Key Spouse spotlight: Elicia Embrey

Elicia Embrey has been a key spouse since 2013. When her husband, then-Staff Sgt. Joe Embrey, an aircraft electrician with the 442d Aircraft Maintenance Squadron here, deployed with the wing in 2012, she said she was told she would hear from a key spouse, but never did.

“I decided to become a key spouse so that I could take care of other people in the unit and make sure that didn’t happen – as far as I could control – again.”

When former 442 AMXS commander Maj. Daniel Posch left, and before his successor Capt. James Chevalier, arrived, Embrey was asked by the key spouse program’s coordinator at the time, Mrs. Mary Borgen, to step in and fill the role of key spouse mentor for the squadron.

As a mentor, she is responsible to assigning families to members of the key spouse team and to answer questions from the team members. She is also there to correspond with the commander and to keep the key spouses together as a cohesive unit.

Embrey feels the best part of being a key spouse is the opportunity to take care of family members.

“There’s so many people that have questions,” she said, “and I feel like the team and I do make it easier for them. We try to answer their questions as quickly as possible and get their information to them so they’re not in the dark.”

It’s also about retention, she explains. “It’s just all about being connected into the unit, and the more connected the spouses feel, the happier they are. And if you have a happy spouse, the member’s less likely to leave.”