128 Years of Family Serving Family: Payman & Arya Bidardel, FA HQ/Pulaski Barracks

One in a series honoring the Exchange’s 128 years of family serving family.

Who They Are: Payman Bidardel, OCONUS field support manager, Finance & Accounting, Exchange HQ; son Arya Bidardel, assistant store manager, Pulaski Barracks (KMC).

Years with the Exchange: Payman, 36 years, retiring in July; Arya, 15 years.

How they came to the Exchange: Payman’s father was an Exchange associate and was working as a supervisor at Rhine Ordnance Barracks in Germany. Payman came to visit on a holiday for three months. “My father said, ‘Instead of sitting around being lazy, you could get a temp job,’ so I started at Vogelweh.” At the time the biggest Exchange in the world, Vogelweh was the first to roll out the Deferred Payment Plan (DPP), which would later evolve into the MILITARY STAR_® program. Payman was hired as a clerk at the DPP counter. “After three months, they asked me to stay on. Thirty-six years later, I’m still here.”

Arya also began with a temp job at the Exchange. After graduating high school, he was applying for jobs off-base, when Payman told him to work at the Exchange until he found something else. He began at the Wisbaden-Hainerberg Express. “I loved it so much. I knew I wanted to build a career with the Exchange.” One year after he started, his bosses offered him a permanent position.

What they’ve been doing since: Payman: “I have done almost every job you can imagine. My first 19 years were in retail. I loved it, but FA is completely something else. It’s an awesome directorate to work for.”

Arya: “After four years as a sales associate, I went into the Retail Management Academy. A position opened up in Loss Prevention, so I did that for a while. I came back to the Hainerberg Express as a shift manager from 2016 to 2022. In 2020, I helped on a special assignment to open a little store for NATO troops in Bergen-Hohne, Germany, with four other associates during the Defender 2020 exercise, but then COVID hit and we had to shut down. I also held temporary positions in the Wiesbaden main store in hardlines and softlines. In 2022, I saw the assistant manager position open at the Pulaski Express, and I applied.”

In a family-serving-family bonus, Arya now oversees the Rhine Ordnance Barracks Express, the facility where his grandfather worked.

Favorite job: Payman: “My current position has been the most challenging, and consequently the most rewarding.”

Arya: “My favorite position is my current one. I really liked my time in LP, but I love interacting with customers, helping with their needs, providing quality service and collaborating with my team to create a good experience for the customer. That brings me joy and happiness.”

What’s it like working for the same organization: Payman: “In a way, it can be very challenging and intimidating. You want to meet the standards for your family. Those I work with now who knew my father are very high-ranking senior management. Do I stand tall as my father expected of me? Do I meet the goals of being Arya’s father and someone he can be proud of?”

Arya: “It’s exactly that. When I started, I felt like Harry Potter—everyone knew me and I knew no one! I was famous—‘You’re Payman’s son!’ I want to live up to that reputation and make my dad proud.”

Memorable moments:  Payman: “In 2007-2008, Marilyn Iverson (then-COO) tasked a team to go downrange to Southwest Asia to identify some financial issues that had occurred and find the causes. I had just joined the FA team. It was very enjoyable to be given that challenge.”

Arya: “The moment I received a coin from [former Europe/SW Asia Exchange Commander] Col. McFarland for Defender 2020 was a very precious moment. I had never received a coin. It was a huge privilege and honor.

“And getting my current position was almost like a dream come true. The goal was always store management. I’m very grateful.”

Best part of working for the Exchange: Payman: “Diversity. It really catches me the fact that it doesn’t matter where you come from, where you are, what your beliefs are—you are given the opportunity to serve the company and achieve your goals. The Exchange has been very, very kind to me and the building of my future. You don’t find those kinds of opportunities elsewhere that readily.”

Arya: “The core values of respect everyone, the courage to use good judgment and family serving family. All of that is encompassed in the Exchange, and you see it daily. There is so much diversity in the corporation, but still everyone respects each other. There is so much drama, pain and suffering in the world because of people not respecting each other. But here, we’re from different countries, religions, races, and we work in harmony. We come together to get the job done.”