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# Employee Spotlight: Rachel Polite

By Leon Moore, Public Affairs SpecialistDLA Aviation Public Affairs Office

                RICHMOND, Va.  –              
*Employee spotlight regularly features outstanding non-supervisory personnel from throughout the Defense Logistics Agency Aviation and other DLA employees on Defense Supply Center Richmond, Virginia. Organizational directors may submit names of employees they wish to feature in this column to DLA Aviation Public Affairs. For more information, call (804) 279-3139. * 

**Name:** Rachel Polite

**Organization:** DLA Aviation at Oklahoma City

**Years of Service:** 9 years

**What is your job title, and what do you do, specifically?** I’m a sustainment specialist. In this capacity, I review the customer’s parts requirement at a strategic level to ensure required parts are available before they are needed. This requires me to interact with other DLA agencies, our Air Force customers and, at times, commercial entities to resolve issues that would prevent long term supportability.

**What do you like most about your job?** I like knowing how my day-to-day actions affect the warfighter operations at the field level.  While serving on active duty in the Air Force, I held a position that was responsible for sending repairables from the field back to the depot for overhaul. Now I support the customer by ensuring the components needed to get those repairables back out to the field are available.

**What kind(s) of training and education helps your work performance in your current role?** Any type of training or education that makes my work performance more efficient.  

**If you could speak directly to the warfighters you support, what would you tell them?**  I would tell them that I understand what they’re going through and there is a diligent team of professionals at DLA working very hard to support their efforts. We’ve got your back.

**What was your first job?** I joined the Air Force shortly after graduating from high school in 1989.

**What are some of your passions outside of work?** Some of my passions outside of work are line dancing and gardening.

**What’s the most thrilling/adventurous thing you have ever done?** I have a fear of heights, so going to the second level of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France was the most thrilling thing I have ever done.

**What type of music do you most enjoy?** I enjoy listening to a wide variety of music, but I mostly enjoy listening to gospel.

**Have you had a mentor that helped you grow in your career?****If so who, and how did they help?** Most definitely! My mentor was a woman named Cheryl. She was my supervisor early in my Air Force career. She always demonstrated how to take care of your people, leave anything you do better than you how found it, and you don’t lose by sharing what you’ve learned.  

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