Jennifer Jones

I have been in logistics for about 20 years as active duty military, and I'm getting ready to retire. My background is in logistics and supply chain management, and I'm currently based out of Scott Air Force Base in Illinois. I'm originally from Covington, Georgia, and I came into the military a few months after I graduated high school. I've always been inspired to serve, but I hadn't had any family or any background awareness of what that actually means to serve. So I signed up, got shipped off to basic training a couple months after I graduated, and I've been in ever since. I love supply chain management. I have my Associates in Supply Chain Management, my bachelor's is in Operations Management and Analysis from the University of Arizona Global Campus, and I'm currently in school pursuing my MBA with them as well. As I transition out of the military, I'm going through that phase of finding out who I want to be when I grow up, because when you get out of the military, you don't have your military identity as your sole identity anymore. I feel very much called to serve, so I know I will be doing something, whether it's volunteer work or getting involved with veterans, especially women veterans, to help wherever I can. One of my passions is herbalism, and I'm in a class for clinical herbalism on a 10-acre farm out in Alton. We meet once a month in person and then have online live classes. It's a small group of 10 of us, and the ladies are great - they're from all walks of life. I feel like I found my people. I'm really interested in the herbalism aspect, taking a more natural, more holistic approach, and finding ways that I can plug in to help veteran women with PTSD, anxiety, and all the things that come with being a female in the military. I'm a mother of three children, and my daughter is graduating this year and going off to college. There's a lot of transition in our household, but we are so excited and looking forward to the next chapter. Although logistics is my background and I do very well in it, if herbalism takes me down another route, I'm excited and open to any opportunities.