U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground’s (YPG) mission to test and evaluate all aspects of America’s wartime arsenal wouldn’t be possible without the labor of more than 2,000 personnel, and it is always adding new members.
In doing so, getting them acclimated to the workforce is crucial and that’s why the newest bunch of YPG employees spent a day getting to see how vast YPG really is.
“Most people think YPG is just: you go out there and you shoot guns, but really seeing what everybody’s role does, there is a lot that goes into it,” said Teresa Elizalde who has been working as an administrative assistant for the YPG command staff for the past three months.
After hearing from YPG Commander Col. Patrick McFall, the more than dozen new hires got to see how those working at the Laguna Airfield, Ammo Plant, gun positions, and several other sites share a similar mission.
“Being here now and being able to go to the gun positions, I have a very big understanding of YPG,” said Estefania Meza, a testing analyst who is responsible for the reporting and analysis of test data.
She joined the team a couple of weeks ago and was born in San Luis, Arizona. She remembers touring YPG in high school and would go on to receive her Bachelor’s and Master’s in biomedical engineering from Arizona State University.
“I got the opportunity to come back home, be with family and stick with an area of engineering,” Meza shared. "“Just being able to communicate with costumers, all the way to shooting the round, and generating the conclusions for the test, I think is just really cool.”
When asked what stood out the most from the tour of YPG, Elizalde said the number of people it takes to support the mission. “I think you really get to see how everything works together.”
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