Yes, Chief Master Sergeant!
After 20 years in Hawaii with the Air National Guard, Chief Master Sgt. Denise Jelinski-Hall is at the Pentagon , serving as Senior Enlisted Leader for the National Guard. She’ll be back in Honolulu Sept. 20 to speak at the annual Hawaii’s International Women’s Leadership Conference
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what I needed to do to succeed.”
From there, Jelinski-Hall was stationed at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, where she met her husband, Gary Hall, who was then on active duty in the Marine Corps. To ensure that they could be stationed together, Jelinski-Hall went from active duty to the Air National Guard. She worked for three years as a ground radio operator with the California Air National Guard. In 1990, Gary received orders to Hawaii, and the couple, along with their young daughter Ashley, moved to Aiea.
“It was a good assignment for him, and it was great for me because they had Air Traffic Control at Barber’s Point. I was very excited about getting reconnected with ATC,” she says about the move to the Islands. She spent the next 12 years at Air Traffic Control Flight. From there, another slew of accomplishments followed she went through combat airspace management courses, worked as the combat airspace manager assigned to the HQ 201st Combat Communications Group, Hickam AFB, served as the command chief master sergeant for the 154th Wing, Hawaii Air National Guard and then as the command chief master sergeant for the Hawaii Air National Guard, as well as the senior enlisted leader for the Hawaii National Guard, meaning that she served as an adviser for both the Air National Guard and the Army National Guard.
“It was an honor and a privilege and very rewarding to work with our enlisted airmen. My goals were to try to better programs, policy and affect change. I was determined to help elevate the enlisted corps ... (and to) raise the bar to a higher standard,” Jelinski-Hall says of her work as command chief.
Along the way, JelinskiHall also deployed to various locations, including Korea and Japan, for exercises. And in early 2007, she had what she remembers as one of the pinnacles of her career: She deployed to Qatar to conduct combat airspace management. She was responsible for designing the airspace for fighters, reconnaissance, intelligence, helicopter traffic and all types of air traffic conducting missions.
Although Jelinski-Hall hopes that her story can show that anybody can achieve success regardless of their background, she says that being a woman has little to do with that.
“That I am a female, it’s never been about that for me ... It’s about being the airman and continually striving to be the best airman you can be, whether you are male or female.”
However, she acknowledges that, “When you look at the numbers, at the demographics and the leadership around the table, you can clearly see that females are underrepresented.”
Despite gender gaps, Jelinski-Hall has treated this fact as a source of motivation rather than hindrance.
“Females should not view the situation as a negative, but as another chance to grow and move forward. Is it a challenge, yes. Will it require hard work and a determined effort? Most certainly.”
Jelinski-Hall admits that all that hard work and determined effort has come at a price, and that oftentimes she cannot balance her work and family life as much as she’d like.
“You have to know that you are not going to be able to keep that balance as much as you want to,” she says. “You are on the road a lot. So what are you giving up? You are giving up a lot of family time, there’s no doubt about it.”
Nonetheless, Jelinski-Hall says that she wouldn’t have it any other way. Now serving at the Pentagon, with her proud, supportive husband and her equally proud and supportive daughter alongside, Jelinski-Hall seems to have done it all.
“I have just never let it become part of the equation, the fact that I was female. I worked hard. I did the best job I could possibly do ... I let my record speak for itself.”
At the IWLC, JelinskiHall takes the stage with a number of other women who are noted in fields ranging from business to nonprofits to politics. Speakers include Elim Chew, founder and president of the largest retail chain in Singapore; Julie Gilbert, the founder and CEO of a consulting company who also is credited with doubling Best Buy’s sales during her time as the company’s senior vice president; and Lesley Jane Seymour, editor in chief of More magazine.
Registration for the conference closes Sept. 18, and organizers recommend that you sign up as soon as possible, as walk-up registration will not be permitted. Breakfast and registration start at 7:30 a.m., and the event runs until 5:30 p.m. Tickets are $195. Log on to iwlchi.org to register or for more information.
“I am excited to come back home and be involved with this conference,” Jelinski-Hall says.
She is mainly looking forward to the inspiration and motivation that it can provide to attendees.
“This conference touches high school girls, college women, business women military women and moms ... I think they really walk away with the belief that if they do the right thing, if they work hard, that they can achieve their goals. I think many of them will realize their full potential is beyond what they perceived it to be when the conference first began.”
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