To celebrate Veterans Day, EM highlights former service members who have joined EM on their journey in civilian work-life.
Name and what you do at EM?
Meg Milligan, currently serving as the records management field officer for the Hanford Field Office.
What branch did you serve in; when; where stationed? How many years of service?
I joined the Army right out of high school in 1976; basic training at Fort McClellen, Alabama, Advanced Individual Training at Fort Gordon, Georgia, where I became a 72E, which was eventually changed to 72G (telecommunications specialist). Stationed at the 178th Signal Company, 5th Signal Command in Heidelberg, Germany, where I helped with the migration from teletypes to the AMME and MATE/MART systems. I was transferred after three years to the Communication Electronics Engineering Installation Agency in Fort Huachuca, Arizona, where I taught sites to use the AMME, MATE, & MART systems. I finished active duty and joined the Army Reserves, the 167th Field Hospital in Tucson, Arizona, where I learned to be a medic (91B), and I worked once a month at the Fort Huachuca Medical Center once my training in Tucson was complete. I served six years active duty and seven years in the Reserves.
Most memorable event/moment during your service?
I actually delivered a baby once. The doctor had left after a difficult birth had been completed—she needed breakfast—then another woman, who had taken the time to do the dishes and clean up the kitchen after her water broke, came through the door supported by her husband. We got her on the table, and the head was already visible, so we rushed to the delivery room. The nurse was preparing the needles when the head just arrived; I asked what I should do, and the nurse said, “Catch it!," so I did!
How has your military service helped prepare you for the job you do in EM?
I came to the military with a strong work ethic; both my parents served during the Korean conflict. The Army taught me teamwork and helped me focus on mission, while still encouraging me to bring ideas for better processes forward, as long as they worked with the regulations. My first assignment in Heidelberg was maintaining the records for the telecom center—it was all cards and paper 50 years ago—very time consuming and hard on the back.
When did you begin working for EM and what got you interested in the cleanup mission?
I was invited to a job interview at the Idaho National Engineering Lab by a friend who I knew from Sierra Vista, Arizona, the town that supported Fort Huachuca. I got the job and moved to Idaho Falls, Idaho in December 1989. I met my husband Randy there when he was an actor traveling with a group from the University of Wyoming, where he taught theatre, composition and writing classes. I also met a man named George Dials at my church. George and I served on the vestry together, but he traveled so much with his work for DOE that I finished several vestry tasks for him in his absence, which he appreciated. When he was selected to lead the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in Carlsbad, New Mexico, he offered me my first federal job. George called me about the job on Super Bowl Sunday, 1994 (Cowboys vs. Bills), and Randy proposed to me later that day. The Bills lost, but it was still a pretty good day for me. I was selected in May but asked for time to finish up a site-wide software inventory and get married that August. I started with the government on Sept. 4, 1994. We had a two-day honeymoon in the Grand Teton mountains and Yellowstone National Park, then rushed back to close out my contractor job, pack up the house and both vehicles and drive south. We arrived on Sept.7. WIPP was the first cleanup mission, and I worked there for 18 years before moving to DC for four years. Then I was contacted by the Hanford operations site manager, and Randy and I decided it was time to move back to our western roots, so we moved to Hanford in 2017. A great decision, indeed.