Iowa National Guard Adjutant General's 'Gatekeeper' Readies For Retirement

Carolyn Birch calls herself a gatekeeper. As executive assistant to the Adjutant General of the Iowa National Guard, it’s been her role to stay two steps ahead of the man in charge and the senior staff in the office, whether scheduling meetings and events at Camp Dodge or ensuring that everything they need to handle for an Iowa unit’s deployment is in place.

Birch, who lives in Des Moines’ Beaverdale neighborhood, retires Thursday. She looks forward to taking it easy and doing “whatever I want, whenever I want” as she makes the transition, she told Patch on Wednesday, but her early days on the job were anything but easy.

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Birch, 64, worked for the City of Des Moines and the Internal Revenue Service before joining Camp Dodge in the mid-1980s. Her first stint was in the field maintenance shop, then she retired as a federal employee serving the Chief of Staff of the Iowa Army National Guard. After two weeks off, she returned to Camp Dodge and her State of Iowa civilian position in the Adjutant General’s office.

That was Sept. 10, 2001. The next day, the office work pace and the world would dramatically change.

“It was frantic and everybody was just feeling their way through that whole occurrence,” she recalled about the terror attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. “No one had ever been through anything like that. You didn’t know what was going to happen tomorrow, or the next day or the next week.”

But she said the spirit of teamwork never faltered and that’s one of the things she has enjoyed through her 16 years in the office. “Everyone was driving forward as a team. With information coming from Washington, D.C., and from the governor, there were a lot of conference calls and meetings. We would always say ‘next week will be better,’ but it really never is. It’s a pretty high-tempo place.”

Birch helped the office personnel weather the Floods of 1993 and numerous mobilizations in her role as the “gatekeeper” who makes sure that the tempo -- and Major Gen Orr -- stay on pace.

“It’s travel and events and everything that goes along with that: Does he have a read ahead, will he be speaking, what’s the attire, who else is going, are the pre-travel arrangements made, approvals for funding,” she explained. “There’s bureaucracy every time you turn around.”

Col. Greg Hapgood, public affairs officer for the Iowa National Guard, said Birch oversimplified her role and duties.

“Her job is to make sure all the senior leadership she has responsibilities for have everything they need. It’s incredibly detailed work that takes a lot of time and coordination,” he told Patch. “We’re going to miss so many things about her. She was the hub of which the rest of the wheel of the organization moves around.”

Hapgood said Birch knew what happened at all levels of the organization “and anticipated things we needed before we knew we needed them,” and she communicated that at all levels to everyone who could benefit from it.

“The responsibilities she holds go to every level of the organization,” he said. “She didn’t affect the people of this office solely; she affected so many organizations within the Iowa National Guard.”

Birch, who is known at the office as one to never forget a birthday and always have candy at her desk, said she is immensely proud of the Iowa National Guard staff and its dedication.

“The commitment that this office has, and that subordinate offices have for their airmen, soldiers and civilian employees, it’s more than devotion,” she said. “Everybody takes the organization as their first priority. They take the point of view of ‘I want to do what’s best for the organization and i want to do it well.’ ”

Orr said in an Iowa National Guard social media story about Birch’s retirement that her institutional knowledge will be difficult to replace, but he also will miss her compassion and professionalism.

“Carolyn has been like a mother to me in many ways, especially during periods of time when we’ve had casualties and had bad things happen to people,” he said in that interview.

He also praised her dedication to the job, which included working many hours when it wasn’t required.

“She never wanted to see us fail in any way,” he said. “She worked every drill weekend and she didn’t have to. She ensured we had a successful weekend.”

Birch, 64, has been working with her replacement for about six weeks and Hapgood told Patch there are big shoes to fill once she leaves.

“What Carolyn does she has been doing a long, long time and she is incredibly talented at it,” he said. “You don’t teach somebody that in six weeks. It takes years.”

Photos courtesy of Iowa National Guard