(upbeat music) - Hi everyone.

I'm Hana and this is STEM Works.

The show where we explore careers in science, technology, engineering, and math and what makes them so much fun.

We take you inside businesses and talk to professionals in their field and explore what they do.

And today we are headed over to visit with our friends at Nevada Air National Guard to see what it is that they do.

Everyone knows that going to school is one of the best ways to get the skills needed to get started in your dream career.

But did you also know that the United States Air Force is another really, really good place to learn the skills needed for the latest STEM jobs out there, also known as a 152nd Airlift Wing.

The Nevada Air National Guard is our local branch of the United States Air National Guard, which serves as the support system and backbone to the United States Air Force.

Not only do they help transport everything from personnel, medicine, food, and other goods and gears to support the US Air Force, they also train and prepare mission ready airmen to safeguard our homeland, help US Military Forces execute missions around the world as well as serve our communities locally.

They even help fight wildfires using their C-130 cargo airplanes, also known as the Mighty Hercules.

By far the world's best and most versatile cargo airplane.

But it takes a lot of highly trained professionals to make the mighty HERC fly.

Everything from piloting to fueling and loading to fixing and maintaining the planes is done by highly trained personnel.

It is really a group effort to make everything work smoothly and efficiently.

Today, we'll highlight just a few of these careers, starting with Airman 1st Class, Taylor Rice, who works as a personnelist, Colonel Kathy Grush, the first female Wing Commander in Nevada, and Flight Line Crew Chief Aubrey Chiatovich who works on fixing and maintaining the mighty HETC.

So come on, let's head over for a visit with our friends at Nevada Air National Guard to discover all that they do to help serve our country and community at home and abroad.

(upbeat music) (machine whirling) All right, prepare for takeoff.

So tell us, what is your job at Nevada Air National Guard?

- I am a personnelist.

I'm basically the HR of the military.

So I handle a lot of the paperwork side of everything.

- I am the wing commander for the 152nd Airlift Wing.

I'm responsible for the care of all the airmen that are out here.

I am in charge of four groups and eight C-130 aircraft.

- I am the person who fixes the aircraft to get them ready for missions and sorties.

I'm basically the one that orchestrates all of the maintenance and gets the maintenance ready for back shops.

- That's really cool.

What else you got?

- My job really is to prepare our part-timers, our drill status force to be ready to deploy, to make sure we're able to meet all of our mission set and all of our training requirements.

- [Taylor] It's mostly about the people.

We're here to support them.

We're here to advise them and be a good resource for them and get them the things that they need so that they can focus on their mission.

- We are the ones who get the planes up in the air.

We are the ones who does the maintenance.

We are the ones who put the liquid oxygen on the plane so our pilots can breathe.

- [Grush] My job isn't to micromanage all the way down to the lowest level, it's really to build teams that are self-sustainable.

They can go out and do things on their own.

How to make the best decisions.

And what does that look like?

- I do all the inspections after and before flight.

We check the engines, check the cargo bay, put fuel on the plane, run operational checks on the props, change the windows on the airplane, service the hydraulic system, rigging checks.

- I hear you also fight wildfires.

- We're not really qualified firefighters, but we are qualified pilots and aviators within the community who have a system that can let us do this.

So we go out with our C-130 unit and we actually fight fires across the Western United States or wherever it is needed in the US.

- [Aubrey] The firefight mission is one of my favorite missions we do just because we are saving houses, saving lives.

And we don't just do missions in California for the firefighting, we go to Idaho, Colorado, whatever's on fire.

I don't even think about being out there during the long hot hours 'cause I had a successful day.

We did four drops today.

That's a lot of lives saved.

- All right, so why is your job important?

- You can think about it as a teacher.

A teacher doesn't give you the answers to all the questions and everything on the test, but they give you this left and right limit to tell you where it wants to be.

It's my job to put guidance and intent out to make sure that my teams have enough operating space to be able to go do what they need to do.

- These planes have a mind of their own.

They will break when they want and how they want.

So if we didn't have my job, I don't think there'd be a mission.

- Being a means personnelist that I am a resource and support unit for our military members.

So if we weren't here to do that, your family wouldn't have their medical benefits, you wouldn't have your medical benefits, you wouldn't get your promotion done, you wouldn't get reenlisted, you wouldn't get out processed, you wouldn't get in processed into our base.

- What do you love most about your job?

- [Grush] The HERC is probably one of my biggest love.

There is nothing as exciting to me as coming here and getting to smell Jet A, seeing airplanes every single day.

And part of that is, you literally can take this airplane anywhere in the world.

- I love my job.

If you have a newborn child, I get to help you with that process.

If someone passes away, I help with that process.

If you're getting promoted, I help with that process.

So we're a key function here.

I'm happy I get to be a part of that process.

- The thing that I love about this job is after I marshal out the plane and they take off and they get wheels up, it's the most rewarding experience.

And then when you get air crew coming back and they're telling you what drops they did, how many people jumped out the back, like their mission for the day and how successful they were, it's like I helped with that.

I got the plane off the ground.

So that's my favorite part.

- I truly love what I do.

We are a volunteer force.

We choose to serve.

It is about wearing the uniform and the ability to serve my city and my state and my country.

And this is my way of giving back to my neighborhood and my community.

- I knew I wanted to do a job that helped people in some way, and I also really like office work and being organized.

I didn't know what job I wanted to do specifically.

That's where my recruiter really helped me and was able to say, Oh, you like to be organized and work in an office.

Like these are good options for you.

- My ultimate goal is to be a pilot.

So when I was talking to the recruiters, they were like, "Hey, we have an aircraft mechanic position open, would you wanna do that?"

And I said, "Absolutely."

- [Grush] Literally, anybody can do it.

You really do not have to have this huge background in aviation to be a pilot.

I joined when I was 23 years old, working for FedEx here at our local airport and loved the idea of being able to go places, see things around the world, and really generated this love for aviation and flying.

- What are the most important skills in your job?

- We use a lot of computers in our job.

We use databases.

So having just a general understanding of technology and computers is really gonna help you in our job.

- We expect high standards of behavior and professionalism.

We expect high standards in our training requirements.

We have that faith and that trust in you to really be the best person you can wearing the uniform.

- [Taylor] Your team is going to help support you in any way to get the goals that you need done and to get their goals done.

You learn about each other, you care about each other or each other's wingman.

We're always watching each other's back.

We're always relying on each other.

- [Aubrey] You really can't do the mission unless you are a team.

If you have an issue that you can't handle yourself, there are other crew chiefs with more experience that are willing to help you.

- It's not one person, it's not one gender.

It's everybody kind of working together that makes this such a great place to be.

And you'll hear that we're a family.

- What other advice do you have for us?

- [Taylor] If you want to challenge yourself to learn about yourself and be a part of something bigger than just yourself, being in the military, it's a great option.

- It's not just aviation, it's not just pilots.

We have doctors and nurses, we have firefighters, vehicle mechanics to aviation mechanics.

- [Taylor] If you like to weld, we have welding jobs.

You wanna fly planes, they're gonna get you on that path.

So they will help you on the path that you want to take.

And you can do that in the civilian world or you can do it here in the military.

You can be part of this big mission.

- Find something that you love and go after it.

But if you never come try, if you never come look at what you think you might want to do, You'll never know if it's for you.

- If you wanna get some education and you can't afford it on your own, the military will pay for it.

Absolutely.

Take advantage of the opportunities.

- If you love airplanes and you know that you love airplanes, we'll join you with open arms.

- Wow, that was really impressive.

Thanks to Taylor, Aubrey and Wing Commander Grush we discovered all about what they do at the Nevada Air National Guard and how many different career opportunities await you at the Air National Guard in your state.

I hope you had as much fun as I did finding out about everything they do at the Nevada Air National Guard.

But that's about all the time we have.

So I wanna thank you all for joining us for this episode of PBS Reno's STEM Works.

You can find out more information about Nevada Air National Guard at their website.

And for more information on these careers than others, visit pbsreno.org/stemworks.

And as always, don't forget to get out there and discover what it is that gets you going and on the right path to your STEM future.

(upbeat music) (machine whirling)