Airman exemplifies role as leader, mentor for Airmen

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Nicole Leidholm
  • 60th Air Mobility Wing Public Affairs
TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. --  This is the last in a series for XX Factor, a series on Women's History Month highlighting Airmen who go above and beyond in male-dominated career fields.

For Airmen looking to retrain into a different career field, most will talk with a career assistance advisor. These advisors give Airmen invaluable counseling on retraining opportunities, assignment processes and special duties as well as career advice, as to when or if any of the aforementioned is best timed or best suited for them or the Air Force.

This is exactly what Senior Master Sgt. Hope Skibitsky, 60th Force Support Squadron career assistance advisor and First Term Airman Center manager, does. Skibitsky also provides professional enhancement courses for more than 7,000 active duty - servicing two wings and more than 100 geographically separated units. She also serves as the FTAC manager, where she leads and mentors three FTAC team leaders each year. FTAC provides Travis' first impression for more than 600 new Airmen annually, preparing them to return to their duty sections ready and able to work. But that wasn't always what she has done for the Air Force.

Skibitsky was a medic at Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas, when the Air Force Military Training Instructor Recruiting Team visited looking for volunteers, especially female, MTIs.

"When I joined the Air Force I was homeless, so the Air Force basically saved me from the multitudes of horrible possibilities my future could have been," Skibitsky said. "Since the Air Force had been my "bread and butter" for four years at that time, I jumped at the chance."

Skibitsky needed to reenlist to maintain retainability with the Air Force to become an MTI. Once she reenlisted, Skibitsky said she received a reenlistment bonus and was no longer eligible for MTI duty and received orders to Royal Air Force Lakenheath, England, where the MTI Recruiting Team paid a visit there, with the same emphasis on female MTIs.

"Again, I applied," Skibitsky said. "I felt that since the Air Force had done so much for me, I would do what the Air Force needed of me."

Skibitsky began her stint as an MTI at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, in June 2004 for four years and returned for eight months in 2009.

As an MTI, it was her role to encourage, motivate, coach, mentor, train, teach, educate, correct, inspire and cultivate civilians who were chosen as candidates to be Airmen.

"I had to guide and direct trainees in the way of the Air Force, to help them on the path toward Airmanship - a very humbling job indeed," Skibitsky said.

As a female MTI, Skibitsky found it difficult, sometimes, to train male trainees.

"For some of them, they were not accustomed to being directed by a female," Skibitsky said. "There were times when it would be intimidating or unnerving to be surrounded by a group of males and have to be direct or assertive with them."

Though there were challenges, Skibitsky said she enjoyed being an MTI.

"I adored watching the transformation of civilians from the four corners of our country come to Basic Military Training with their own haircuts, histories, lackadaisical attitudes or sense of rights and wrongs and see them transition into one force of sharp-dressed, well groomed, disciplined Airmen with a whole new set of core values," Skibitsky said. "To watch these young men and women on a Thursday afternoon headed down Hughes Avenue - on the way to their debut as Airmen, marching in step with the cadence of their MTI was nothing less than inspiring. It made the job well worth the effort."

As an MTI, Skibitsky says it has helped her career and made her a better Airman.

"By working with multitudes of men and women from all walks of life, in some pretty trying circumstances, I learned about the differences in personalities, resilience capabilities, willingness, fortitude, drive and commitment," Skibitsky said. "I learned tolerance and patience, as well as perseverance and the importance of perspective. The people skills I learned as a MTI has helped me lead, learn and mentor."

Skibitsky said there was one event in her life that changed who she was and would be. During her time at RAF Lakenheath as a staff sergeant, where, due to an inspection, the Airmen were to pull extra duty, Skibitsky said she had protested how unfair the situation was. A major asked her to come to her office where she reminded Skibisky to stay in her lane, obey rules that were not illegal or immoral, set the standard for others and respect leadership and their decisions.

"Her counseling forever changed me and I have strived every moment since to be the Airman our Air Force needs, willing to answer the call - regardless of gender," Skibitsky said.

Skibitsky has taken the advice from her senior leader and role model to heart and exemplifies it as a TI, career assistance advisor and FTAC manager.

"Senior Master Sgt. Skibitsky lives, eats, and breathes the core values in every situation, whether it is in her daily duties as a Career Assistant Advisor or the numerous other positions she holds or as a wife and a mother," said Tech. Sgt. Shanette Labonte, 60th FSS FTAC team leader. "She ensures that she not only enforces the standards, but that she is the very example of how the Air Force standards should be upheld."

One example was when Labonte was first selected for FTAC leader.

"I was so desperate to please everyone that I would over-task myself to the point that I was leaving work between 6:30 and 7 p.m.," Labonte said. "I would come in extra early every morning just to finish my tasks and the tasks others were given, because I wanted to make sure no program would fail even when it wasn't mine."

After a month of observing, Skibitsky gave Labonte a book, "The One-Minute Manager Meets the Monkey" to read.

"She and this book opened my eyes to how I was damaging my home life, my physical and mental state and career by overwhelming myself by picking up tasks that others did not want to do in addition to my tasks," Labonte said. "The simple act of giving me that book taught me how to better delegate tasks, how to focus on only the tasks that were truly mine, how to communicate better with my peers and subordinates, and how to enhance my work completion rate. Skibitsky not only handed me the book that would increase my knowledge and comprehension of the state that I had placed myself into, but she took me by the hand and showed me how to be a better leader, wingman, and Airman."

Skibitsky and the women featured throughout this month's series, the XX factor, are all examples of women who don't let their gender or situation stop them from doing what they are determined to accomplish and excel at it.