Leveraging Your Future

Sgt. Maj. Nelson Ildefonso, EPI's senior enlisted advisor, talks to Renee Castillo, a sergeant with the 396th Combat Support Hospital in Vancouver, Wash., about the EPI program.




By 1st Lt. Olivia Cobiskey
EPI Director of Marketing – Media

NEW ORLEANS – Renee Castillo isn't your typical college graduate.

The 25 year old spent a year in Afghanistan running the patient administration section for a tent hospital before she graduated from Portland State University with a bachelor's degree in Human Resources Management and Personnel Administration.

"It was really a great experience, I learned a lot," said Castillo, a sergeant with the 396th Combat Support Hospital in Vancouver, Wash.

Now she's looking for a job in Human Resources at the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), 61st Annual Conference and Exposition in New Orleans.

Like many Soldiers she was having difficulty translating her military experience as a patient administration specialist (68G) for civilian employers. Castillo said she was excited to find the Army Reserve booth at the conference and took a moment to get some advice from Sgt. Maj. Nelson Ildefonso, EPI's senior enlisted advisor.

"Our Soldiers are skill rich and multi-talented," Ildefonso said. "They posses the attributes that each employer wants - leadership, punctuality, and a willingness to excel and meet challenges.

More than 400 companies agree and have signed partnership agreements with the Army Reserve.

Ildefonso showed Castillo how to search and apply for jobs with those companies using the EPI's Web site and helped her identify the unique skills she has when competing for jobs in the current economy.

Although Castillo doesn't have HR experience, she recognized that her work in Afghanistan at Forward Operating Base Salerno did gave her experience that is similar to the tasked a HR assistant would be require to do.

Castillo had to be very organized to keep the hospital working. She was responsible for the doctors’ schedules, paperwork, data enter, and coordinating between the hospital staff and the flight staff to get patients to the larger hospital in Bagram.

"I worked with both local and military doctors, patients, nurses," Castillo said. "I have a lot of those skills that HR needs."