“I think it taught me to have an open mind - and tolerance and patience and to trust others.”

 

For HR Strategic Partner Michelle Lopez, joining the Air Force in 1996 seemed like a simple choice at first – she and her husband needed the money for college. So they both enlisted, happy to be picking up the job skills and a reliable source of income for their growing family. But things got complicated quickly.
 
After a few years in the Air Force, Lopez and her husband were planning on retiring together and settling down in Lopez’s hometown of Bend, Oregon. In fact, they were visiting Bend to look at houses on September 11, 2001 – the day everything changed. The military issued a stop-loss order shortly after, which meant that no one could retire or move off active-duty service until the order was lifted. 

“We both were deployed within six months of 9/11,” she said. “We had two kids at the time and they were very young, not in school yet. So my mom and dad took the kids and I was in Germany for four months and my husband was in Qatar for about six months. He reenlisted while he was overseas.” 

The 9/11 crisis completely realigned their plans for the next 15 years. They didn’t buy the house in Bend and they both stayed in the Air Force. Lopez served a total of six years of active duty, plus another 17 years in the Reserves and National Guard. Her husband remained on active duty, completing three deployments to the Middle East before he retired in 2015.

“It definitely changed the trajectory of what we thought our plans were,” she said.
 
 Lopez earned her degree in business with an emphasis in HR while she was while still in the military. By that time, she’d held multiple jobs in the Air Force – in munitions, air transportation and finally as a personnelist, which is the military equivalent of an HR role. She toggled between active duty and the Reserves, responding to needs of the job. It was an extremely busy time in her life, as she and her husband juggled work, education, military life and parenting.
 
“I think back now and I’m like, good lord … how did I even do that,” she laughed. “But you just kind of put your head down and do one day at a time I guess.”
 
After Lopez’s husband retired in 2015, the family had some flexibility in where they lived and decided to return to Oregon. For the first four years after she came to OSU, she was still in the Reserves, working at the Joint Force Headquarters in Salem. She finally retired in 2019 at the rank of first sergeant.
 
Reflecting on how military service has shaped her outlook, Lopez spoke about the opportunity to experience life outside of the small town she grew up in. 

“I worked alongside people from all over the country, all over the world,” she said. “I think it taught me to have an open mind - and tolerance and patience and to trust others. And it's not something I can explain. It's really just like a lived experience.” 

Her years in the military also helped her become more confident in her capabilities as a leader. And it helped her overcome her fear of public speaking.
 
“Every time you get promoted, you have some type of leadership training that kind of prepares you for your new role,” she said. “You're always talking in public. You're writing speeches. You're demonstrating how to do something. You're teaching a class on how to do something related to your job.” 

After 23 years of service, Lopez tells people she’s experienced ever possible version of Air Force life. And she’s even passed the baton to the next generation.
 
“I often tell people that I've had every job in the Air Force because I was a spouse and then I was active duty and then I was in the Reserves and then I went to the Guard and now I'm a mom,” she said. “My son is in the Air Force. And so it's like I've seen it from every angle.”