• DALLAS 

Anna Jeffries, the associate officer of Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) for the Army & Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES) since November 2023, retired on Sept. 26, putting a cap on a nearly 30-year Exchange career. 

AAFES named Jenny Hall, applications systems analyst program manager, as her successor. 

JEFFRIES’ RESUME 

In 1996, Jeffries — a European-born military spouse —  joined the Exchange as an intermittent sales associate in Mainz-Kastel, Germany. Within two years, she was store manager of a stand-alone PowerZone.

She worked at Mainz-Kastel until 2001, moving from the PowerZone to managing the SuperSports Store, the Exchange’s largest sports store in Europe.  

Her then-husband was assigned to Fort Polk, La., and she asked to be assigned to the Fort Polk Exchange, but there were no vacancies. She was told the closest opening was at Barksdale AFB, about 130 miles north of Fort Polk.  

In October 2001, she started at the Barksdale AFB main store as a sales area manager.

In January 2003, Jeffries moved to Fort Polk, where she was operations manager at a PX-Mart. A few months later, her husband deployed to Iraq, and when he returned, he was reassigned to JBSA-Fort Sam Houston, Texas, while she remained at Fort Polk. 

Jeffries and her husband ended their relationship, and it is at Fort Polk that she met her future husband, Doug Jeffries, the Central Region retail program specialist.

She later had an opportunity to become sales and merchandise manager at Nellis AFB, Nev., and in November 2008, Jeffries received her first general manager (GM) assignment, at Beale AFB, Calif.

A GM assignment at Offutt AFB, Neb., followed, and in June 2013, Jeffries moved here to headquarters as Human Resources (HR) manager for the North Central Region.  

In September 2016, Jeffries returned to Germany, where she was chief of Employee Relations for Europe/SWA, in September 2016. 

After five years in on the continent, Jeffries returned here to headquarters, where she was chief of career assignments. Two years later, in November 2023, she became AAFES’s EEO associate officer, and will take that into retirement.  

FINAL THOUGHTS

“Our mission, getting to learn more and more about the Exchange, serving those who serve, our core values …  I identify with our mission and the core values,” Jeffries noted. “I always tell people I don’t think there’s any other organization that I could work for.”  

Source: AAFES 

Edited by Larry Lapka