129 Years of Family Serving Family: Taeko and Russell Westfall, JBLE and DDDC

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

Who they are: Taeko Westfall, Joint Base Langley-Eustis Exchange Service Business Manager, and husband Russell Westfall, Dan Daniel Distribution Center Logistics Operation Manager.

Years with the Exchange: Taeko, 19; Russell, 23.

First role: Taeko started as a sales area manager at the Misawa Exchange. Russell started as a college trainee at Randolph Air Force Base. He was later moved to Fort Liberty (then Fort Bragg) for his first assignment.

Military connections: Taeko’s father served with the Army during the Vietnam War. He was assigned to the Adjutant General’s office at Camp Zama in Japan, where he met her mother. The couple moved to Daly City, California, where Taeko and her brother spent their childhoods until their father took a job in logistics for contingency operations, a civilian role, at Camp Zama. “It was definitely a culture shock since I’d never been around the military at the time,” Taeko said.

Russell’s father served in the Army during the Korean War. His brother is a Desert Storm Veteran, serving in the Marine Corps. He later served in the Army Reserves.

Exchange memories: Taeko used to hang out at the Camp Zama Exchange with her friends. “It became the daily go-to place. It was the hangout spot after school. I remember the grand opening for Burger King at the food court. We’d always just hang out at the Burger King parking lot, eat, hang out, and annoy the food court manager. Overseas, the Exchange becomes the hub for activities.”

What brought them to the Exchange: Taeko said she was working at a clothing retailer before coming to the Exchange. “I’d been working for a while. I got my degree in business and thought it was a great way to apply my knowledge. It also gave me the opportunity to start my own career, which was a little bit later. I was 35 when I started. I think the Exchange gives people opportunities a lot of other places may not.”

Russell said he was also working in retail. He met an Exchange general manager shopping at the store he was working at, and they struck up a conversation, which inspired him to apply at the Exchange.

Getting To Know Each Other: Taeko and Russell met working at the Misawa Exchange. “I just started working there,” Taeko said. “I was a new Sales Area Manager. I thought he was annoying, but he was very funny, and he just knew what he was doing. People really respected him. He always put the associates first. If there was a problem, then address it immediately. He really took to his leadership.”

Russell said he admired Taeko’s work ethic. “The biggest memory that sticks out to me is Taeko was always wanting to do the job and the work,” Russell said. “As the stockroom manager, I had to prioritize things I had people for and what needed to get done. She was working on a realignment inside the Bookmark, which is part of the store. She was setting up shelving, then asked for my help. I said, ‘Well, I have to do this and this’ and she’s like, ‘Well, I’ll just do it myself!’ She put together that whole thing herself because she wanted to get the job done. Later on, I was able to pull someone to help and went to help too. That was pretty early in knowing each other.”

The two started to hang out after work and got to know each other. Taeko said associates were influenced by the culture of Japan. “The Japanese after-work culture—they know how to be professional at work, but they also socialize after to build relationships. At the time, we still had a bowling group and an indoor soccer group,” Taeko said.

They went bowling together for their first date and the rest was history. The two got married in November 2008. “We had a lot of similarities and of course a work ethic,” Russell said.

Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami: The Westfalls’ work ethic was put to the test when, in 2011, a record 9.1 magnitude earthquake struck Japan.

“Our senior leaders were not there,” Taeko said. During this time, senior management staff were attending the annual managers conference in Texas. “It was basically my husband and I, the food court manager and an Express manager. Russell and I had gotten married by then. He was the operations manager. If you didn’t know we were married, you wouldn’t know it when we were working.”

The base had no power for several weeks. “We were running out of the Express,” Taeko said. “We were just doing manual transfers on merchandise, ringing people up by writing it on paper. We had to handwrite everything. We went old school. We did it all under the light outside and the lanterns we had.”

The transportation of goods was halted. There were concerns about radiation from the Fukushima nuclear disaster. People were evacuated from Camp Zama and Yokota Air Base. Misawa Air Base was used as a hub for first responders.

“People were coming in from all over the place,” Taeko said. “It was a stressful time, but I felt like, ‘Wow, the Exchange – we can do anything anywhere.’”

“The big thing was getting what the Army or the Navy was asking for us,” Russell said. “The first couple of days, I was making calls and getting feedback from senior leadership… I remember watching the news and just feeling mournful, just seeing the destruction. The waves ripped through the bottom of hotels and housing. Streetlamps and sidewalks were all torn up.”

Family Serving Family: “What that means to me is to take care of them the way we want to be taken care of,” Russell said. “My family serves and has served. The people I work with are also my family. When you leave one place, you’re leaving family but also coming to meet family.”

“I definitely think we look at ourselves as an extension of the Services,” Taeko said. “I do see us as part of a big family between the Exchange and the military. We may be in the same locations, providing those goods and services they need. I definitely feel that connection with who comes shopping, as well as with associates. I don’t think I can have this good feeling with anyone else.”