Greg Gilroy

This is MSG Gilroy (Ret) with his Order of St Barbara Medal

In Ottawa, KS there was a Sargent Gilroy that either you loved the guy or you hated him and then grew to love him. He was the Unit Administrator for HHB, 1st Bn, 127th FA. At first meeting, I pegged him as a guy that spent all his time making sure everyone else did their job and little time doing his job. In short order, I corrected that mistake and realized that he was teaching everyone else to do their job so that when, or if, the unit went on Active Duty they could all do the job they would have to do. He was a role model for me as I worked my way up in the Leadership of the Guard.

He was also an inspiration for a leadership style that is hard to not follow. Once a person has more than three subordinates, you soon realize that what they do and how they do it is as important as what you do. Grow that out into an organization with a bunch of employees and somewhere there is a supervisor that teaches, monitors performance and spends the rest of his time writing evaluations. I found that a starting place is the job description the person was hired to do. I would cross check this with the performance standards for the previous person and have a rough list to discuss with the new employee.

Greg would help a new guy fill out the required paperwork a couple of times and then observe how the guy did it the next time. They would have a clipboard of tasks to be done at each drill, the paperwork to complete and Greg would check it before the Unit Commander could dismiss the unit. "The work is not done until the paperwork is completed" was more than a cartoon or a bumper sticker.

I hope that Greg is out there enjoying his life without a clipboard for everyone in his family. He worked as hard as anyone I knew and I am a lesser man for not telling him earlier that I am proud to have him as one of the people I knew. Via Vi Greg.

MUD