middle of our tour in South Korea, I applied for a contract specialist position but was not referred, despite having a master’s in acquisitions and contracting, being a prior [contracting series] 1102 and having earned my DAWIA Level II in contracting [now referred to as DOD contracting Professional], all in addi- tion to submitting what I thought was the correct package of documents.”
When Raulerson returned to the U.S., she and her husband were stationed at Fort Irwin, California, where she said employment options were even more limited. So, she did what employment- seeking spouses are advised to do, and signed up with Civilian
98 Army AL&T Magazine Spring 2023
GOOD TRANSFERS It wasn’t until moving to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, after a four- year gap, that she finally found an opening into the contracting career field again, with U.S. Army Mission and Installation Contracting Command (MICC). “Contracting at Fort Leaven- worth was much different from contracting at MDA, but I was happy to learn something new,” she said. “MICC has a wonderful military spouse transfer program that I am more than grate- ful for. I was able to apply for contracting positions at our next duty station and be transferred to where I am now”—a contract specialist with MICC at the 922nd Contracting Battalion at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.
Raulerson explained how being able to transfer provided her with “built-in” rotations that broadened her skills. At MDA she was working on major weapons systems, at Fort Leavenworth she purchased information technology supplies and services, and at Fort Campbell she is now perfecting her skills in construction contracting.
Expanding transfer programs to both civilian and military spouses has proven successful in retaining a trained and capable work- force. In 2020, Army Materiel Command successfully renamed and expanded its former child care-employee-centric Nonappro- priated Fund (NAF) Civilian Employment Assignment Tool to cover 90 percent of all NAF-employed spouses, although it still excludes higher career level and supervisor positions. Te number
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