CinCHouse created the Movers & Shakers Awards to recognize those individuals who work tirelessly to support military family issues, often behind the scenes. The following five women get this year's 'Shout Out'!
Joanna Williamson
Co-founder
Military Spouse Business Association
Joanna’s current project is working with MSBA co-founder Rebecca Poynter, Congressman Carter and Senator Burr to get HR1182 and S475 that contains The Military Spouse Residency Relief Act passed through Congress. The Act would amend the Service members Civil Relief Act to include military spouses regarding the issues regarding residency. Currently, service members receive residency relief when moved on government orders and may claim a permanent state of residency regardless of the state in which they physically reside. This alleviates many ancillary burdens for the service member. Military spouses are not currently protected by the SCRA and must change their state of residency with each military move. Driver’s licenses, vehicle registrations and titles as well as voter registration must be changed. Joanna feels strongly that the current lack of protection represents a failure to protect women’s rights as a majority of military spouses are female and many end up titling their vehicles and property in the husband’s name to avoid the inordinate hassle of re-registration at every new location. She looks forward to seeing the measure passed in the near future. Don't we all!
Joanna Williamson is owner and operator of Heroes on the Home Front, Inc. and www.AttaGirlGifts.com website. Joanna, a proud military spouse of Navy CEC LCDR Marcus Williamson, currently resides in Springfield, VA. with two rambunctious boys.
In 2007, along with two other military spouses, Joanna co-founded a 501c(6) non-profit business association for military spouses with their own businesses or are contract employees. The Military Spouse Business Association (MSBA - www.MilSpouseBiz.org.) is dedicated to networking military spouse business owners with each other as well as connecting them with outside resources or customers. MSBA provides business information tailored to the highly mobile military lifestyle as well as help military spouse owned businesses navigate the muddy waters of starting a business. She currently serves as Vice-President of MSBA and continues her efforts to promote military spouse owned businesses.
In Springfield, VA Joanna joined the Navy Civil Engineer Corps Officer Spouses’ Club and served as the Newsletter editor. She currently serves as the club’s President. Joanna also volunteers time at the Armed Forces Retirement Home, making and then distributing blankets to the patients in the acute care and Memory Loss facilities. Joanna’s most important initiative within the Spouse’s club was to form the IA Family Committee (IA-Independent Augmentee).
Joanna is also honored to also volunteer at the National Military Family Association, an organization at the heart of it all, the military family.
Kathy Roth-Douquet
Founder
Blue Star Families
A founder of Blue Star Families, Kathy is a fresh voice for military families and has taken a leading role in bridging the gap between civilian and military families and in working with officials to effectively bring about change. We greatly look forward to seeing what new accomplishments Kathy will bring to the table (literally) for military families.
Kathryn Roth-Douquet is a writer, lawyer, political activist and Marine Corps wife. Her current book is How Free People Move Mountains, with Frank Schaeffer, published by HarperCollins, September 2008. The book is an impassioned plea and a carving out of common ground, so that the divided camps of America can come together for the sake of our future.
Her recent much lauded best-selling book is AWOL: The Unexcused Absence of America's Upper Classes from the Military and How it Hurts Our Country, co-authored by Frank Schaeffer. It discusses how the country, its decision-making and democracy are hurt by the growing disconnect between those who dominate our political, cultural and professional institutions and those in the military.
Roth-Douquet is a practicing attorney, serving on the panel for the Court of Appeals in California, and as Senior Legal Advisor to the Center for Naval Analysis. Roth-Douquet is a veteran of every presidential campaign of the past twenty-five years, is an advisor to the Obama campaign and has served in the Clinton White House and the Department of Defense. As associate director of presidential advance for the Clinton administration, she traveled with or ahead of the president around the world, negotiating on behalf of the White House and producing presidential events, from G-8 summits to rallies of several hundred thousand to celebrate the end of the Cold War to town hall meetings in America. At the Pentagon, she served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense primarily on defense-reform issues. Her final title was acting Principal Assistant Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Industrial Affairs and Installations). For her work there she was awarded the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service.
Roth-Douquet is a member of the Democratic Leadership Council, a Fellow with the Truman Project, and a strategist and fundraiser within the Democratic Party. Outside of politics and government, she has been involved with private foundations, as vice president of the Revlon Foundation and as director of special projects for the Nathan Cummings Foundation. She was a weekly commentator on a current-affairs television show in Japan and has taught American Government for the University of Maryland's University College in Japan.
Sylvia Kidd
Director of Family Programs
Association of the U.S. Army (AUSA)
When Sylvia Kidd's husband (Sergeant Major of the Army Richard A. Kidd) was active duty, Sylvia help design and start up the Army Family Team Building Program. She has since played a major role in improving all Army family programs from the Pentagon to the pavement level. In the process, she has helped Army leaders to see the value that families bring to the Army, and now the other services are implementing her ideas. If you haven't attended her family programs and FRG training at the annual AUSA conference, or at Army installations worldwide, then take time out of your schedule to be amazed.
Sylvia Kidd has been associated with the Army her entire life. She is the daughter of a career soldier, the wife of a career soldier and was also the mother of a Soldier during her son’s Army service.
During her association with the United States Army, Mrs. Kidd has been active in community and family activities. She is one of the original developers of the Army Family Team Building Program and in recognition of her contribution has had an AFTB volunteer award named for her. Mrs. Kidd has served in numerous volunteer positions at installation level as well as at Department of the Army and Department of Defense level and has accumulated over 8,500 hours of Army Community Service time.
The quality of life for soldiers and their families has long been a high priority for Mrs. Kidd. She was selected to serve on a review panel convened by the General Accounting Office at the request of Senators Domenici and Stevens along with Representative Nethercutt. The committee was charged with evaluating the impact of quality of life on retention of soldiers and recruitment of new soldiers. She has served as a commissioner of the Defense Science Board Quality of Life Task Force. Mrs. Kidd has served as President and Director of Government Relations for another military family related non-profit Association and in that capacity has testified before committees of the Congress on health care and other quality of life issues. She also represented the Chief of Staff of the Army at military funerals as an Army Arlington Lady.
Mrs. Kidd is currently the Director of Family Programs for the Association of the United States Army (AUSA). In that position she continues to serve Army families by helping them become aware of the many programs and benefits that are available to assist them with the challenges of Army life and also representing Army families on various councils and advisory boards.
During her years of service to the soldiers and family members of the Army, Mrs. Kidd has received many awards, including being the first recipient of the Dr. Mary E. Walker Award. She is a member of the Order of St. Joan D’Arc, Order of the White Plume and has received the Department of the Army Patriotic Civilian Service Award. Mrs. Kidd was also awarded the Commanding General’s Excellence Achievement Award, Commanders Certificate of Achievement and the Commander’s Award for Civilian Public Service as well as the Decoration for Distinguished Civilian Service.
Joyce Wessel Raezer
Executive Director
National Military Family Association
Joyce is a tireless advocate of military families and often does not get credit for her work on the less sexy but deeply critical issues affecting us. Terms like 'Survivor Benefits' and 'Tricare for Life' may sound boring now, but Joyce helps makes sure that military families and wounded warriors are not living in stark poverty when the worst crises occur.
Joyce joined the staff of the Government Relations Department of the National Military Family Association as a volunteer in September 1995. In February 1998, she was selected for the paid position of Senior Issues Specialist for the Association and subsequently served as the Department’s Deputy Associate Director and Associate Director before being promoted to Director in December 2001. In February 2007, she was hired by the NMFA Board of Governors as Chief Operating Officer and became Executive Director in November 2007. In that position, Joyce guides the management of the Association’s programs and initiatives that serve the families of the seven Uniformed Services.
Joyce has represented military families on several committees and task forces for offices and agencies of the Department of Defense (DoD) and military Services, including the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA), the U.S. Army Community and Family Support Center, and the TRICARE Management Activity (TMA). She served as a member of the Defense Commissary Agency (DeCA) Patron Council from February 2001 to 2007. Joyce has served on several committees of The Military Coalition, an organization of 36 military-related associations. She was co-chair of the Coalition’s Personnel, Compensation, and Commissaries Committee from 2000 to 2007. From September 1999 to December 2000, she was a member of a Congressionally-mandated Federal Advisory Panel on DoD Health Care Quality Initiatives. From June 1999 to June 2001, Joyce served on the first national Board of Directors for the Military Child Education Coalition. In 2004, she authored a chapter on “Transforming Support to Military Families and Communities” in a book published by the MIT Press, Filling the Ranks: Transforming the U.S. Military Personnel System. She has been a member of the TriWest Healthcare Alliance Executive Advisory Board since 2007.
Joyce was the 1997 recipient of the Margaret Vinson Hallgren Award for her advocacy on behalf of military families and the National Military Family Association. She also received the “Champion for Children” award from the Military Impacted Schools Association in 1998. In 2006, she was named a recipient of the Gettysburg College Distinguished Alumni Award.
CDR René Campos, USN (Ret.)
Deputy Director, Government Relations
Military Officers Association of America (MOAA)
René is the lead advocate for wounded warriors for the Military Officers Association of America -- and that's saying something since MOAA is one of the leading voices on the subject. In that role, René delves into addressing every law, rule and regulation that might present any obstacle to wounded warriors and their families. Yet she also takes the time to help individual families and coordinate with nonprofit agencies who assist them. Indeed, her military service never stopped when she retired.
CDR René Campos joined the MOAA staff, October 1, 2004 as the deputy director, Government Relations, military family issues. In September 2007, she assumed responsibilities for health care issues. CDR Campos began her 30-year career as a photographer's mate, enlisting in the Navy in 1973, and was commissioned a naval officer in 1982. Her subspecialties included manpower and personnel and financial management. Duty assignments included public affairs, recruiting, and personnel policy. Her last assignment was at the Pentagon as the associate director, Office of Family Policy in the office of the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense, Military Personnel and Family Policy. She has a B.A. in criminal justice and psychology from Columbia College and an M.B.A. in organizational management from the University of Phoenix.
CinCHouse created the Movers & Shakers Awards to recognize those individuals who work tirelessly to support military family issues, often behind the scenes. The following five women get this year's 'Shout Out'!
Joanna Williamson
Co-founder
Military Spouse Business Association
Joanna’s current project is working with MSBA co-founder Rebecca Poynter, Congressman Carter and Senator Burr to get HR1182 and S475 that contains The Military Spouse Residency Relief Act passed through Congress. The Act would amend the Service members Civil Relief Act to include military spouses regarding the issues regarding residency. Currently, service members receive residency relief when moved on government orders and may claim a permanent state of residency regardless of the state in which they physically reside. This alleviates many ancillary burdens for the service member. Military spouses are not currently protected by the SCRA and must change their state of residency with each military move. Driver’s licenses, vehicle registrations and titles as well as voter registration must be changed. Joanna feels strongly that the current lack of protection represents a failure to protect women’s rights as a majority of military spouses are female and many end up titling their vehicles and property in the husband’s name to avoid the inordinate hassle of re-registration at every new location. She looks forward to seeing the measure passed in the near future. Don't we all!
Joanna Williamson is owner and operator of Heroes on the Home Front, Inc. and www.AttaGirlGifts.com website. Joanna, a proud military spouse of Navy CEC LCDR Marcus Williamson, currently resides in Springfield, VA. with two rambunctious boys.
In 2007, along with two other military spouses, Joanna co-founded a 501c(6) non-profit business association for military spouses with their own businesses or are contract employees. The Military Spouse Business Association (MSBA - www.MilSpouseBiz.org.) is dedicated to networking military spouse business owners with each other as well as connecting them with outside resources or customers. MSBA provides business information tailored to the highly mobile military lifestyle as well as help military spouse owned businesses navigate the muddy waters of starting a business. She currently serves as Vice-President of MSBA and continues her efforts to promote military spouse owned businesses.
In Springfield, VA Joanna joined the Navy Civil Engineer Corps Officer Spouses’ Club and served as the Newsletter editor. She currently serves as the club’s President. Joanna also volunteers time at the Armed Forces Retirement Home, making and then distributing blankets to the patients in the acute care and Memory Loss facilities. Joanna’s most important initiative within the Spouse’s club was to form the IA Family Committee (IA-Independent Augmentee).
Joanna is also honored to also volunteer at the National Military Family Association, an organization at the heart of it all, the military family.
Kathy Roth-Douquet
Founder
Blue Star Families
A founder of Blue Star Families, Kathy is a fresh voice for military families and has taken a leading role in bridging the gap between civilian and military families and in working with officials to effectively bring about change. We greatly look forward to seeing what new accomplishments Kathy will bring to the table (literally) for military families.
Kathryn Roth-Douquet is a writer, lawyer, political activist and Marine Corps wife. Her current book is How Free People Move Mountains, with Frank Schaeffer, published by HarperCollins, September 2008. The book is an impassioned plea and a carving out of common ground, so that the divided camps of America can come together for the sake of our future.
Her recent much lauded best-selling book is AWOL: The Unexcused Absence of America's Upper Classes from the Military and How it Hurts Our Country, co-authored by Frank Schaeffer. It discusses how the country, its decision-making and democracy are hurt by the growing disconnect between those who dominate our political, cultural and professional institutions and those in the military.
Roth-Douquet is a practicing attorney, serving on the panel for the Court of Appeals in California, and as Senior Legal Advisor to the Center for Naval Analysis. Roth-Douquet is a veteran of every presidential campaign of the past twenty-five years, is an advisor to the Obama campaign and has served in the Clinton White House and the Department of Defense. As associate director of presidential advance for the Clinton administration, she traveled with or ahead of the president around the world, negotiating on behalf of the White House and producing presidential events, from G-8 summits to rallies of several hundred thousand to celebrate the end of the Cold War to town hall meetings in America. At the Pentagon, she served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense primarily on defense-reform issues. Her final title was acting Principal Assistant Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Industrial Affairs and Installations). For her work there she was awarded the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service.
Roth-Douquet is a member of the Democratic Leadership Council, a Fellow with the Truman Project, and a strategist and fundraiser within the Democratic Party. Outside of politics and government, she has been involved with private foundations, as vice president of the Revlon Foundation and as director of special projects for the Nathan Cummings Foundation. She was a weekly commentator on a current-affairs television show in Japan and has taught American Government for the University of Maryland's University College in Japan.
Sylvia Kidd
Director of Family Programs
Association of the U.S. Army (AUSA)
When Sylvia Kidd's husband (Sergeant Major of the Army Richard A. Kidd) was active duty, Sylvia help design and start up the Army Family Team Building Program. She has since played a major role in improving all Army family programs from the Pentagon to the pavement level. In the process, she has helped Army leaders to see the value that families bring to the Army, and now the other services are implementing her ideas. If you haven't attended her family programs and FRG training at the annual AUSA conference, or at Army installations worldwide, then take time out of your schedule to be amazed.
Sylvia Kidd has been associated with the Army her entire life. She is the daughter of a career soldier, the wife of a career soldier and was also the mother of a Soldier during her son’s Army service.
During her association with the United States Army, Mrs. Kidd has been active in community and family activities. She is one of the original developers of the Army Family Team Building Program and in recognition of her contribution has had an AFTB volunteer award named for her. Mrs. Kidd has served in numerous volunteer positions at installation level as well as at Department of the Army and Department of Defense level and has accumulated over 8,500 hours of Army Community Service time.
The quality of life for soldiers and their families has long been a high priority for Mrs. Kidd. She was selected to serve on a review panel convened by the General Accounting Office at the request of Senators Domenici and Stevens along with Representative Nethercutt. The committee was charged with evaluating the impact of quality of life on retention of soldiers and recruitment of new soldiers. She has served as a commissioner of the Defense Science Board Quality of Life Task Force. Mrs. Kidd has served as President and Director of Government Relations for another military family related non-profit Association and in that capacity has testified before committees of the Congress on health care and other quality of life issues. She also represented the Chief of Staff of the Army at military funerals as an Army Arlington Lady.
Mrs. Kidd is currently the Director of Family Programs for the Association of the United States Army (AUSA). In that position she continues to serve Army families by helping them become aware of the many programs and benefits that are available to assist them with the challenges of Army life and also representing Army families on various councils and advisory boards.
During her years of service to the soldiers and family members of the Army, Mrs. Kidd has received many awards, including being the first recipient of the Dr. Mary E. Walker Award. She is a member of the Order of St. Joan D’Arc, Order of the White Plume and has received the Department of the Army Patriotic Civilian Service Award. Mrs. Kidd was also awarded the Commanding General’s Excellence Achievement Award, Commanders Certificate of Achievement and the Commander’s Award for Civilian Public Service as well as the Decoration for Distinguished Civilian Service.
Joyce Wessel Raezer
Executive Director
National Military Family Association
Joyce is a tireless advocate of military families and often does not get credit for her work on the less sexy but deeply critical issues affecting us. Terms like 'Survivor Benefits' and 'Tricare for Life' may sound boring now, but Joyce helps makes sure that military families and wounded warriors are not living in stark poverty when the worst crises occur.
Joyce joined the staff of the Government Relations Department of the National Military Family Association as a volunteer in September 1995. In February 1998, she was selected for the paid position of Senior Issues Specialist for the Association and subsequently served as the Department’s Deputy Associate Director and Associate Director before being promoted to Director in December 2001. In February 2007, she was hired by the NMFA Board of Governors as Chief Operating Officer and became Executive Director in November 2007. In that position, Joyce guides the management of the Association’s programs and initiatives that serve the families of the seven Uniformed Services.
Joyce has represented military families on several committees and task forces for offices and agencies of the Department of Defense (DoD) and military Services, including the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA), the U.S. Army Community and Family Support Center, and the TRICARE Management Activity (TMA). She served as a member of the Defense Commissary Agency (DeCA) Patron Council from February 2001 to 2007. Joyce has served on several committees of The Military Coalition, an organization of 36 military-related associations. She was co-chair of the Coalition’s Personnel, Compensation, and Commissaries Committee from 2000 to 2007. From September 1999 to December 2000, she was a member of a Congressionally-mandated Federal Advisory Panel on DoD Health Care Quality Initiatives. From June 1999 to June 2001, Joyce served on the first national Board of Directors for the Military Child Education Coalition. In 2004, she authored a chapter on “Transforming Support to Military Families and Communities” in a book published by the MIT Press, Filling the Ranks: Transforming the U.S. Military Personnel System. She has been a member of the TriWest Healthcare Alliance Executive Advisory Board since 2007.
Joyce was the 1997 recipient of the Margaret Vinson Hallgren Award for her advocacy on behalf of military families and the National Military Family Association. She also received the “Champion for Children” award from the Military Impacted Schools Association in 1998. In 2006, she was named a recipient of the Gettysburg College Distinguished Alumni Award.
CDR René Campos, USN (Ret.)
Deputy Director, Government Relations
Military Officers Association of America (MOAA)
René is the lead advocate for wounded warriors for the Military Officers Association of America -- and that's saying something since MOAA is one of the leading voices on the subject. In that role, René delves into addressing every law, rule and regulation that might present any obstacle to wounded warriors and their families. Yet she also takes the time to help individual families and coordinate with nonprofit agencies who assist them. Indeed, her military service never stopped when she retired.
CDR René Campos joined the MOAA staff, October 1, 2004 as the deputy director, Government Relations, military family issues. In September 2007, she assumed responsibilities for health care issues. CDR Campos began her 30-year career as a photographer's mate, enlisting in the Navy in 1973, and was commissioned a naval officer in 1982. Her subspecialties included manpower and personnel and financial management. Duty assignments included public affairs, recruiting, and personnel policy. Her last assignment was at the Pentagon as the associate director, Office of Family Policy in the office of the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense, Military Personnel and Family Policy. She has a B.A. in criminal justice and psychology from Columbia College and an M.B.A. in organizational management from the University of Phoenix.