Streamwood vet puts Army experience to work
Michelle Caraballo of Streamwood has made the transition from war zone to work zone, while helping one retailer expand in the suburbs.
Caraballo was a U.S. Army captain, one of 200 women on a post with 9,000 men serving in Baghdad. The challenges she faced, and the training she received, now are being used to manage the Walmart store in Streamwood. Construction on the new super center, including grocery, deli and bakery, is expected to be finished by June. She's also lining up more “troops,” expanding her work force from 220 to 350.
“Building out a store has been a unique experience,” said Caraballo, 27.
The military, she says, prepares its men and women “to manage several things at the same time and to have a strong management team behind you.”
Caraballo is one of 225 veterans recruited for Walmart's Junior Military Officer program. The program was created in 2008 and recruits military officers who are transitioning to civilian careers. They are trained through an existing operations training program at the company. The program was extended in 2009 to senior enlisted personnel, said Walmart spokesman Phillip Keene.
The recruitment program is led by retired Brigadier General Gary M. Profit, who served 31 years in the U.S. Army.
Caraballo, who was born in Germany while her parents also served in the Army, later grew up in Gurnee and attended high school in Mundelein. But the military was in her blood, so when she was attending the University of Wisconsin in Madison, she met an ROTC officer and “decided to take the challenge,” she said.
After receiving her bachelor's degree in philosophy in 2005, she entered basic training in Maryland and then served in the first infantry based in Kansas.
From February 2007 to April 2008, she served in Baghdad, dodging rocket-propelled grenades on a daily basis.
By that December, she was honorably discharged and looked for a civilian job in operations or logistics. She was recruited by Walmart and underwent training, which included a period as a store manager in Indianapolis.
In 2009, Caraballo was transferred to Jacksonville, Fla., to manage her own super center.
“The first day was pretty nerve-racking,” she said. “I was used to getting bombed, but not used to a new job, in a new store, in a new city.”
But Caraballo found a lot of support through her colleagues and later transferred to Streamwood to help with its expansion. She works a variety of hours, whatever's needed to keep the expansion plan on schedule, she said.
And sometimes those plans include major holidays and the craziness that surrounds them, such as Black Fridays at Walmart. Doorbusters are notorious with long lines, sometimes unruly customers, and a mad rush to the sale-priced items. The stores have since put in several procedures to protect customers as well as employees. But it still can be a bit crazy, she admits.
“When it comes down to it,” Caraballo said, “the military training helps.”