More than 300 Airmen and Guardians from across Air Education and Training Command and United States Space Force came together for the second annual Torch Athena Rally Aug. 27-28 in San Antonio, leveraging education to inspire and empower women.
The annual rally is hosted by the major command level women's initiatives program, called Torch Athena, and identifies and collaboratively addresses issues while building peer and mentorship connections among event participants, according to organizers.
Maj. Kali Myers, 344th Recruiting Squadron director of operations and Torch Athena Rally lead planner, said the goal for this year's rally is to "Light the Path" toward readiness, honor the women who have carved the path before and inspire future leaders to apply essential pillars on their path forward.
"The purpose of Torch Athena is to create actionable items that we can change into policy in order to remove barriers for women and family readiness," Myers said. "I want Airmen to walk away from the rally and know that they do make a difference. They can have impact."
She emphasized that Torch Athena is more than the two-day rally, and instead is a year-round program allowing volunteers to work toward lines of effort and find solutions contributing to policy changes within the major command.
It is with purposeful change in mind that keynote speaker Lt. Gen. Brian Robinson, AETC commander, addressed attendees at the rally's opening day.
"Harnessing the skills and perspectives of women across our formations is crucial as it enhances decision-making and strategy through diverse viewpoints, improves team dynamics and overall effectiveness, and expands operational capabilities," Robinson said. "Tapping into this critical resource allows our Airmen and Guardians to foster the innovation and leadership essential to strengthening our readiness, increasing our effectiveness in the battlespace, and effectively contributing to our lethality as the world's greatest Air Force."
Robinson encouraged those in attendance to leverage their commanders to be involved and become advocates in effecting change essential to better honing their craft at the tactical and squadron levels.
"This is a concerted effort. If we're not making your job more effective, more efficient, then we're focused on the wrong things," Robinson said. He also said he holds rally participants accountable for delivering on the things that matter and pledges AETC's commitment to earnestly evaluate efforts for change with sound rationale.
"We are here for you," he said. "We want to hear all of your ideas."
Torch Athena rally participants consisted primarily of first-term Airmen who heard from various AETC leaders, plus 40 speakers and panelists along with mentoring sessions, workshops and interactive events.
"We want more prioritized interaction from the attendees. We want them to feel invested in the experience and contribute," Myers said. "We want attendees to feel like they have a voice in the conversation of building these policies and making change. To do that, we really have opened the floor this year for collaboration, discussions and contributions in breakout sessions and working groups."
The 2024 Torch Athena Rally theme, "Light the Path," builds upon its 2023 successes while addressing five core pillars - wielding, wonder, wellness, wisdom, and warrior - to develop a diverse and creative force. Myers explained the five pillars were developed based on her own personal experience during the 2023 rally. She worked with her team of event leads and planners to further refine and outline each pillar.
Wielding focuses on developing tools through a circle of influence and exposure to diverse role models in order to improve resiliency. Wellness includes women's health advocacy and identifying key health milestones. Wisdom emphasizes learning from senior leaders who have already successfully broken barriers. Warrior involves mirroring the spirit of women who were firsts in their respective fields. Wonder calls for building enthusiasm and excitement to drive contributions at the individual, organizational and Air Force levels.
Attendees also had the opportunity to participate in a book exchange, allowing donors to include an inspirational note with contributions. Over the two days, participants also had the chance to meet with representatives from more than a dozen organizations offering information and various resources.
The focus by members of AETC's Torch Athena initiative is to empower women through education, which compliments initiatives by the service's other major commands. These include Air Combat Command's Sword Athena that is dedicated to generating policy change directly affecting readiness and Air Mobility Command's quarterly Reach Athena podcast that highlights women in the Air Force and family-centric successes.
