EEO Associate Officer Reflects on a Varied 30-Year Career

Born in Europe to a British mother and an Italian father, Anna Jeffries worked in civilian jobs for the Air Force and the Army on the continent. But it wasn’t until she became a military spouse that she became familiar with the Exchange.

When her husband deployed, the Exchange was there to provide a piece of home away from home. And then she was away from home—a few months after they got married, her husband was stationed at Fort Bragg, where she has fond memories of shopping at the Exchange.

After three years at Fort Bragg, her husband was reassigned to Germany.

“Being back in Europe and in Germany, the Exchange seemed the most logical and most convenient place to work,” she said.

She was just looking for a job. It turned into a nearly 30-year career that will end with her retirement Sept. 26.

The early years

In 1996, Jeffries joined the Exchange as an intermittent sales associate in Mainz-Kastel, Germany. Within two years, she was store manager of a stand-alone PowerZone.

She worked at Mainz-Kastel until 2001, moving from the PowerZone to managing the Super Sports Store, the Exchange’s largest sports store in Europe. Then her husband was once again assigned to a post in the States.

Jeffries’ husband was assigned to Fort Polk in western Louisiana. Jeffries asked to be assigned to the Fort Polk Exchange, but there were no vacancies. She was told the closest opening was at Barksdale AFB, about 130 miles north of Polk. In October 2001, she started at the Barksdale main store as a sales area manager.

Jeffries had two young sons, and her life was a cycle of school and babysitter drop-offs and pickups when she wasn’t at work. This lasted a little more than a year. Then in January 2003, she moved to Polk, where she was operations manager at a PX-Mart. A few months later, her husband deployed to Iraq. And when he returned, he was reassigned to JBSA-Fort Sam Houston while she remained at Polk.

Eventually, they grew apart and she had an opportunity to become sales and merchandise manager at Nellis AFB in Las Vegas.

“Right before I left Fort Polk, Hurricane Katrina hit and then Rita happened,” she said. “Katrina didn’t really affect Fort Polk, but Rita did. The eye of that storm was a little more than 50 miles from Fort Polk. We didn’t have any water or electricity. My report date to Nellis was delayed because of the hurricane.”

Viva Las Vegas

Nellis, where Jeffries was a sales & merchandise manager, was a busy store, and she arrived during its busiest season.

“We had a great team there,” Jeffries said. “We had two sales & merchandise managers and one operations manager. The others each worked a day on the weekends and I had weekends off—they arranged it so that I could be home with my boys on the weekend.”

Shortly before she left Fort Polk, Doug Jeffries, the Central Region retail program specialist, visited the Louisiana store. He is now her husband.

“He was sent to Fort Polk to look into our inventory of school uniforms,” she said. “But we only met in passing. I reported to Nellis within two weeks of meeting him.”

But they stayed in touch, and then he also was assigned to Nellis, where he was main store manager for a short time.

“I got to know him a little bit more, but then I PCS’d to Beale Air Force Base and he deployed,” she said. “But we continued to interact. On his first R&R out of deployment, he asked if I wanted to meet him in Key West. I said yes, and that started our story. We still go there, It will always be a special place for us.”

In November 2008, Jeffries received her first general manager assignment, at Beale AFB. The large base was a big change from the hustle and bustle of Nellis. One of her Beale customers was Chuck Yeager, the test pilot who in 1947 became the first person to break the sound barrier.

“He often came to the service station to fill up,” she said. “That was where he’d buy tires. And he would shop the Exchange. So that was a highlight.”

A GM assignment at Offutt AFB in Nebraska followed. In a way, it led to a headquarters job.

Moving to HQ

Back when Jeffries’ was store manager at Mainz-Kastel, Susan Simone was working in Employee Relations in Europe. Simone’s husband was a reorder associate at the sporting-goods store that Jeffries managed.

While Jeffries was at Offutt, Simone became senior vice president of Human Resources. They were discussing personnel issues when Simone jokingly asked, “What do you think you’re going to do next or where do you think you’re going to go?”

“I said, ‘Who knows? Maybe HR’,” Jeffries said. “She said to me, on the spot, ‘I have a job for you.’ And that’s how my transition to HR happened.”

In June 2013, Jeffries moved to HQ as Human Resources manager for North Central Region. She initially found the switch to be a big adjustment. But Simone’s open-door policy, as well as her HR teammates, Randy Ramirez and Jun King in particular, helped make it a good transition. Jeffries also made an effort to keep her family settled after so many moves.

“My oldest son attended three different high schools,” she said. “When I agreed to transition to HR, part of the motivation was to do something different for my youngest son. He was getting ready to start high school and I thought that if I moved to headquarters, I’d be there for a while. We promised him that he could start and finish high school at the same place.”

About 2½ years after she came to HQ, her name came up among promotional opportunities to return to the field as a general manager. Wanting stability for her son, who was about to enter his senior year, she requested a deferment. She received it—but then ended up going even farther into the field.

“Leigh Roop, who was CHRO at the time, called me into her office and basically said, ‘I know you have an approved deferment, but I really need you to go overseas.’”

Back to Europe

Jeffries returned to Germany, where she was chief of Employee Relations for Europe/SWA, in September 2016. Her husband and sons stayed in Texas so her youngest could finish high school. But she was too busy to be lonely. She arrived just as the Giessen Distribution Center was shutting down and the Germersheim DC was opening.

She often went TDY with senior leaders or with the command sergeant major, making trips to Kuwait, Qatar and the Balkans.

“We implemented a social contributions package for local national associates in the Balkans,” she said. “All those associates were hired on one-year contracts, which were renewed every year. When we first hired these individuals, the governments in the Balkans weren’t really governments. The associates didn’t have any employment benefits,  health care or any sort of retirement plan. Several of our trips to the Balkans happened as we put together this package and got ready to roll it out. That was one of my highlights at the Exchange, affecting the lives of the Balkan associates by implementing that package.”

After five years in Europe, Jeffries returned to headquarters, where she was chief of career assignments. Two years later, in November 2023, she became EEO associate officer, the title she’ll have at retirement.

Family Serving Family

Exchange connections run through Jeffries’ family. Husband Doug, an Army Veteran and former GM, spent his last two years with the Exchange deployed to Iraq. His mother, Mary Jeffries, retired from the Exchange in 1987 after more than 20 years. Jeffries’ oldest son, Joshua, and her daughter-in-law, Ahsly, work for the Exchange. Her youngest son Jeremy’s first job was in the HQ food court when he was 16. He’s now an Air Force Veteran.

“Having been a military spouse and a military mom,” she said, “I appreciate everything that the Exchange does for our customers.”

Through all the moves, she’s developed friendships and kept in touch with people she’s met. She thinks of her current team as family.

When Jeffries was at Nellis, she was offered a job at a civilian competitor. But she couldn’t see herself anyplace else but the Exchange.

“Our mission, getting to learn more and more about the Exchange, serving those who serve, our core values, all made me want to stay,” she said. “I identify with our mission and the core values. I always tell people I don’t think there’s any other organization that I could work for.”