After 35 Years, Vice President of HR Support Jun King Prepares to Retire From the Exchange

Updated to correct misidentification of Jun King in first photo caption.

One of Jun King’s fondest memories of the Exchange dates back to when she was a preteen.

“I couldn’t wait to be 10 years old, because that’s when I got my military dependent ID card,” says King, vice president of Human Resources Support, whose father served in the Air Force and was assigned to Scott Air Force Base, Illinois, at the time. “That meant you could go shop in the BX by yourself. You didn’t have to have a parent with you to make a purchase. That was a highlight of growing up as a military brat.”

King and her friends would ride their bikes to the BX just to hang out. “Baskin-Robbins was kind of a fairly new thing then,” she says. “It was the coolest thing to have 31 flavors of ice cream to choose from.”

Shortly after King graduated from Lakenheath American High School in England, her father was again assigned to Scott AFB. She decided to go to college at Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville, about 30 miles away.

“When we got to Scott, the Burger King was hiring,” she says. “AAFES had always been part of my life, so I applied for a part-time job there to help pay for college. I didn’t know that would lead to a career. I wasn’t even thinking career-wise.”

Two of her sisters worked at the Exchange—including her twin who worked at the same Burger King. “She started at the same time,” King says. “One of us would work the drive-thru and the other would work the cash register. We’re identical twins, so that was fun with the customers.”

Her twin sister left the Exchange after five years, but King stayed, not realizing how long she’d be staying.

“I didn’t know what career opportunities the Exchange offered when I started working,” King says. “I had no idea about the opportunities until I actually experienced them myself. And here we are, 35 years later.”

That 35 years comes to an end this month, when King, now vice president of Human Resources Support, retires. Most of those 35 years have been spent in HR, in jobs that have taken her to much of the world. But first there was Burger King.

The early years

King continued to work at Burger King through college, until she graduated in 1992. She worked for four months in a temporary civil service job at Scott, her only time away from the Exchange since 1988. When she returned, she hoped to work in Human Resources, a field she became interested in during college.

“I earned a business degree, so it was an area I was exposed to,” she says. “I was drawn to people and wanted to have a positive impact on their development and lives.”

But she was told that job openings in HR at the Exchange were rare, so she was asked to interview for the Retail Management training program. She did, and was accepted, but then the program was put on hold. Since she had worked part time at the Scott Burger King for four years, she was asked to go into the Burger King management training program and told that she could cross over to Human Resources when there was an opening.

In 1993, she became an assistant food manager at the Scott Burger King. Two years later, she PCS’d to Fort Irwin, a large, remote location in California, where she managed a Burger King.

“It was definitely an experience,” she says. “I’d never been exposed to the Army. I had to learn the difference in Army culture and the Air Force culture I grew up with. Fort Irwin is a world in itself. It was a very tough assignment but it also ended up being my best assignment, because it’s where I ended up being able to cross over into Human Resources.”

Moving into HR

Even though there had been no openings in HR, King networked with people in HR. One of them was Susan Simone, the Western Region HR manager at the time, who became a mentor. (In January 2014, Simone retired as Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer.) In February 1997, Simone, based at headquarters, brought King over to HR—and didn’t wait for an opening.

“There wasn’t an opening at the time, so she sent me to Travis Air Force Base to train with the HR manager there for a few months,” King says. “I did a few months training there, and then I had my first assignment as an HR manager, which was at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming.”

F.E. Warren, the oldest continuously active military installation within the Air Force, is in the southeast corner of the state near Cheyenne, close to the Colorado border. “I’d never even thought of Cheyenne,” King says. “When I got the assignment, I thought, ‘really?’ But the great thing about it is that it’s not too far from Denver. It was about an hour-and-a-half drive to a big city.”

While King was at F.E. Warren, she was talking with Simone when Simone mentioned an associate named Ed Wood and said that King and Wood would get along well. King later found out that he worked at an Exchange in Colorado Springs, a little less than a three-hour drive from Cheyenne.

With encouragement from mutual acquaintances, Wood called her. “We didn’t date at first,” King says. “We were friends.” But then, after she had been at F.E. Warren about a year, the Warren Exchange was consolidated into the Denver Exchange. King moved to Denver, about 70 miles from Colorado Spring, as HR manager.

She and Wood officially began dating. But then the distance increased again for a few months—in 1999, King deployed to Bosnia.

The rewards of deployment

In Bosnia, King took a break from HR and worked as a retail manager for six months in Tuzla. Like many associates who have deployed, she calls it the most rewarding experience of her career.

“You’re right there with the troops protecting the United States,” she says. “You see that when you’re on a military installation, but the difference in deployment is you’re actually there with troops who are in harm’s way. When they come back to where you are, they’re not coming back from exercises but the real world. And seeing what a candy bar, that taste of home, does for their morale and how much they appreciate the Exchange is such a wonderful experience. If anyone has the opportunity to deploy, I recommend that they do it. I was only there for six months, but the memories last a lifetime.”

She also ran into a familiar face from her days at Fort Irwin.

There were a lot of high school kids working with King at the Fort Irwin Burger King. “Now it’s a few years later, and I’m in Bosnia at the Tuzla main store on the sales floor, and a former high school associate walks in and recognizes me. He’s an adult, he’s in the Army, and we run into each other in Bosnia. What a small, wonderful Exchange world we live in.”

Back to the states—and then to Germany and back

After Bosnia, King returned to Denver, where she remained for about a year until she was transferred to the HR office at the Edwards Air Force Base Exchange in California. In a way, it was also a return to Fort Irwin, because the Fort Irwin Exchange HR office was part of her area of responsibility. (King and Wood married shortly after she’d received PCS orders to Edwards.)

She remained at Edwards/Irwin until 2003, when she and Wood PCS’d to the Wiesbaden Exchange in Germany.

“We absolutely loved it,” she says. “We were there for about four years. It was my first time living in Germany. My husband was very familiar with the culture in Germany. His dad was in the Army, and his family spent many years there. He actually considered it home because he spent more time in Germany growing up than he did in the United States. He graduated from Frankfurt High School, which wasn’t too far from Wiesbaden.” (Coincidentally, Wood, who is now director of Merchandise Support, also got his Exchange start at Burger King; he and two of his sisters worked for the one at the Frankfurt Exchange while he was in high school.)

In December 2007, they relocated to Dallas headquarters, which is where they’ve been ever since.

“It was different, because out in the field, you’re directly with the military and working with associates at the store level,” she says. “Headquarters is a more corporate environment. I always say I’m still a field HR manager at heart.”

At HQ, King started as an area HR manager, overseeing HR managers at several Exchanges. She later became an HR Labor Relations specialist, a compensation manager, the HQ HR manager and Chief of HR Support before assuming her current job duties.

“Every step in my career, including the first Burger King job, have all contributed to my success in my current role,” she says. “I’m responsible for HR policy worldwide; for our compensation programs, which include job classification organizational staffing; labor relations, and HR Systems, our HR analytics team. Without the diverse experiences I’ve had in my previous roles and the amazing team members I’ve worked with throughout my career, my job would be considerably more challenging. The people and experiences have been instrumental in shaping me into the professional I am today.”

Family serving family

King’s retirement plans include photography, a hobby of hers. She plans to start a small photography business specializing in family portraits and high school seniors.

“And to have fun,” she says. “To just enjoy the little things in life.” Crafting, baking, and reading are also on her list of things to do that she doesn’t have much time for right now.

She and Wood will always have their military connections: Besides her father, who retired from the Air Force as a chief master sergeant after 30 years of service, she also has a brother who served in the Air Force and an uncle who served in the Army. Wood’s father retired as a master sergeant after serving 24 years in the Army, his sister retired from the Air Force after 26 years of service and his brother-in-law served in the Army.

And because Wood is not retiring, there will still be a direct Exchange connection.

“I can’t imagine my life without the Exchange,” she says. “The Exchange has been with me my entire life, from when I was born until now. And it will continue to be. Every aspect of my life, the Exchange has been there, and it will be there for me in my retirement.”

She adds with another laugh: “And my husband isn’t retiring. So now I’ll be retired and an Exchange dependent.”

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