Civilian employee remembers career

Theresa Thomas retired Aug. 29 after more than three decades in federal service. She worked at DeWitt Army Community Hospital since 1994. (Photo by Marny Malin)

From Soldiers, Sailors and Marines to President George H.W. Bush, Theresa Thomas has seen it all in her more than three decades of government service.

The outgoing woman with the vivacious smile and ready laugh retired last week following a career that took her from Washington, D.C., to Marine Corps Base Quantico and finally to Fort Belvoir, where she has worked for DeWitt Army Community Hospital since 1994.

"The truth is, I've never had a job that I didn't like," she said. "I am very blessed to have had so many jobs, to have learned from so many different people. I worked for every military agency except for the Air Force, and my whole family was Air Force."

Thomas was born on Aug. 18, 1945, in Washington, D.C., three days after Victory over Japan Day. The mother of three and grandmother of six has a resume that includes stints with Continental Trailways and the Seaboard Detective Agency, where she became proficient with a firearm.

Thomas began her civil service career by working for the Coast Guard, where she assigned hull numbers to small vessels and ships and did research on the Titanic. She joined the General Service Administration, where she worked for then-President Richard Nixon's Cost of Living Counsel.

Thomas then went to work at Quantico Marine Corps Base, where she joined the HMX-1, the presidential helicopter unit.

"I had some guards follow me all the time," she said with a laugh. "You could not go aboard the planes."

During one memorable day, Thomas literally ran into President George H.W. Bush, who had come do a briefing for servicemembers and to play golf and ride horses with her boss.

Bush was coming around the corner when Thomas came upon him.

"I looked at him, I said ëI know you,' " she said as she snapped her fingers. "ëYou're George, you're George ... Bush.' "

The former president smiled and said that he was, prompting Thomas to ask where his wife, Barbara, was. Told that Mrs. Bush was at the White House, Thomas told the president to bring his wife the next time he came.

"That went out on TV," she said with a laugh and a shake of her head. "I didn't know I was on TV."

Thomas came to Fort Belvoir and DeWitt Army Community Hospital 13 years ago, when she began work with the Family Practice Clinic. She eventually supported pediatrics, internal medicine and the appointment center and became the first ambulatory data systems processor.

On Sept. 11, 2001, Thomas began her association with the Managed Care Division as a health systems assistant and, over the course of the next six years, advanced to become a supervisory health systems specialist, supervising the health systems branch of the managed care division, the position she held up to her retirement.

Still mourning the loss of her husband of more than 40 years, Thomas plans to take a cruise to Alaska that the couple had been planning before his death last year.

"What a beautiful world God has given us, and I want to see it before I go," she said.