Sea Change
Her primary duty was offshore fire fighter
Amy Pitigliano’s father Sam served in both the Army and the Navy in the 1960’s, and it might seem that she was following a family tradition when she also joined the Navy in 1988. But her decision had more to do with the simple recommendation of a friend who had just enlisted.
“She said to me, ‘Hey I just joined the Navy. You should come down and talk to them,’” said Pitigliano. “It was a way to get out of town and go other places, but knowing that [my father] had been in the military for seven years made it an easy decision.”
So after graduating high school in three years and enlisting with her parents’ consent at age 17, she was off on her adventure, and little did she know how many “other places” her time with the Navy would take her.
She attended basic training in Orlando, Fla., and after graduating she went to seamen training for an additional five weeks, and was subsequently stationed on a ship in Oahu, Hawaii. As a deck seaman, or “deck ape,” Pitigliano recalls the hard work of painting and mooring the ship, as well as her primary duty as offshore firefighting. She was part of the team that responded when the Exxon Houston ran aground outside of Oahu in March of 1989.
She served two years of arduous sea duty, and her travels took her to destinations like Tahiti and Samoa, and some places most people have never heard of like Funafuti and Rarotonga.
“If you ever looked at a postcard with white sandy beaches and thought, ‘I want to go there,’ those were the places
we were going. It was amazing,” she said.
After two years as a deck seaman, Pitigliano had the opportunity to select a school for further training, and she chose to go to electronics school in Pensacola, Fla., to study cryptologic technician maintenance. Armed with top secret clearance, she performed maintenance and support on sensitive equipment at naval communication stations in Guam, San Diego and Virginia.
Pitigliano struggled with the challenges of sexual harassment and discrimination during a military era when incidents weren’t reported like they are today. She recalls a time when she reported an inappropriate comment made to her by a superior officer, and was disheartened by the response she received.
“The answer at that time, the late 80’s and early 90’s, was ‘You don’t want to do that, do you? He’s got a family.’ I was 18, so that’s the way it was,” she said.
She describes being treated harshly by male supervisors during her time as a deck seaman, and every crew member was aware of the way she and other women were being treated.
“It was another world. I was a woman, and my [supervisor] was a man who had never worked with women before,” she said. “The discrimination was obvious. That was a challenge navigating that kind of stuff at that time, not having the support they do now.”
She also recalls enduring more universal challenges, such as trying to manage a family that lives in the United States when she was stationed in Guam.
But Pitigliano persevered through the adversity, and discovered a lot about herself in the process.
“I learned that I can do anything. I repaired ships. I did very dangerous things like putting out fires at sea and rescuing ships that ran aground. It was unbelievable,” she said.
Pitigliano returned to civilian life after nine years of service, and used her electronics training to acquire jobs with Intel, Geico and Beckman-coulter. Then, after more than a decade in the workforce, she discovered a new passion and a new learning opportunity that would change the shape of her future.
She became interested in social work, and with some help from Employment Connection in Porterville, used her VA benefits to continue her education. She attended Porterville College, then California State University, Bakersfield, where she earned a bachelor’s degree. She is currently pursuing a master’s degree in social work from USC through online courses, and is also a substitute teacher.
Pitigliano can’t quite recall exactly when or why she became interested in social work, but attributes it to her cumulative experiences in the Navy and the civilian workforce.
“I’ve toggled between technical jobs, customer service jobs, and working with my hands, but I’ve always worked with people,” she said. “Somewhere along the way in the last five to eight years I just became fascinated with working with people.”
Her current coursework is “filling her head with ideas” about how to help those in need and improve her community, and she is looking forward to becoming an agent of change in her hometown.
“We’re all in this together in the same community, and there’s a lot of underserved people who fly under the radar, It’s sad. I think we need to open our eyes a little more,” she said.
After finishing her master’s coursework, Pitigliano hopes to combine her education with her military experience and perspective and use it to advocate for seniors, homeless and fellow veterans in Porterville. She would like to see Porterville establish its own veteran’s service officer, as well as additional resources for homeless veterans.
“I appreciate all the things that Porterville does to honor its veterans, but I think we could go further,” she said.