From the Crows' Nest

Ken Miller [00:00:09]:
Welcome to From the Crows' Nest, a podcast on electromagnetic spectrum operations, or EMSO. I'm your host, Ken Miller, Director of Advocacy and Outreach for the Association of Old Crows. You can follow me on LinkedIn or email me at host@fromthecrowsnest.org. Thanks for listening. In this episode, we continue our recognition of Women's History Month by highlighting a nEW AOC initiative entitled Empowering Women in EW. This committee is designed to bring women in EW together at any stage of their career, be it in the military or industry, to provide support, mentorship, guidance and empowerment. To help me with this discussion, I am pleased to be joined by Ms. Christelle Ward, who is leading the initiative. Christelle is a former Navy and currently with EM Technologies as an EW subject matter expert.

Ken Miller [00:00:57]:
I'm also joined by a special co-host, Hollann Schwartz, who is the Marketing and Communications Director here at AOC. And we sit down with Christelle to talk a little bit more about her journey through into EW and through the Navy and then working with across services and now an industry as a subject matter expert and her journey and her vision to empower other women in their careers. With that said, let's listen into my conversation with Christelle Ward and Hollann Schwartz. All right, I am pleased to be here with my special guest co host, Hollann Schwarz, who is our AOC Director of Marketing and Communications and of course our guest for this episode, Christelle Ward. But first, let me welcome my co host for today, Hollann. It's great to finally have you on the show. I've been trying to get you to be a guest co host here for a while and, and this was a great opportunity as we're in Women's History Month to, you know, highlight the roles that women play in EW. And I wanted to have you on for, for this episode.

Ken Miller [00:01:57]:
I really appreciate you joining me.

Hollann Schwartz [00:02:00]:
Thanks, Ken. It's nice to be here. I dodged it for what, four and a half years now?

Ken Miller [00:02:03]:
Four and a half years. You know, you can't, when, when you work next to each other, you can't dodge it forever, so. And Chrisel, thanks for joining us. You know, Chris, Tel Ward is a very active member of the association of Old Crows. She works for E and M Technologies. She's former Navy. She has been a leader in the association here recently with establishing a nEW initiative called Empowering Women in Electronic Warfare. We will talk a lot about this nEW initiative.

Ken Miller [00:02:28]:
It's very exciting. I think it's going to be a very helpful initiative and we'll get into That a little bit. But just to kind of level set and have a good discussion here, I wanted to thank you first of all for coming on the show and could you tell us a little bit about yourself and who you are?

Hollann Schwartz [00:02:42]:
Sure. Thank you so much for having me. I was really excited when we had talked about doing this at the symposium this year. So super excited to get this going. So I am from the beautiful state of Tennessee, the Knoxville area. So go Vols. A huge football fan. So I married my husband just a month out of high school and he was an infantry Marine at the time, so I spent some time as a military spouse.

Christelle Ward [00:03:05]:
When he was medically retired, we went back home and we had our two oldest. In 2015, I joined the Navy. So my boys were two years old and eight months old when I left, which was really hard. However, I believe it gave me a very strong sense of focus because I knEW it wasn't just myself I was having to focus on. I had somebody, I had family that was relying on me. I served as a CTT or EW in the Navy, got to do a lot of really cool port visits, went to Lithuania Fleet Week, NEW York, got to go to Kiel Fest in Kiel, Germany. And this was all during the World cup, so really cool to be in that atmosphere. Later I became a deployment assessor at IWTG where we assisted in recertifying ships for deployment.

Christelle Ward [00:03:47]:
After six years, the Navy and my family obligations didn't. Didn't align. And so the Navy and I broke up and I decided to go work with the Army. So I was over at the 17 Echo schoolhouse where I was teaching EW. After the contract changed over, I went and was a employee for EM Technologies, where I went to Fort Bragg or, excuse me, Fort Liberty. Oh, I'm still getting the name changes, all right. But I was over at the Advanced Operations Course SIGINT as the EW subject matter expert, where I was really pushing an EW SIGINT integration mindset. While I was there, I also assisted foundry training the SIGINT EW reconnaissance teams for the 82nd Airborne with their signals recognition, they were having some issues not they didn't have an EW to be able to actually input signal parameters.

Christelle Ward [00:04:38]:
So that's what I was assisting with. From there I went to Fort Belvoir where I was the EW SME for the Wireless Exploitation section at first IO for the Cyber Red Team, where we went to NTC and we just evaluated deployable units on their cyber capabilities. And so now, two and a half years later, I am A operations officer and also the task lead for MDL working group.

Ken Miller [00:05:00]:
And we appreciate your subject matter expertise because I think one of the challenging things when you get into EW is you quickly realize that once you break it into services and agencies and it becomes extremely complex and you're someone that has seen it from multiple perspectives and you bring that expertise. And so I really appreciate all the help that you provide. Aoc, you mentioned something really interesting at the beginning, and I want to kind of highlight this because you. You were a military spouse at the beginning. You saw from both sides. That transition from seeing military service from both sides is actually relatively unique. A lot of people will say, you know, they'll start out in the military and then they'll retire, but you kind of were the spouse side, then you were the active duty, and now you're the industry. And.

Ken Miller [00:05:40]:
And so how has that shaped how you viEW this space in terms of, you know, obviously when you serve the military, you are dedicating your life to the country, to your mission. That's a lot of change in your life. How. Talk to us about some of the challenges you faced with that, those transition points.

Christelle Ward [00:06:00]:
So what's interesting is I have been in multiple different services in a different aspect, Whether it is spouse for the marine corps or it was service member for the navy or it's instructor or contractor for the army. And what has been something that I had to understand was the difference in the culture and the way that those different branches functioned. Because in the Marine Corps, it's very heavily in the brotherhood. It's very heavily in the military bearing, and they're very proper, which I was very. That's kind of my expectation for the Navy and the Navy, it was a little bit different. But I had to curb my expectations because as a spouse your expect your. What you are wanting to do, and your standards are very different than as a service member. But I had a much better appreciation for what the service members went through as well as I had an appreciation for what the spouses did.

Christelle Ward [00:06:52]:
So instead of just going, oh, yeah, the spouses are the backbone, they're just saying the tagline that everybody says I actually understood. Like, I know she's upset because I know her husband's been gone, because I remember what that felt like. And then as an industry person, it's been really. I think my service has been very helpful because it's been able to tailor the way that I instruct or that I train because I know what I wanted to know when I was getting the instruction of a Training so I can tailor myself. So I feel like it's given me a very vast understanding as well as a very good way to really shape and mold myself to what I am needed for at that point.

Hollann Schwartz [00:07:26]:
It probably gives you a level of empathy as well, like, to be able to literally put yourself in the shoes of all of these different roles instead of just saying, oh, I'm sorry you feel this way. It's like, I know exactly what you feel right now. I know exactly what you're feeling. I've been in your shoes.

Christelle Ward [00:07:44]:
Yeah, I ended up being a. I ended up being a sounding board for a lot of my fellow service members because they would get upset because their spouses. You know, she's upset for being gone, and there's these things that go on, and he's just like, all she does is complain. And I just. I'm. I'm doing my job. Sit down.

Hollann Schwartz [00:08:01]:
Down.

Christelle Ward [00:08:02]:
Right.

Hollann Schwartz [00:08:02]:
Let me explain to you. Let me. Let me tell you.

Christelle Ward [00:08:05]:
Exactly. And so I just say, look, you got to see it from both sides, right? And then, you know, it happens the other way around. I had friends who were spouses that. I have to go, okay, well, look, you gotta understand, he's being told he's gotta do this. So it did work really well with being able to connect with people.

Ken Miller [00:08:21]:
I'm sure that that helps a lot of others, because one of the worst experiences you can have is feeling like you're experiencing something no one else is experiencing. And so having those channels that you can talk to with someone who's been through it, who can not only been through it, but also been through it on the other side, so you can. You can manage those expectations. As you mentioned, I think it's critical to a lot of young people coming into the military and. Or. Or in those roles. At AOC, we talk a lot about, you know, supporting the war fighter. And that goes beyond just the deployed mission.

Ken Miller [00:08:55]:
It's all reaches all the way back to. To home, to family and everything, because it's the people that make the mission work.

Hollann Schwartz [00:09:03]:
So given that we are currently celebrating Women's History Month, can you share with us a little bit about what that means to you and what women in history have spoken to you?

Christelle Ward [00:09:14]:
Absolutely. So the first thing I will say is that when we started talking about this, I realized I need to do some history, some research. And the first thing I learned is I should have done my history a long time ago, because the women I looked up were incredible. The next thing I learned was how essential they were not just to EW, but to the foundation of EW, to actually building it. Pioneers like Joan Koran, she not only built chaff, which is one of our huge, important, like, essential things we have, she is also the one that came up with the idea to distract the Germans on D Day and change the tide of World War II. That is mind blowing to me that a woman was the one behind that. She completed her education in 1937, but she actually wasn't awarded her diploma for 50 years until 1987. Which just goes to show you the barriers that women were facing back in the early 1900s that we don't face today.

Christelle Ward [00:10:10]:
I can go get my education whenever I want, and it's just. It's just crazy. What I've learned from women like Joan coran, Florence Violet McKenzie and Hedy Lamar is you don't give up there. No matter how many times they were told no or that they were told they weren't capable or that they didn't belong, they persevered. They did not dwell on the setbacks or, you know, didn't let the doubt stop them. Their contributions, they knEW, were important. And so because of that, they pushed through. So I guess what I really learned out of all this is that, you know, there will always be somebody supporting you as long as you believe in you.

Christelle Ward [00:10:47]:
Obstacles are, you know, like gender and age can be overcome. It's why they're called obstacles and not limits.

Hollann Schwartz [00:10:54]:
I love that we want to support the whole community. In previous women history months, we have highlighted the key women in, in the past of, of our EW history. And I want to hear about your history. Who has motivated you, who has changed you, who has made you into who you are today.

Christelle Ward [00:11:12]:
I am really happy that you asked that because I love, like, giving any type of spotlight to the women in my life that have been very helpful. I have several women off the top of my head right now that I can say, yep, they helped me just for being a sounding board for me to call them on long drives. Because when I was doing the Fort Belvoir and the Fort Liberty, I was commuting from Georgia to Virginia every weekend, so I had eight hours to do nothing but think. So I would call. And they're just a sounding board so I can vent those frustrations or whatever I'm dealing with, let it go and not let it affect my work. So I really do love and care for them for what they do that. But there are two women specifically that I attribute to my success and where I've been able to get to the first one is my mom. Now, my mom does not understand what I do in the slightest.

Christelle Ward [00:12:00]:
She tells people that I teach people how to be spies. I tell her all the time she's going to get my clearance revoked. I have tried to explain it to her multiple times. It's just not happened. However, my mom is incredible. She raised my sister and I as a single mother on a teacher's salary, and she refused to let her circumstances determine anything for her. She continued to advance her career as well as her education. She returned to college.

Christelle Ward [00:12:27]:
I remember all the late nights she was staying up, and I thought, man, it's so cool to be an adult and stay up. And now I am one. And I'm like, I see what she was doing. But she was able to work really hard, and she climbed up to the ranks to being administrator at the central office. So at one point, she served as the associate principal of my high school, which, let me tell you, was so much fun. And for some reason, I still thought I could get away with not doing my homEWork. But my mom was determined that mine and my sister's opportunities were not going to be dictated by her decisions. So she pushed through and she has worked her way up.

Christelle Ward [00:13:02]:
Last year, in 2024, she was actually the runner up for the administrator of the year for the whole state of Alabama. And then actually yesterday I called her to verify, Hey, I want to make sure all this stuff is accurate. She goes, well, you forgot something. I said, what's that? She goes, yesterday, I was actually appointed the strategic initiative coordinator for the school system for the whole city of Opelika, Alabama. So she's still breaking barriers and still pushing through. And I think the one thing that she's taught me, that really just stuck with me is that it doesn't matter your situation or what you're going through. If you just keep your head down, stay focused, you'll get the task done, and at the end of the day, the right actions will have the right results. So that's my mom in a nutshell.

Christelle Ward [00:13:47]:
She's incredible. I love her. The second woman that I want to talk about, and people are going to giggle at me when they hear this, but it's actually OSCM Johnson, and she was actually my second RDC at boot camp. So she's on my instructors at boot camp. But in 2015, she was an OS one, which is an E6, and they rank. The job of OS is very difficult once you hit E5 to advance up. And in nine years, in 2024, she put on the Rank of master chief, which to me says a lot about her as just a sailor and her as a military service member. But when I was at boot camp one night, I was really struggling because being away from my kids and my husband, because I'd never been away, and, you know, they're both.

Christelle Ward [00:14:28]:
One of them's eight months old, and so it was very, very difficult. She comes in to ask me, trying to hide because you don't want anybody to see you cry. And she said, what's wrong? And I said, oh, nothing. I have allergies. It's fine. It's fine. And she said, you know, pretending you're okay when you're not is just as bad as being okay and pretending you're not. And so I finally kind of told her, you know, I'm really struggling.

Christelle Ward [00:14:48]:
She looks at me and does what, you know, not many people do. She gave me a phone and said, call your family. And I got to call my family and talk to them. When I got done, she looked at me and she said something. And I'm not going to get every word for word, but to the. Essentially, what she told me was, you know, you're going to be away from your family a lot in the Navy, and it's going to be even more difficult for you than most people you deal with, because your mom and moms are very. They have. They're wired differently.

Christelle Ward [00:15:12]:
And what you need to do is you need to find a box and you need to lock the personal away when you're working because you don't want to give anyone any type of anything that they can use against you. You're allowed to have your emotions, you're allowed to cry, but you do that in your own time. You make yourself to where you are. Absolutely nobody can function without you at work. And I really appreciated that. And I took that. It got me through my Navy career. I always said, you can ask people I worked with.

Christelle Ward [00:15:40]:
I said, I want to be like her. And it's still helped me in my career after. So I do dedicate a lot of my career to her. And just the way she just saw me, she recognized I was having an issue. And instead of giving me flack about it, she, you know, she gave me honest feedback. So for me, I really appreciate her.

Ken Miller [00:15:58]:
That's really cool to hear that you had that person in your life to provide you that empathy and that ability to kind of explain, here's what you're going to go through moving forward, understanding all the pieces that are play that you probably wouldn't have heard from a lot of other people, they would have, they may have told you that, you know, not recognize the stress of being a mother, leaving the kid, your kids or any other role that you had. So I think that's really fantastic that you met that, that person so early on. Obviously your mom is your mom. But like you, when you meet someone at the first step of a nEW career that is there 10 years later, or however many years it's been since boot camp, I think is is interesting. So when you get into EW, talk a little bit about your transition into the EW field and how being a woman in EW has shaped what you're able to accomplish for the, the mission.

Christelle Ward [00:16:53]:
So as I mentioned before, I was older, I was almost 23. My father in law did 26 years in the Navy. So he was very helpful and allow and guiding me on what job to choose. He said, you want to do something that you're going to be able to do if you decide to get out. And so I said okay. So we picked CTT and we picked EW and I got in and you get to school. So the Army's EW schooling is 28 and a half weeks long. The Navy's is four.

Christelle Ward [00:17:19]:
So you get four weeks of schooling, you get two weeks of hands on system and they go, all right, go out there. And then you get to your ship and they go, sit in the seat, show us what you know. And you go, right. You have no idea what's going on because you're barely taught anything. And I told my students all the time too, EW, you can only learn at most 20% of your job in the class there. It is a totally on the job experience where I think the Navy has actually done a very good job of saying we'll give you basics and then just throw you into the fire kind of thing. But I realized that I was actually, I really enjoyed it. I was really, really good at it.

Christelle Ward [00:17:53]:
And then I finally was able to claim the title of nerd, which I always, I had always said, no, I'm not one of those. And then I realized, yes, yes I am. But you know, being able to not just understand bare minimum stuff about EW, but getting into all the details and then seeing where the opportunities are for it to grow. Which was one of the big reasons when I was getting out, I really wanted to find a way to stay in to the EW community. So when I got out and I went to the army and saw how vastly different it was between the two branches, it was exciting for me, honestly. It can be very frustrating at times, but it's very exciting to see how much there is for growth and expansion. Now I, in every situation, work wise that I have been in, I have been the only female, at least at the start. When I went to my ship, I was the first female in three years to show up and I was the only female in our division.

Christelle Ward [00:18:53]:
When I came to the schoolhouse, I was the first female email hired. That was not a STEM job. It was somebody who was actually EW background. And then when I left there and I went to Fort Liberty, I was the only EW. I was the only female teaching the second course. When I went to Fort Belvoir, I was the only female, the only EW. And it has been very eye opening based on some of the experiences I've had. E M's been great because I have been given so much freedom to go to symposiums.

Christelle Ward [00:19:24]:
They're the reason I was able to go to the AOC symposium in the first place in 2023. And they've really given me a lot of freedom to explore opportunities and make these connections. And what's funny is I'll come back and whether I was at the schoolhouse or I'm here and I'm able to make really high level connections or, you know, really open up some contract opportunities for whatever, I'll get comments like, man, that's awesome. I mean, it also really helps that you look the way you do. Which basically what they're insinuating is that my looks are a part of what allowed me to achieve something. My capability was not. You know, my merit wasn't all there. You know, I have been told many times, like when I was at the schoolhouse, one of the male people who were working there, he made the comment, oh, you know, you were only hired because we need to meet a quota.

Christelle Ward [00:20:12]:
Things of that nature. I've been passed up on opportunities to move up in certain locations because, and I quote, this is a boys club and we don't want her to mess with that. So there have been definite times where my gender, I don't say works against me, but it is something that is used against me to, you know, halt those things. What I have learned is that I have to just be confident in who I am. I understand that. I do have this knowledge. I also understand I don't know everything. That was a big thing I had to get to.

Christelle Ward [00:20:44]:
I am not, I am not the Einstein of uw. So. But if I can be confident and just know that I have this level, I am recognized as a subject matter expert. I can contribute and improve things. It allows me to be able to handle those situations and be able to move on knowing that what I do will be beneficial at some point. And they're not important. Those comments are not important. It is what it is kind of thing.

Hollann Schwartz [00:21:12]:
It has to probably be. I was, as you're saying, I was the first here.

Christelle Ward [00:21:16]:
I was the first here.

Hollann Schwartz [00:21:17]:
At some point, it has to sometimes be exhausting. Like really, I'm the first again. I have to do this again. I have to pave the way again. As a woman working in associations, it's a very woman focused field. There are a lot of women in associations. Our own staff, Ken, what is it? At least 80% women. We represent a male dominated field, but association world, it's a female dominated field.

Hollann Schwartz [00:21:46]:
So my previous association, it was a more female dominated field. And they kept giving me pictures. They were 911 dispatchers, call takers, which are typically female. They kept giving you pictures of men doing the job. I'm like giving pictures of the women, please. There are more of them. This should be easy. I'm sure that's why you're probably so passionate about starting this nEW AOC committee where you will be working in empowering women.

Hollann Schwartz [00:22:10]:
And I'd love you to talk about it a little bit, but that must be part of like, let's stop where everyone is the first. Let's, let's have it. At least have.

Christelle Ward [00:22:18]:
Oh, a comrade.

Hollann Schwartz [00:22:19]:
Let, let's, you know. Great. I'm not the first one here.

Ken Miller [00:22:22]:
And I think that that was kind of the impetus for starting this nEW initiative with the AOC was so that you can help prepare future women leaders to not just be the first, but to suc.

Hollann Schwartz [00:22:34]:
Tell us a little bit about this nEW committee that you guys are starting, this nEW initiative that you're starting for AOC. EW in EW. Tell us what it is.

Christelle Ward [00:22:46]:
Awesome. Yeah. So I think I'm going to tell you a little bit how it came to be. It'll kind of help really understand what we want to do, what our goal is. So when I was at the AOC symposium in 2023, I pulled the female Future 5 winner aside and we were talking and we were really bonding over she's industry and I'm more the operational tactical training side. So we were really being able to converse about the differences and, you know, shared frustrations we had with the community. And then I asked, I said, so do you work with a lot of females? Because it does it goes back to that. I am the first usually, and I'm usually kind of alone.

Christelle Ward [00:23:23]:
So I'm trying to see, is it the same everywhere, or is it just, you know, am I. Am I kind of special? And she said, yeah, there's two other females, but it's mostly men that I work with. And I kind of just offhandedly said, man, you would think after all this time, with how fEW females there are, there'd be something that we have where we can connect. And she goes, yeah, that. You know what? There should be something. And I said, well, if I make a Facebook group, do you want to, like, connect and just keep talking? She goes, absolutely. So we finished our conversation. I started thinking.

Christelle Ward [00:23:52]:
I was like, why isn't there a group for women? And then my next question was, how the heck do you get something like that started? Because I had no idea what to do. So I also got this really awesome opportunity to go to a private discussion for young professionals nEW to ask senior professionals, you know, questions about career progression. And I really wanted to ask a specific question, which was, as a woman, how do I establish myself based on my experiences? But the panel was all men, and so I was. I was very hesitant to ask that. So I based it more on age than I did gender. And what was funny is Amanda Brockermeyer, who was just recognized as the nEW VP of the association, which is awesome. I'm so excited for her. She jumps out of nowhere.

Christelle Ward [00:24:39]:
I didn't even see her. And she goes, I know what you're asking, and we need to talk. And I said, okay. And she comes out, and she gets up, she hands me her car. Find me for lunch. Let's talk. I said, okay. So we start talking with me for lunch, and we're, you know, bonding again.

Christelle Ward [00:24:54]:
It's another bonding session where we're just talking about our shared experiences, like, similar experiences. And I go, you know, I was talking to her, and I really think, like, I think it's a disservice that there's no women's group. She grabs my hand. Now, I just met this woman like, an hour before she grabs. And she come with me. And I was like, okay. We get over to Shelly Frost, and she says, shelly, listen to this. And she, like, throws it out.

Christelle Ward [00:25:15]:
And Shelly goes, wow, that's awesome. Yep, let's do it. Congratulations. You're the chairman. And I was like, excuse me. What was that? So I had a moment of panic, and I said, I'm sorry. She goes, what do you want to happen? I said, yeah. She goes, well, then you're in charge.

Christelle Ward [00:25:28]:
I said, okay. So that's how it came to be. And then Amanda and I worked very hard all last year, met up a couple times, and then we talked on the phone and started really coming together. What do we want for this group to be? We don't want this to just be, you know, a group where women come together and they just complain all the time. That is not the goal here. The goal is really to support and uplift and empower women in this career field. So I do want to make a comment. I want to make something extremely clear that this group is in no way a dig at or a critique of men as the gender.

Christelle Ward [00:26:06]:
We, we want that very clearly established that there are times where certain things, they can come off that way. And I want that we do not have any issues in that area. This group is focused solely on the support of women. That, that is it. So I did want that out there so that we have that. But let me give you some numbers just so you guys really kind of get it. A really good idea. So globally, women make up 27.4% of the military forces in the U.S.

Christelle Ward [00:26:34]:
women comprise 17.3% of active duty, which is an improvement from 16% in 2017. And there is a. And it's 21.4% for the Reserve and the National Guard. So the reason these numbers are brought up is because even in 2025, even in 2025, with all of our progress in women's right inequality, it is still. Women are the minority in this environment. In the industry, there's no way to determine male to female ratio. But as we've mentioned, it is a male dominant industry. So the group EW, EW really just wants to establish the will, the want to uplift and advocate and support women in the EW field.

Christelle Ward [00:27:19]:
Our mission is to foster a more inclusive and diverse environment within the DoD as a whole. Not just EW, but in the DoD, our goal is to provide a space for women where they can connect, share experiences, and really, like I said, it goes back to supporting each other. We really want to assist women in transitioning from active duty to the government side of things, as well as the academia and the industry side. We're going to facilitate discussions that are essential to career growth, negotiation, resume building, salary, and, you know, just navigating a male dominant workspace. So that's really the idea behind EW and awesome.

Ken Miller [00:27:59]:
You formally launched the initiative earlier, I guess, end of last year, early this year. You mentioned a number of different things. That you're going to try to target. Talk to us a little bit about your timeline in terms of, like, what is next or in terms of meetings or is there anything specific that you're launching in the near future that will kind of help people understand exactly what this nEW Empowering Women for NEW is about?

Christelle Ward [00:28:26]:
Yeah, absolutely. So the staff liaison that I'm working with is Lauren Gaynor. She's fantastic. I love her. We've been meeting every week, getting everything we want established. You know, we have been strategizing on how to just make this group super successful. One of the initiatives that we're working on and once we have the green light to go that we have gotten all of our ducks in a row for, is the mentorship program. So the name I'm not 100% set on, it's Big Sister, Little Sister.

Christelle Ward [00:28:54]:
I don't know if that's what it's going to be, but the idea is to just create a environment for women to be able. It makes it easier. It's very difficult to find a mentor to, you know, know, who do you pick? How do I know that they have the right goals and values and how do we align? So the goal is to set up a mentorship program where each person who is either a mentor or a mentee, they kind of fill out a little sheet that basically says, these are my values. This is where I want to go with my career. This is what I, you know, this is where I'm at in my life. And then we want to help match these women that are going to be able to be successful together. So that I'm really excited about that because I struggled for a long time. So it's very, you know, personal to me.

Christelle Ward [00:29:35]:
We're also going to be having, I would say, webinars, but online discussions where we talk about all those tactics or all those skills that I had mentioned before. And, you know, one of the big things that I also am very happy about because a man is the one that brought it up to me was branding. Why you need it, what is it, and how do you do that? So that's very important. I think it's going to be really awesome. We're going to talk about career roadmapping. How do you get to the end point from where you're at? What steps do you take? And having those senior. Senior leaders, whether military or industry, to help guide knowing that I got here and let me show you how I did it was something we're excited about. And then we're working on getting some in, in person, events organized.

Christelle Ward [00:30:15]:
So once we can get small details done and get those laid out, we'll be able to get a schedule and get things going together. But we're really excited for what's coming.

Ken Miller [00:30:23]:
So I just want to make sure our listeners kind of understand it's called Empowering Women in W. Could you talk to us a little bit? Just, I want to reiterate who is eligible to participate in the group. In terms of your career focus, it's not just military that you're focused on, but it's the career field in general. So talk a little bit about the kind of that. The parameters on that.

Christelle Ward [00:30:47]:
Yeah, absolutely. So we are opening this group. We. It is open to any woman who is involved in the EW career field. So we have narrowed it to EW. One, it's, I mean, it's in the name, but two, all of the personnel that we're going to be having that is that senior leadership is going to be in an EW career goal. Like that's the career field and that's where all of our expertise is. So we're really wanting to.

Christelle Ward [00:31:16]:
You know, I would love to just say it's open to all females because I do believe there needs to be something open to all females that there can, there is a group that can come together, but it's going to be very EW focused. Right. And so the thing is, is it is, but it's the EW field in general career, whether it's industry, academia, contractor, government, civilian, active duty. And one of the really cool things I think is it allows us to also bridge that language barrier that we all have between each other. Because active duty, like for instant. Ken, I can say stuff that about military can throw acronyms out for days and your eyes are going to cross at some point because it's, it's just, it's a lot. But we have that ability to start bridging the gap. Okay.

Christelle Ward [00:31:58]:
And I mean, it's even between civilian and contractor or civilian and government, there's a different language. So if we can also start bridging that, I think that's going to be very helpful for allowing women to be able to talk to each other more too, in the community.

Hollann Schwartz [00:32:11]:
So tell us how people can show that they're interested in joining this committee. Where do they go? Who do they talk to?

Christelle Ward [00:32:18]:
Absolutely. So first, you should definitely become a member of the AOC. I think that is definitely important. However, step number one, however, there is the. In the AOC website. So it is crows.orgEWN E W spelled out just like that. E W I N E W. If you go to that webpage it will have an interest form that shows, you know, this is what I am looking for.

Christelle Ward [00:32:42]:
Here's my name. We are going to ask to age. Don't worry, we won't tell anyone but just, you know, just to see where you're at and how to, you know, really help be beneficial to you. And that, that, that is up and it's, it's ready to go.

Ken Miller [00:32:57]:
Well, Chrisle, it's really great to have you on the show. Really appreciate you diving into this nEW initiative and really looking forward to supporting any from an AOC perspective any way we can here on the podcast or elsEWhere. Thank you for taking time to join me. And Hollann, thank you for being my co host. No good deed goes unpunished. So now that you've done it once, I'm going to keep asking you and I look forward to having you back on the show again soon.

Christelle Ward [00:33:20]:
Of course, I'm happy to be here. Thank you. Have a good one.

Ken Miller [00:33:24]:
That will conclude this episode of from the Crow's Nest. I'd like to thank my guests Christelle Ward and Hollann Schwartz for joining me to discuss this nEW AOC initiative, Empowering Women. Awesome. Also, don't forget to reviEW, share and subscribe to this podcast. We always look forward to hearing from our listeners and if you are not currently a subscriber, we encourage you to do that. You can either join AOC as a membership and the subscription is included as a member benefit, or you can simply pay $2.99 a month and you get access to additional episodes each month, as well as the opportunity to join us in our live virtual studio audience for those subscribers. Subscription Episodes we do want to highlight the fact that the subscription episodes, we are making them free for everybody for the month of March in recognition of Women's History Month. So please take this opportunity to listen to those episodes.

Ken Miller [00:34:15]:
The subscription episodes are generally more aligned to focus on current events and things that are happening in the public policy space. And so it's important for you to stay on track of what's going on in the world. Those are the episodes where we get into more timely discussions of current events. But we are making all the March subscription episodes available to everybody for free in recognition of Women's History Month. So it's a great opportunity to kind of see how those episodes can help you in your profession and just keeping up to speed with what's going on in the world. We are also doing a survey you can get the link to that through the show Notes. We greatly would appreciate everybody taking some time to fill out. It's a very short survey, but it'll give us an insight into what we can do to improve the show.

Ken Miller [00:35:02]:
And if you do complete the survey and submit your email, you are eligible then to receive a free From the Crows' Nest T shirt while supplies last. And so once you complete that survey, we'll collect your email. And if you've completed the survey, we'll reach out to you you to send you the T shirt at an address that you give us. That's it for today. Thank you so much for joining me once again and thanks for listening.