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Commitment, attitude and trust are three areas Command Sgt. Maj. Brian N. Hauke emphasizes when mentoring Soldiers, and building a great U.S. Army Garrison Rheinland-Pfalz team with those elements is what he aims to do.
Hauke recently assumed responsibility as the garrison’s highest enlisted noncommissioned officer in September and is tackling issues and building his garrison team from the bottom up.
“Commitment, attitude and trust are essential to building a team. Everyone needs to be committed to their job. You made a commitment when you joined the Army as a Soldier or civilian,” said Hauke, an Orlando, Florida, native. “When you make a commitment, you promise to fulfill an obligation every day to the best of your ability, whether it’s for three years or 30. I’d ask that you fulfill that commitment wherever you find yourself serving, to honor that commitment to the organization, the Army and the nation.”
About his second point — attitude — Hauke said that every day is not an easy day in the Army or wherever you work. People must possess a great attitude every day to make it through the tough days, and many military forces and families have lived through those hard days with deployments and daily challenges. So, coming to work with a positive attitude makes all the difference, he said.
“Lastly, there’s trust. You must have implicit trust for your Soldiers and junior leaders in your organization,” Hauke said. “They have to be able to trust who you are, and that’s done through a number of ways: leading by personal example, leading from the front, deeds not words and ensuring you are building an organization that trusts at all levels in their leaders and in the subordinates so we are able to accomplish our missions.”
Hauke knows firsthand how to work on and build Army teams during his years of experience in several duties, to include UH-60 crew chief, battalion and company aviation life support equipment NCO in charge, Army recruiter, platoon sergeant, first sergeant and command sergeant major.
He had strong leaders to learn from. His grandfather served in the Army Air Corps flying B-29s in the Pacific during WWII, and his father was a Navy Seabee who served two tours during the Vietnam War. Even though the military wasn’t pushed on him, Hauke and his family carried on that military tradition. He, his wife, son and daughter-in-law all served as Army aviation operations specialists.
The command sergeant major has had several mentors throughout his 27 years in the Army, but one positively influenced him during a pivotal time in his career.
“Sergeant 1st Class Tite Mahone was my platoon sergeant here in Germany from 1992 to 1995. He really personified leading by personal example and ‘what right should look like’ as a noncommissioned officer,” Hauke recalled. “As a maintainer of UH-60s, he took me under his wing and showed me what great NCOs in our Army do and how to become a better NCO.”
Although Mahone has been retired for a number of years in Dutton, North Carolina, he and Hauke still keep in touch.
“We still talk to this day, and I had him come out in 2009 to promote me to sergeant major at the Sergeant Major Academy, so I absolutely value his opinion, friendship and mentorship,” he said. “I’m the NCO that I am today, because of the NCO he was then.”
With all the experience and mentoring he’s received over the years, here is what the garrison can expect from the leader Hauke is today.
“I live by the Army Core Values and enforce the Army standards,” said the Florida Gators fan. “I’m very upfront and honest — in some cases, probably brutally honest. But I think we owe our subordinates or Soldiers that, but also praise them for what they are doing well.”
With boots on the ground for only a few weeks in Rheinland-Pfalz, the command sergeant major summed up his impression of the garrison in one word: professional.
“From our Soldiers to our Department of the Army civilian employees to our local-national employees, I’m thoroughly impressed with our entire force,” he said. “What we do at USAG RP is not a small task, and it takes each and every one of us to make the mission happen. So far, everyone is getting it all done and done well in supporting our garrison families.”
