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Hoff retires after 35 years

  • Published
  • By 1st Lt. Clay Chaffin
  • 375th Logistics Readiness Squadron

SCOTT AIR FORCE BASE, Ill. -- It’s been 35 years—35 years of hard work and dedication—and all anyone else of the 375th Logistics Readiness Squadron at Scott Air Force Base is asking for is just one more year.

That is, except Alice Hoff.

At long last, however, Hoff is retiring after a highly successful career. She will certainly be missed, as she made a tremendous impact, and the 375th LRS is exceptionally proud to have been part of her career.

Born in the small town Red Bud, just 30 miles south of Scott, Hoff grew up with the love and desire to read and learn. This admiration would eventually turn itself into a job working at a school library in Freeburg where her life would ultimately change forever. At 16, Hoff met her future life mentor and friend, Dolores Schneider, who also was head librarian and Hoff’s boss. Schneider took a personal interest in Hoff and was determined to help her succeed.

Over the next two years, Schneider helped Hoff, influencing her to enroll for the Civil Service exam, which Hoff passed effortlessly. Leaving her beloved Freeburg library in 1982, Hoff called the Corps of Engineers in St. Louis the start of her new career as a civil servant. Before long, however, she returned to Illinois as a secretary for the Air Force Communications Command.

Together with her husband, Staff Sgt. Ron Hoff, they traveled across the country to Lackland Air Force Base and Bergstrom Air Force Base, both in Texas, and then to Zweibrucken Air Base in Germany. As a civil servant, Alice Hoff encountered tremendous difficulty searching for available job openings. After one more trip back to the states to Onizuka Air Force Station in California, the Hoffs returned to Scott.

For the next 14 years, Hoff excelled in the 375th LRS by transforming the Materiel Management Flight from a contractor-run organization into a civil servant sector. She proficiently created 27 jobs and hired her first civil servant, Vivian Curtis, in 2003.

“The path to success in any job requires one to be virtuous with other people and learning to deal with multiple personalities,” said Hoff. “Only then will you be able to accomplish your goals. Be faithful to yourself and to your job! It’s extremely difficult but if you can do that, you’ll find the key!”

Hoff certainly will miss her job and the people she works with, but she is ready to move on to the next step in life.

Hoff will take her talents to the Armed Forces Vacation Club and begin traveling across the country. Eventually, she will visit the heart of Colorado, where her daughter, Kristina, has challenged her to experience a hot air balloon ride across the continental divide. Hoff is afraid of heights, but she is up for the challenge.

All in all, while Hoff may have never put on the uniform, she’s served valiantly in the Air Force, and is now ready for the next adventure.