Air Force's most tenured recruiter retires

  • Published
  • By Annette Crawford
  • Air Force Recruiting Service
RANDOLPH AIR FORCE BASE, Texas (AFNS) --  Nearly 26 years ago Doug Sikat felt it was time for a change in his three-year Air Force career. The New York City native was a buck sergeant working as an F-15 Eagle crew chief at Kadena Air Base, Japan. While he loved his job, he knew there was something else out there for him.

That "something else" turned out to be a career in recruiting, and on April 23 Chief Master Sgt. Douglas Sikat will retire as the Air Force's most-tenured recruiter.

"The Recruit the Recruiter team came to Kadena and they talked about making a difference and changing lives," Chief Sikat said. "I applied the next day. What intrigued me most was being able to offer kids the same chances and opportunities I had. I could pay it forward."

The most obvious changes between his fledging recruiting days and today are the technological advances, said the chief who spent the past two years serving as superintendent of the strategic marketing and communications division at Headquarters Air Force Recruiting Service.

"At that time the high-tech Air Force consisted of a Smith Corona typewriter," he said. "If you made a mistake you had to take out the black cartridge and put in a white one and hope you got everything lined up. When we moved up to IBM Selectric IIIs we thought we were in heaven; a built-in correction tape!"

The technology payoff came in the form of time. A case file that normally took 1.5 to two hours now takes 20 minutes. If someone sent in a postcard requesting information it could take weeks to get back to them.

"Now it's almost real-time," the chief said. "E-mail, (Air Force Recruiting Information Support System), scanning; they've revolutionized what we do."

While technology has gone through a revolution, Chief Sikat said today's recruits are inherently the same as they were when he joined in 1980.

"They have the desire to serve and to better themselves, but today's young adults are much smarter and well educated," he said. "They have savvy and know what's going on in today's world."

As most Airmen soon discover, the Air Force is a small world and recruiting is no different.

"In recruiting, life comes full circle," Chief Sikat said. "I was teaching a workshop about five years ago and I thought one of the flight chiefs looked familiar. Turns out I recruited him in '87 in Tampa (Fla.)," he said, adding that "People I put into the Air Force 25 years ago want to be my friend on Facebook."

Chief Sikat said he has never lost sight of why he came into recruiting.

"I went from working as a DJ in New York City to being responsible for a multimillion-dollar jet at (age) 18. The Air Force did so much for me and helped me grow a lot as a person."

One of his most poignant examples of how life-changing the Air Force can be is through the story of one of his recruits. The young man was 17 years old and had just graduated from high school.

"He was married and his wife was pregnant," he said. "They really had an uphill battle with a start like that, but he had a lot of determination. He went into the (administration) field and five years later he got commissioned. He had received a full-ride scholarship through the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences and went on to become a pediatrician."

The chief said his favorite assignment was as a flight chief with the 333rd Recruiting Squadron in Miami Lakes, Fla.

"It was a great market and included the Keys and the Caribbean," he said. "I got to see and do things others paid a lot of money for. But the best part of the job was that I got to take someone right out of recruiting school, someone who could barely talk to an audience of one, and help turn them into ambassadors for the Air Force. They'd go on to become flight chiefs, superintendents, etcetera. It was a great feeling."

Chief Sikat said the No. 1 reason for his favorite assignment is that it was the place he met his wife, Marietta. They have three sons Shaun, 25, an Air Force veteran; Dakota, 9; and Drew, 8. The chief said Drew wants to be a Marine, "...But I'm working on that."

The next few weeks will be a whirlwind for the chief as he moves to Fort Worth, Texas, to work for a government contractor. He'll be setting up a recruiting infrastructure within the company's human resources department. He described his new job as a dovetail fit for the skills he's acquired in the Air Force; coaching, leading, training, public speaking.

"This shows that when you're ready to make the move out of the Air Force, don't sell yourself short," Chief Sikat said. "If you did the right things during your career, your leadership and experience make you a great asset for any civilian firm. You are what most people are looking for."