A Department of Army initiative has been to encourage, endorse, and employ diversity in the civilian workplace. All DA agencies have been delegated to ensure that personnel be diverse in organizations and directorates across the board. During my internship, I have not only been exposed to a line of work, but also to getting along with co-workers and learning about who they are as individuals.

Our senior HR specialist in the CPAC and I represent the diversity in our office. I am the only male and she is a female African American. I recently had conversations with her about how race has affected her in the workplace and her answers to my questions surprised me.

Here is a profile of Lona Smith and a brief documentation of our dialogue:

Lona Smith is a 41-year-old African American female. She is a human resources specialist for Department of Army, and is retired from military service. Lona is married to her husband, Calvin Smith. Together, they have one son, Justin. Growing up, Lona had two brothers and two sisters. Her mother now lives in Colorado and her father is recently deceased. She currently considers home to be McAlester, Okla.

Born in East St. Louis, Ill., Lona’s two best friends growing up were Sharon Diggs and Leslie Howard. Lona commented that she did not have any close friends of another race. She lived in a predominately black neighborhood throughout her childhood.

In her spare time, Lona enjoys roller-skating and fishing. She is a very confident, direct person and says that there is nothing and no one who limits her from enjoying her hobbies.

When asked to describe herself physically, Lona chose the words young and beautiful. As a confident woman, she feels secure about who she is and how she perceives herself. When asked to describe herself without making reference to physical appearance, Lona chose inward qualities of her personality: kind, caring, sharing, intelligent, professional, successful woman.

Lona believes that at home, others perceive her as smart, fun, and loving. In the workplace, she thinks she is perceived as intelligent, personable, hardworking, and dedicated.

Lona regards her career with the utmost regard, and strives to be a professional exuding excellence. She says she honestly has no idea what people on the street think of her. She says there is no way to gauge people’s thoughts and she has never asked a stranger before.

When questioned about her perception of her own power in society, she said she has never thought about it. She said she believes that even the smallest person can change the course of the future and that she has the ability to make a difference in the world around her. She perceives limitations to be corrupt people, racists, bigots, and closed-minded people who do not have a love for humanity.

Lona then answered the question, what are you thoughts feelings, and behaviors relating to race and ethnicity. She simply replied, “We are all created equal.” When asked about how she chooses to identify herself, she said, “I am a child of God.”

When Lona was asked what she thinks about race and what makes that happen, she replied, “I don’t think about it.” At first, she said she had never thought about how her life might be different had she been a male, but she then commented that she believes discipline in her house as a child would have been different in that as a male, things would have been slightly easy on her. She says her parents let her brothers get away with more things and that her mother and father were very protective of the girls in the family.

I then asked Lona about the hardest thing about race for her to talk about. She claims that she does not have one and that she tries not to think along those lines. What I gathered from this interview is that Lona Smith has completely eliminated the barriers of race and ethnicity from her thoughts, feelings, and words. “I don’t see color,” she said at the end of the interview. We laughed about how outrageous some might see this method of approach, but she told me that when it comes to race, she prefers to be colorblind.

On this day in the CPAC, I accomplished many tasks. My supervisor asked me to find a specific MCAAP reg (regulation) in the database of regulations, so that the reg could be updated and reflect the current status of the installation. The reg was pertaining to environmental management and the installation. I quickly found that MCAAP has several regs. Some of which are specifically for the installation itself, and some which span across the Department of Army (DA) and the entire Department of Defense (DoD). I found the reg by boss requested so that she could change the verbiage, receive command approval, and then publish the regulation.

Also, my supervisor let me shadow our senior HR specialist for an entire day. I was able to see the ways in which she coordinated with headquarters (HQ), answered customer inquiries, and handled the day-to-day tasks that every HR specialist must undergo. I was tasked with the usual intern duties such as making copies and printing address labels, but it was not as mundane a process as I thought it would be. The senior specialist was very insightful and did not leave me with all the "dirty" work. She actually made half of her copies and printed half of her address labels too. For the more substantial duties, she let me sit in her office and listen to her telephone conversations, and even let me watch her process personnel actions in the Defense Civilian Personnel Data System (DCPDS). I could have been very discouraged by standing at the copy machine all day, but instead I was encouraged and became hopeful for my future career. I am so thankful for employees who realize that it is important to show the younger generation what the job will actual be like, instead of just assigning miniscule tasks that will depress even the happiest of interns. Because of my shadow experience with one of our senior HR specialists, I am even more excited about graduation and my career to follow.

Working at MCAAP, one gets the privilege and opportunity to meet some very accomplished professionals who have been federal employees for many years. Most of these individuals offer a wealth of career advice, insight, and knowledge about their craft. Recently I met the Public Affairs Specialist for MCAAP, Mark Hughes.

Mr. Hughes gave me a glimpse into the average day on the job as the MCAAP Public Affairs Specialist. He is tasked with providing the commander with public affairs advice (the commander is an actual military officer who is the commanding presence on the installation. He serves as the installation manager, making all executive and command decisions). Mr. Hughes also publishes a 12-page monthly newspaper. He writes the articles, takes the photos, and designs the layout for the publication.

Mr. Hughes gets the high honor of representing the command at community relations events and committees such as Armed Forces Day. He obtains the military fly-over for Armed Forces Day, and provides information to the McAlester News Capital (the local newspaper) on this holiday. Mr. Hughes is also charged with coordinating and preparing for the arrival of active duty military personnel from across the United States when they get orders to come to MCAAP. He even provides protocol services such as planning the itinerary, lodging, ground transportation, and meals for distinguished visitors coming to the installation.

In his role as Public Affairs Specialist, Mr. Hughes also responds and coordinates media queries, assists in planning special events, drafts speeches for the commander and the civilian deputy (a civilian who is the second in command next to the commander), coordinates significant articles in major DoD publications, and coordinates Freedom of Information Act requests from the media.

Mr. Hughes also provided me with some wise and insightful advice. I asked him how he perceived the value of public relations in his organization. He said that the value of public relations is vital to the success of MCAAP, but that the real question is what does the leadership think about the value of public relations? He went on to explain that a public relations practitioner can only be as valuable as the leadership with let him/her be.

Because of this, Mr. Hughes said it is imperative for public relations professionals to be able to define value, which is why it is essential for them to be able to measure the worthiness of what they do and their ability to contribute to the bottom line. He also said that if the leadership of an organization is going to relegate public relations into the background, then they do not need public relations. Instead, they need "more sandbags to build a defensive wall around them from the media, which ultimately fails and then the company is exposed to the light of public opinion."

Mr. Hughes has been a great asset to me so far and I look forward to his continued counsel as I progress in my career at MCAAP.