126 Years of Family Serving Family – Patricia Griffin, Offutt Air Force Base

One in a series honoring the Exchange’s 126 years of family serving family.

Patricia Griffin, the main store manager at Offutt Air Force Base, loves helping customers, so it’s hard for her to pick a favorite job from her more than 28 years at the Exchange.

Griffin started her career at Anthony’s Pizza on Fort Drum, and after the first week her manager called her in, asking, “Aren’t you the one with all the experience?” (Griffin had previously worked various jobs at a restaurant and at a video store for several years, where she learned customer service and how to do inventory, which she loved to do.)

With her manager’s encouragement, Griffin applied for a job at the Fort Drum Express and was hired as a store associate. Since then, she’s worked on five different installations in multiple positions from food to retail throughout her career, as a customer service leader, Power Zone supervisor, softlines supervisor, Express shift supervisor, Troop Store manager, Military Clothing and Sales store manager, operations manager, assistant store manager and main store manager.

She most fondly recalls working at Fort Leonard Wood, a basic-training installation.

Patricia Griffin, main store manager (left), and Elaine Loos, assistant store manager, set up a display for an Exchange event at Offutt Air Force Base. Griffin has served those who serve for more than 28 years with the Exchange.

“I loved watching the drill sergeants interact with the new Soldiers,” she said. “Sometimes one of the drill sergeants would come in, give me their hat and say, ‘You’re the drill sergeant for the next hour,’ and they would have me make the trainees do pushups!”

Whenever the drill sergeants needed the Exchange, Griffin was there, epitomizing family serving family.

“They had my cell number, and they would call me on my day off and say, ‘I know your store’s not open today, but can you help us out? We have Soldiers that really need some things.’ So I would come in and open the store to take care of them.

“Years later when I was working at Fort McCoy I saw one of those young troops that I had met when she was in basic training — and she remembered me!” Griffin said.

She wasn’t the only one in the family serving; Griffin’s daughter worked at a food court and a Troop Store on Fort Leonard Wood for a few years while in high school and when she started college.

Earlier in her career, Griffin wanted to work with planograms, a diagram for planning where to put items on store shelves, and she does that now to assist her inventory control team.

“I don’t sit in the office; I’m out on the floor stocking, assisting with merchandising and helping associates where needed, including customer service. I like to work with the team, to teach them,” she said. “And believe it or not, I still love to do inventory!”