129 Years of Family Serving Family: Jeovany and Vanessa Garza, Waco DC and HQ

One in a series honoring the Exchange’s 129 years of family serving family.

Who they are: Jeovany Garza, Waco Distribution Center manager, and wife Vanessa Garza, replenishment & inventory analyst, Exchange HQ

Years with the Exchange: Jeovany, 23 years; Vanessa, 10 years

Growing up with the Exchange: Vanessa’s dad served in the Army, and she was born on-base in Wiesbaden, Germany. The family returned to the States when she was about 20 months old, living first at Fort Cavazos (then Fort Hood) and then at Fort Bliss.

“Fort Bliss was the most memorable post for me because I was middle-school age then,” Vanessa says. “We lived on a street that directly fed into the parking lot of the Burger King that was connected to the Exchange. We’d go to the food court as a family. A night out was going to the bowling alley or the movie theater on post.”

With four kids in the household, the family didn’t shop anywhere but the Exchange—Vanessa didn’t visit an off-post mall until she was about 14.

“One of my memories is walking through the PX, and my mom was letting me look at clothes and look at things on my own,” Vanessa says. “I remember telling her, ‘One of these days, I’m going to be someone who picks what goes into the store.’ And I became a buyer for the Exchange.”

Military connections: Jeovany serves in the Texas National Guard and had an uncle who served in the military.

“My uncle retired as a sergeant major in the early ’90s, right before the Gulf War,” Jeovany says. “When he came home, he had a little sit-down conversation with me about life, growing up and knowing what to do for the future. When he explained the military to me, a light bulb went off. I knew I needed to strive for that.

“When I graduated high school, I joined the Texas National Guard, and I’ve been with them for a total of about 15 years. I took a little break when we PC’sd from the Dan Daniel Distribution Center to Japan. That was about an eight-year break but now I’m back and hope to retire from the Guard in the next five or six years.”

Memories of support: “In 2008, I was deployed to Iraq. Right behind our sleeping quarters area in Tallil was a small mobile field Exchange,” Jeovany says. “The main store was a little down the road. We would try to go to the main store or the Shoppette just about every day just to grab a Snickers bar or a Powerade or Gatorade. Just something that would help us get through the day.”

As a Guard member, Jeovany has also deployed in the states, including during Hurricane Katrina in 2005. “When we went to offer support, the Exchange was there,” he says. “We got there and within a day or two, the Waco DC sent an MFE there. Within a couple of days, we were able to go to the Exchange and buy what we needed, whether it was laundry detergent or shampoo or something else we may have forgotten. There was nothing else open in the middle of Katrina.”

What brought them to the Exchange: “I came home from basic training in December 2000 and spent the holidays at home,” Jeovany says. “When January came around, I didn’t have a job other than some side jobs I was doing with my dad. I called my recruiter and said, ‘Hey, I need a job—anybody hiring?’ He said, ‘Yeah, the Exchange down the road.’ He called it AAFES, but he had an accent, so I heard ‘Avis.’ I said, ‘I don’t want to work for a car-rental place.’ He said, ‘No, no, no, no AAFES, A-A-F-E-S.

“I went to apply and luckily, found a job in Logistics. They’d had a posting since November. I started Feb. 5, 2001. Mandy Theus was my first boss, She asked me a few questions regarding logistics and transportation, and my background is as a logistician and quartermaster. She asked me, ‘What do you know about logistics?’ I said, ‘If you ask me how to move something, I’ll tell you how to do it.’ She was good with that and she hired me. All my jobs since then have been in Logistics.”

Vanessa had moved to Dallas and planned to pursue a master’s degree in merchandising. She went to work for a jewelry company that went bankrupt. She didn’t know that Exchange headquarters was in Dallas—but she quickly learned. She knew how to pronounce “AAFES” but the guy telling her about it didn’t.

“One of the planners at the jewelry company told me, ‘Well, I’m going to work for the Army & Air Force Exchange Service,’” she says. “I looked at him and said, ‘What did you just say?’ He said, ‘Yeah, they call it AH-FEES or AY-FEES or something like that.’ I said, ‘AAFES? Where are they?’ He said, ‘They’re in south Dallas.’ I immediately started applying for jobs there.

“I’d been applying for jobs at other companies and had a couple of offers,” she adds. “I was going through the final steps to be a buyer at Michael’s. I got an offer from AAFES the same week and I thought, ‘You know what? It’s not even about the offer. I’m just going over there.’ It was one of those serendipitous things. It just landed when it really needed it to.”

Deploying with the Exchange: In addition to his Guard duties, Jeovany has deployed as an Exchange associate. “In April 2004, we went to Kuwait and then Balad,” he says. “We had 300 to 400 containers in a yard that we needed to get into the stores, so I helped coordinate the moves from the yard to the main store and all the other smaller PXs throughout the region.

“I was in Balad the day that a mortar round hit right in front of the main store. I was working in the yard when I heard the sirens, so I rushed over. By the time I got there, it was chaos. We had to help the troops get out of danger and call medics. Some of the Exchange team got injured as well, so we had to clean them up and take them to the hospital.

“I did a few months out there and came home and became a liaison between and LG and SD [now MD]. We were kind of bridging that gap between the two directorates, making sure that we were able to come up with different strategies to make things better for the Exchange.

“It was a lot of fun, and that’s where I met Vanessa.”

How they met: “It was the initial meeting between SD and LG,” Vanessa says. “I was an allocator for Military Clothing Store Sales at that point. We were told, ‘There’s this new initiative, we’ve got Logistics liaisons. We’d like to introduce everybody to Jeovany. Welcome him home, he’s actually been deployed for the past year.’ He sat across the table and all the MCSS teams made their introductions, and that was when I spoke to him for the first time.”

Jeovany adds: “After that, we both had questions for each other regarding operations. One day, I asked, ‘What do you like to do for fun?’ ‘Work out at the gym—there’s a gym downstairs.’ Then I asked, ‘What do you like to eat?’ She said, ‘Pizza.’ I said, ‘OK, I know a place, let’s go hang out.’ We were both single so we made it a date.”

They continued to date and got married on April 12, 2012.

She goes where he goes: “When I moved to Dan Daniel, Vanessa was given the opportunity to go out there as well,” Jeovany says. “From there, I went to Japan to become a regional distribution center manager and she was able to join me as well.” (Both their children were born in Japan, one at Yokota Air Base and one at Camp Foster on Okinawa.)

Vanessa adds: “Every time I’ve joined him, I’ve taken on a new role. I’ve done MD, HR and Operations. When he went to Dan Daniel, I worked in the DC as a quality assurance inspector. When we moved to Japan, that’s when I got my HR experience. Right before we moved to Okinawa, I was a vending manager in Operations.”

Exchange connections: When Vanessa’s sister was in high school, around 1993 or ’94, she worked for Anthony’s Pizza. “It was so awesome,” Vanessa says. “We got a discount or we’d get to have a pizza slice with her and she’d be in her uniform. It breaks my heart that Anthony’s is being phased out. I wish I’d saved the boxes from that greasy, wonderful pizza. It was the best pizza. We didn’t order from anywhere else.”

Family Serving Family: “Family doesn’t always have to be blood,” Jeovany says. “It can be my co-workers; we take care of each other, making sure that when someone’s in need, we’re there for support, whether it’s through helping one another move merchandise or in general. Building that relationship where we understand one another’s needs. It’s one person helping another whether it’s for a personal need or to make things happen for the operation.”

Growing up in a military family and with the Exchange, Vanessa feels like she’s lived “family serving family” all her life. “It’s very deep-rooted and about our community,” she says. “It’s all about our military lives and the civilians who share that life and everyone in between. Because I was a kid who grew up in it, and now I’m an adult working for it, I feel like every single body who has a connection to that, those are family members. Whether they’re customers or associates, we’re all together in this community.”

Jeovany has also experienced the core value from the inside and the outside—and still does. “I love it when I can say that I work for the Exchange and that I’m a service member,” he says. “When I walk into an Exchange, they’re serving me, and by the same token, I’m serving the military. The Exchange offers a lot to us. I’ve been able to jump on a deployment with the Exchange but also deploy with the military and come back and be treated as if I’d never left. Whether I’m in the green uniform or I’m representing the organization, we’re all the same.”