125 Years of Family Serving Family – Jun King and Ed Wood, HQ

Jun King and Ed Wood, shown here with their children, Isabella and Noah, have more than 60 combined years of experience working for the Exchange.

One in a series honoring the Exchange’s 125 years of family serving family.

Jun King, chief of Human Resources Policy and Labor Relations, has worked for the Exchange for 31 years. The job’s duties have sent her around the world to numerous stations and also introduced her to her husband.

Ed Wood, an E-Business solutions manager in Merchandising, is one year behind his wife with a 30-year career at the Exchange.

The two met through a mutual Exchange friend more than 20 years ago.

“The Exchange has blessed us both with wonderful and progressive careers, all while keeping us together as a family in our assignments in CONUS and Europe,” King said.

Both have extensive family connections to the military. King’s father retired from the Air Force as a chief master sergeant after serving 30 years and her brother served in the Air Force. Wood’s father retired from the Army as a Master Sergeant after serving 24 years and his sister retired from the Air Force after serving 26 years.

“I love that the Exchange retains the connection to the military. It is the environment that I was always around and one that is most reassuring to me,” Wood said. “I love that our mission ensures that we bring a piece of home to our soldiers and their families no matter where they are stationed.”

Wood and his sisters, Heather Blanchard and Robbyn Elwood, worked for Burger King at the Frankfurt Exchange in high school. One of King’s sisters, Jennifer King, worked for the Exchange in Okinawa as a Customer Service Representative. Her twin sister, Ann King, worked with Jun King at the Scott Air Force Burger King and became a Burger King manager after college.

Of all the lessons she has learned during her career at the Exchange, King said one that keeps coming back is the realization that it really is a small world.

She was deployed to the main Exchange at Tuzla, Bosnia, and met a Soldier there who was a former teammate of hers at the Fort Irwin Burger King. At Fort Rucker, she was reunited with another Soldier who couldn’t see King, but knew it was her because of her laugh.

King understands that the Exchange is truly universal.

“When I asked how she recognized me by my laugh after it had been six years, she said that she would never forget me and my laugh because she always enjoyed when I came by the food court and always had a smile and laugh for the associates,” King said. “It goes to show just how far a smile and a laugh can go.”

It also reminds her of the core value of family serving family.

“It means always being there for our associates and customers, helping them with whatever they need,” King said. “From a smile and laugh, to helping them establish Exchange careers, to providing them with something as simple as a candy bar in a deployment zone—the Exchange is always there.”