STUTTGART, Germany – Take your child to work day is a national program that exposes children to future job possibilities and the value of education while helping to foster the special bond between parents and their children. Although it’s officially held on the fourth Thursday of April in the U.S. each year, it can be done any day, anywhere in the world.
Dahlak Ghebrelul remembers when her dad would occasionally take her to his work. Originally from Eritrea, just north of Djibouti in East Africa, he immigrated to Germany in the mid-1980s and worked for the U.S. Army in Stuttgart for over 40 years, including many years with Logistics Readiness Center Stuttgart.
“LRC Stuttgart is a special place for me because my dad worked here, too,” said Ghebrelul, a contracting officer technical representative with LRC Stuttgart’s transportation division. “When I was little, he used to bring me to work sometimes. I was fascinated. I was like ‘wow, they’re speaking another language. How is this possible?’”
Ghebrelul said her father, Amine, worked as a transportation counselor at LRC Stuttgart for several years, assisting servicemembers and their families with their household goods shipments and working with the transportation providers to ensure deliveries and pickups were on time and in good order.
That’s not far off from what Ghebrelul is doing now. Also at LRC Stuttgart working in transportation, Ghebrelul is responsible for contractual oversite of two SATO offices in Stuttgart. She and a fellow coworker oversee eight SATO contractors, helping to ensure servicemembers and their families in Stuttgart are properly booked on airline flights for temporary duty travel and permanent change of station moves. One SATO office they oversee supports personnel assigned to U.S. European Command and the other supports U.S. Africa Command.
“We manage the annual contracts for SATO. We work in the same building as them. Daily, we work closely with both SATO customer service teams, providing oversight and support as needed,” she said.
“And we help with any needed exception to policy memos. For example, a family may need an ETP when flying with their pets,” said the 28-year-old German local national employee, who recently married and calls Esslingen am Neckar, just outside of Stuttgart, her home.
Thanks mainly to her dad and his ‘take your child to work’ resourcefulness, Ghebrelul said she is very happy to now be an LRC Stuttgart employee, too. She started at the transportation motor pool in November of 2021, however, after a few months she left LRC Stuttgart to work at U.S. Army Garrison Stuttgart’s housing office.
“But my heart told me LRC Stuttgart is where I belong,” she said, jumping at the chance to go back and work there as a plans and operations assistant. Now back in transportation with over 2.5 years at LRC Stuttgart, total, Ghebrelul said it feels like home and the people there feel like family.
“It’s just a preference,” said the graduate of Stuttgart University who holds a bachelor’s degree in teaching. “I think sometimes where you started out has a special place in your heart, and that’s certainly true for me.”
“We have an awesome team. We always have great get-togethers and functions. We’re just a really great team that works well together serving the community and doing our best to provide good customer service support to our community members,” she said.
LRC Stuttgart is one of eight LRCs under the command and control of the 405th Army Field Support Brigade. LRCs execute installation logistics support and services to include supply, maintenance, and transportation as well as clothing issue facility operations, hazardous material management, personal property and household goods, passenger travel, non-tactical vehicle and garrison equipment management, and property book operations. When it comes to providing day-to-day installation services, LRC Stuttgart directs, manages, and coordinates a variety of operations and activities in support of USAG Stuttgart.
LRC Stuttgart reports to the 405th AFSB, which is assigned to U.S. Army Sustainment Command and headquartered in Kaiserslautern, Germany. The brigade provides materiel enterprise support to U.S. forces throughout Europe and Africa – providing theater sustainment logistics; synchronizing acquisition, logistics and technology; and leveraging U.S. Army Materiel Command’s materiel enterprise to support joint forces. For more information on the 405th AFSB, visit the official website and the official Facebook site.
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