S
haler Area grad Elizabeth Krotec
has been serving her country with
distinction since she joined the
Air Force in 2011. At age 24, she’s
recently achieved the rank of Staff
Sergeant and received the Air Force Special
Operations Air Warfare Center Aerial Gunner
of the Year Award this past February.
Krotec grew up in Millvale and is the
daughter of Lesa and Mark Krotec. While at
Shaler Area High School, she was involved in
softball and worked at the North Hills Water
Gardens where she loved getting outside with
her co-workers. “My hometown shaped me
with a strong, uncompromising mentality,”
says Krotec.
Krotec joined the Air Force after high
school as a means of earning a college
education. She is one of 10 kids—six girls
and four boys. “Money didn’t grow on trees in
our house,” she says. “I had my own source of
income since I was 13, whether it came from
shoveling snow, cutting grass or doing some
kind of yard work for neighbors until I could
legally work for a company.” Krotec received
her associates degree in Aviation through the
Community College of the Air Force and
plans to finish her bachelor’s degree before
she’s done serving.
She started basic training in February
2012, and spent an additional year-and-a-
half training to be fully qualified as an aerial
gunner on an AC-130W plane. “I joined the
Air Force to travel the world, get an education
and obtain a certain skill set I would not have
received in a typical civilian life,” says Krotec.
She has been deployed twice as an aerial
gunner as part of the Operation Enduring
Freedom in Afghanistan in May 2014 and
Operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq and Syria
in May 2015. She flew on AC-130Ws for a
little over four years—working with 30 mm,
105 mm, AGM-176s and GBU-39s. “Where
else in the world can you say you’ve flown on
a side firing asset?” she says.
After returning from her second
deployment, Krotec became the first female
to be an aerial gunner instructor in the 551st
Special Operation Squadron schoolhouse
at Cannon Air Force Base in New Mexico in
December 2016.
Krotec also recently won the Red Erwin
Award for Air Force Special Operations
Command (AFSOC). This award was
MAY HEATING &
AIR CONDITIONING
presented to her for being a distinguished
enlisted flyer. She will now compete at the
Air Force level—meaning against every other
command in the Air Force.
In May, Krotec began training to become
a flight engineer on a UH-1N helicopter.
She will now be stationed in Washington,
D.C., at Joint Base Andrews, and once she
completes her training she will be responsible
for transporting presidential or distinguished
visitors.
“I have quite a few people to thank for
helping me to get to where I am today,” says
Krotec. “First, my family. They are a huge
part of my support system and I talk to my
parents and siblings regularly. Lonnie Mitchell
has been my dad away from home and has
mentored me into becoming the Sergeant I
am today. Finally, my best friend and my ‘ride-
or-die’ Shanise Panich, who has been there
for just about everything since I joined the
Air Force.” (The two were stationed together
at Cannon AFB. Once they received different
assignments, they had to move away from
one another, but it hasn’t stopped them from
meeting up regularly and staying connected
through FaceTime.)
“When someone says no one ever became
great on their own—they weren’t kidding,”
says Krotec. “If it weren’t for these people,
I don’t know where I would be today. I will
never be able to thank them enough for the
time and effort that they have put into me and
it’s quite humbling.”
Krotec plans to stay in the Air Force for a
full 20 years of service. “As for after the Air
Force—I haven’t quite decided what I want to
do when I grow up yet,” she laughs. “For now,
the sky is my office and I wouldn’t want it any
other way.” n
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