• DALLAS
Robert Rice, regional vice president (VP) of the Army & Air Force Exchange Service’s (AAFES) West Coast Region since 2017, retired on Aug. 29, closing out a more than 30-year Exchange career.
Joanna Cahalan, former general manager (GM) of the Fort Bliss, Texas, Exchange, will be his successor.
RICE’S RESUME
Rice, the youngest of six children, grew up in a military family in Nurnberg, Germany, where the family moved back and forth from Germany and to the United States as his father went through multiple deployments.
His first job with the Exchange was stateside, at Aberdeen PG, Md., where he described himself as “the Burger King broiler boy.”
After his father retired from the military, the family moved to Clarksville, Tenn., near Fort Campbell, Ky. Because Rice was in his senior year of high school, he received permission to stay in Aberdeen.
He worked at a civilian retail store for a while, but he rejoined his parents after about eight months and attended college at Austin Peay State University, Clarksville, where he received his bachelor of business administration degree in business and economics.
After graduation, Rice was part of AAFES’s College Trainee Program, and at the end of August 1993, he joined the Fairchild AFB, Wash., Exchange, and by January 1994, he was promoted to sales area manager.
In November 1994, Rice joined the Camp Butler, Okinawa, Exchange as a sales area manager.
After three years at Camp Butler, Rice moved on to Guam, where he managed the Four Seasons at the Andersen AFB Exchange.
In June 1999, Rice was back in Tennessee, this time at Arnold AFB, where he managed the small Exchange there, a southern Tennessee store that is part of the Fort Campbell system.
Having married and had a child, in November 1999, he moved on to the Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, Exchange, where he was sales and merchandise manager for about a year and a half. His second daughter was born there.
In November 2001, Rice returned to Germany, beginning as sales and merchandise manager at Vogelweh, part of the Kaiserslautern Military Community (KMC) Exchange.
Rice moved back and forth between the Vogelweh and Ramstein stores, first as a sales and merchandise manager at one and then at the other, until he became retail business manager (RBM) for all of KMC.
After a brief stint as RBM, he became the main store manager at Vogelweh.
During this time in Germany, he also deployed to the Balkans. In January 2003, Rice was part of a team that set up new stores in Kosovo, at Pristina and Camp Bondsteel.
Rice also deployed to Qatar, where he set up stores at Al Udeid AB and Camp As Sayliyah.
In July 2005, Rice left Germany to become the store manager at RAF Lakenheath, U.K., where he would rise to his first general manager (GM) job in late 2007.
In November 2008, Rice returned to Okinawa as store manager at the Kadena AB Exchange. Nearly three years later, in September 2011, he returned to the states to become GM of the Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., Exchange, and in February 2015, he became GM of the Hawaii Exchange.
In May 2017, Rice was named regional VP of the West Coast Region, based at the Nellis AFB, Nev., Exchange, with an area of responsibility covering Nevada, California and Arizona.
FINAL THOUGHTS
“Having been an Army brat my entire life, I’ve seen what the Exchange has done for me and my family, supporting us during the many times my father was deployed,” he said. “This has been my way of giving back.
“That’s what ‘family serving family’ means to me, that I’m able to give back and honor my father and the best customer in the world — who was my mother. She absolutely loved the PX.”
Source: AAFES
Edited by Larry Lapka
