Alumni Where Are They Now?: Erin Baynard, Class of 2007

"I was a horrible undergraduate student," said First Lieutenant Erin Baynard, Air Force. "I graduated a semester late, taking summer school and a couple semesters of 22 credits. There were plenty of times when I thought I wasn't going to graduate."

But Baynard did graduate and in Dec. 2007 she left D.C. with a bachelor of arts in sociology and two gold 2nd Lt. bars on her shoulders, commissioning into the United States Air Force through the Howard University ROTC program.

Baynard went home to the suburbs of Chicago for one week before shipping out to Keesler, an Air Force Base in Mississippi for a five-week technical school and then to her Cyber Ops Communications base at Travis Air Force Base, in California. For three years, Baynard lead a team in telecommunications maintenance, network operations, infrastructure and inspections readiness. She was tasked as the base lead for the migration of over 12,000 Air Force PC computers and users to one single network.

Leading such huge military tasks at the age of 21 did not come easy to her at first. "I had a hard time adjusting to eight-12 hour days versus three-hour-days of classes you can schedule at your convenience," Baynard said. "But I loved it. I had money in my pocket; I had a car, no more dorms. I was living the good life." Baynard had no idea she would be such a good officer.

She also never thought she would be back at Howard so soon, not just for Homecoming but also as the recruiting flight commander. Three years later, Baynard is back at Howard overseeing the training of cadets, molding young officers at the same detachment that trained her, Detachment 130.

"It feels good to be back, seeing myself in cadets and how far we've come," Baynard said. She now sits at the desk of her former cadre and mentor, looking at the seat she used to sit in worrying about graduating and commissioning. She states, "It truly is an ode to my cadre and mentors to be back at Det 130, telling cadets the same things they told me. You can't pay that mentorship back, so you have to pay it forward."

Baynard said since graduating and being in the workforce, she's learned that college life really wasn't that bad. She wishes she had been more focused and made a bigger effort to be more active. She advises students to get off campus, go out to different places and meet different people, take consortium classes, and apply for internships other than the typical Howard internships.

"Realize there is more to college than going out, drinking, and clubbing. Socialize with other people, students from different schools, make other connections. Don't just hang around people from Howard because in reality the people you are going to work with aren't going to be people from Howard," Baynard said.