After four decades of service, Scheible set to retire

Carolyn Scheible began her civil service career in 1974 aboard NAS Kingsville.

At the beginning of March, she will retire with more than four decades of service to the Navy and a few years with the Social Security Administration.

“I started out as a GS-02 clerk typist one year after graduating from Bishop High School, in Bishop, Texas,” she said. “Working with the military was a whole new world for me.”

Scheible spent 7 years with VT-21, being promoted to a GS-05 budget clerk, prior to taking a position with the Social Security Administration in Baytown, Texas.

“Once I became a budget clerk, I began to learn a lot about aircraft maintenance, when I was not too busy with my primary duties. That was knowledge that helped me throughout my career with the Navy,” she said.

In 1985, Scheible returned to South Texas and VT-21 aboard NASK.

“I was there for a couple of years when the Navy began to really encourage civil service employees into the safety program, so I applied and became a safety specialist.

“I also had to commit to a lot of training over the course of two years,” she adds. “This gave me the chance to travel the country attending various schools and meeting great people.”

Scheible said that she was promoted within the safety program, eventually becoming the safety manager for NASK in 1998. She served in that position until 2004 when she was selected to become the Navy Region South program director aboard NASCC and then reassigned to the NASCC Safety Department in October 2006.

“Due to realignment in 2007, I was selected into the safety manager position for NASCC that I’ve now served in for the past 11 years,” Scheible said.

Along the way throughout her career, Scheible also became a cancer survivor.

“In 1996 I was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer,” she said. “That began a very long journey and fight that lasted 10 years with surgery, chemotherapy and a lot of medications.”

She had 28 radiation treatments over the course of aggressively battling the disease.

Her battle also led her to other opportunities to be an advocate for cancer patients throughout the United States, travelling to Washington, D.C., as an American Cancer Society ambassador to help lobby for research and treatment funding in 2001 and again in 2005.

Scheible said she just celebrated her 21st “re-birth” day on Feb. 3.

“I really find it hard to believe it’s been 43 years that I have been a federal government employee,” she said. “I’ve enjoyed my time with the Navy quite a bit and wouldn’t change a thing.”

Scheible feels she is leaving the safety program in good hands.

The base is a part of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s Voluntary Protection Program challenge and on its way to Star Status (excellence in safety), according to Scheible. In addition, the base was awarded the Chief, Naval Operations Safety and Occupational Health Shore Safety Award in 2014.

Scheible herself was personally awarded NASCC Manager of the Year in 2010 and 2014.

Her plans after retirement include spending more time with her grandsons and maintaining the acreage she resides on.

“I want to try gardening, now that I’ll have more time to spend on it. I’m also working on becoming a court appointed advocate for children in difficult situations,” she added. “Overall, I will let my faith in Christ guide me as to what I should be doing.”