(Series 1 Post 9)
Greta Silvestri may be a little lady, but she has the courage, tenacity, and drive to tame horses, toss pizzas, and equalize any obstacle she’s encountered in her life!
Welcome back Take 5 readers. I’m Mikie P, and thanks for being here! Buckle up, settle in, and let’s delve into the story of this FORSCOM employee who, with hard work and grit, truly understands what living La Dolce Vida or The Sweet Life, is all about!
Some of us save all our lives just to travel to Italy. Soldiers are lucky if they get stationed there. Greta? She was born there.
“Vicenza was my home…where I was raised,” she said, “and when I was young, I never dreamed I’d do what I have and be where I am.”
Like many of us, Greta struggled in school, but she was smart. She just wanted nothing to do with sitting in class all day.
“I actually didn’t finish high school and dropped out twice,” she said. “I went to work at the age of 14 and 17, and I worked with horses—that was my passion,” she said.
If you know anything about caring for horses, you know they’re a lot of work. Mucking stalls is where Greta started, but, in time, horse owners grew to trust her, recognize her natural affinity for equines, and allowed her to train and ride them.
“When people went on vacation, they’d pay me to tend to their horses,” she said. “That was my job, I did it 12 hours a day, and I loved it!”
You’re brave Greta, because my experience with horses hasn’t been good although, I’m a champion rider of those horses with the poles through them that twirl around in a circle--typically to carnival music.
Anyway, as the years went by, Greta’s interest in horses never waned, but she eventually took a job on base working at Anthony’s Pizza. She was also an interpreter for the company that had the packing and moving contract for Soldiers leaving Vicenza when their Permanent Change of Station or PCS orders came through. As an Army wife, Greta knew PCS moves were the norm, but moving to America was a huge deal for her.
“I went from Vicenza, my home, to Fort Irwin, California,” said Greta. “What a change that was!”
At Irwin, Greta again worked for Anthony’s Pizza, and in 1998 she came to Fort Bragg (Liberty.) She studied and passed her General Education Development test (GED,) continued practicing her English and started working for a local moving company in town. From there, she started working as a contractor with the Fort Liberty office responsible for moving household goods. Her hard work inevitably elevated her from a PCS counselor to quality control.
About that same time, Greta decided to go to college. She got her associate’s degree, started working on her bachelors, and seemingly out of the blue, an opportunity arose for her to get her foot in the door to a career in federal service.
“When the 2020 census began the bureau was looking for people,” she said. “Even though it was a part-time gig I went ahead and did it, finished my bachelor’s and started working on my master’s degree.”
For someone who struggled to sit in a classroom as a young girl, Greta seemingly embraced learning as she got older. That hustle ultimately led to her being offered a fulltime supervisory position with the Census Bureau so she quit the contracting job, took a pay cut, and went full time with the bureau.
In some circles, Greta’s career route is referred to as “short-term pain for long term gain.” She worked hard for the bureau, supervised 22 people and did it all as a General Schedule 6 (GS6). The fiscal sacrifice paid off though, as she positioned herself perfectly for the next chapter of her life using the Department of Defense’s “Recent Graduate Program.”
“In the Army Fellows Program you come in as a GS7. Then, you move up to a GS9 in a year and then to a GS11 in another year,” said Greta. “You get all kinds of training and given my degrees are in Sociology, when I saw the Equal Employment Opportunity positions available within FORSCOM, I thought to myself, “this is what I need to be doing!”
When offered the job, Greta took it. She said her time at FORSCOM since that day has been amazing despite still being heavily immersed in training.
“I really like what I do, and I’m still learning,” she said. “I’m supposed to be exactly where I am, and it’s an interesting field and also a career field in need of more talent.”
EEO advocates and promotes a model EEO program that provides Human Resources with key guidance in order to hire the best candidates to fill open positions in FORSCOM. Greta says that’s key because different life experiences bring different talents, and just being part of that process is a big deal to her.
“It’s really great being able to see the bigger picture,” she said. “Working in this position has allowed me to recognize that I can absolutely affect positive change in the workplace,” said Greta, “and that’s just so rewarding.”
Thank you for your service to FORSCOM Greta, and thank you for helping people see that sometimes, hard work and tenacity truly does lead to living the sweet life.
To learn more about the Army Fellows Program, go to Fellowships | DOD CIVILIAN CAREERS.
For more information on U.S. Army Forces Command, visit https://www.linkedin.com/company/us-army-forces-command-fedeforscom/. Check back next month for another conversation blog with a FORSCOM team member who loves what they do. Till then, take care, Be All You Can Be At FORSCOM, and don’t forget to “Take 5.”
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