Rebecca Casbon is the new contract manager and grant assistant at the I.M. Sulzbacher Center for the Homeless.
HOW LONG HAS SHE BEEN ON THE JOB?
About a week. This is her first civilian job after being in the Navy for 15 years.
WHAT DOES SHE DO AT THE CENTER?
Casbon is the contract manager and grant assistant. She took over for Andy Barber after he was promoted.
HOW DID SHE COME TO WORK AT THE SULZBACHER CENTER?
“After I got out of the Navy, I would have loved to have been a stay-at-home mom and housewife, but I’m too much of a busy body.” Casbon also wanted to put her bachelor’s degree in business to work, so she looked in the classifieds to find a job. “It was kind of frightening because you look in the paper and all you see are fax numbers.”
WHAT DID SHE DO IN THE NAVY?
Casbon’s initial duty service was in Spain where she worked on A-3’s (which are no longer in service), P-3’s and then she was transferred to Florida to work on F-18 engines at Cecil Field. Once she arrived in Jacksonville, a new venture arose. “At that time, they needed an administrative assistant to run their office, so I took that challenge. I had some really good bosses who saw my potential and pushed me toward applying for an officer program, so I took courses to get credit to become a paralegal.”
ANOTHER MOVE
Casbon tried twice to get into an officer program. When that didn’t work out, she moved to Sicily with her husband, who is on active duty in the Navy. In Italy, Casbon worked on T-58 helicopter engines before she applied for a third time to get into an officer program. This time she was accepted. She went through another boot camp and selected the University of Arizona because it was an ROTC campus. Once a commissioned officer, she went through surface warfare training in Newport, R.I.
WHAT DOES SHE THINK OF HER JOB SO FAR?
“The people are great.” She also enjoys her job function. “The work done to benefit the center is amazing. Getting the dollars to sustain the organization is pretty amazing. There’s money out there, you just have to go out and get it.”
WHERE DID SHE GROW UP?
Tucson, Ariz. She attended the University of Arizona, renting a house three blocks from the house she grew up in. “My son got to go to my same elementary school, and my kindergarten teacher was still teaching there, which was pretty scary.”
WHY JACKSONVILLE?
After her training in Rhode Island, she got to choose where she wanted to go. She knew she wanted to go out to sea, so she chose the U.S.S. Carney as a damage control assistant at Mayport. “It was my first time on a ship. My husband had deployments on carriers before, and I had always pretty much been land-based. It was my time to go to sea and it was good.”
WHAT’S THE MOST IMPORTANT LESSON SHE’S LEARNED IN LIFE SO FAR?
“To never take anything for granted. My whole life has taught me that lesson.” She believes you must tell everyone, everyday, how much you love and care about them. “You never know what’s going to happen to them or to you.”
— by Tammy Taylor