“Jobs of the Future” is a series focusing on career paths, local job opportunities, programs, and tales of success that highlight North Bay's diverse job market.
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“It’s the best part-time job I’ve ever had,” says Sarah Surtees.
“So much so that I’m still doing it 25 years later. I’ve found it important enough to balance my professional career with my military career.”
Surtees is a Chief Warrant Officer, and the Regimental Sergeant Major for the Algonquin Regiment in North Bay and Timmins.
In her full-time job, she is an elementary school teacher and says, “I’m very grateful to the school board for allowing me to have time to make sure I can balance both workloads.”
Born and raised in North Bay, Surtees says she was initially drawn to the prospect of serving in the military when looking at educational options and she did consider attending the Royal Military College of Canada.
“I’m one of eight children to my parents and so I was looking for a way to economize their contributions for post-secondary,” she says.
“I had always been interested in the military and had seriously considered going to RMC. But I decided to get a taste of what that might be like before fully committing because while they offer an awesome program and they do pay for that education, you owe them time afterward,” says Surtees.
“I wasn’t quite ready to commit to that and so that’s why I decided to try the Reserves first, to make sure that this was an organization that I wanted to be part of.”
At 17, Surtees went to the recruiting centre and they suggested she do her basic training as her Cooperative Education for her high school credits.
“After doing that, I realized I liked the idea of being a little bit more in control of my career, which is why I stayed with the Reserves,” says Surtees. “It’s essentially a part-time army really because you have people like myself who have always felt a call to serve their country and who want to contribute to their community and serve where they live.”
She says your time commitment is one night a week and one weekend a month and they are very accommodating based on people’s schedules.
“There is a huge amount of flexibility in the Reserves as an employer. It depends on what you want to do and what your trade is but there is definitely a lot of employment opportunities.”
These include summer contracts for high school and post-secondary students, which allowed Surtees to stay involved while going to school. She says she took summer contract jobs from May until September and used that money to pay for post-secondary.
“There is also a bursary program they offer where if you train throughout the whole year, they will reimburse you for up to $2,000 of your educational expenses for that year,” says Surtees.
After going to school in southern Ontario and living there for 12 years, she moved back to the Gateway City in 2007 and has been with the Algonquin Regiment ever since.
Surtees says they are an Infantry Regiment and she describes that as the most popular or well-known version of what a soldier is.
“When you see people digging trenches or running across the fields, those are infantry soldiers,” she says.
“We’re always looking to get people trained, including with leadership courses. Within about two to three years of being in the Reserves, we look at who has leadership potential and then we put them onto courses that teach them how to be junior leaders which is not only a benefit for us as we look to advance our organization but a benefit to them in their everyday lives.”
In her career, Surtees volunteered to be deployed overseas to Afghanistan in 2010.
“We are regularly augmenting the Regular Force on every tour. There are no mandated postings as a Reservist which is one of the big differences between the Reserves and the Regular Forces,” she says.
“I wanted to go because of that drive to serve. When the Afghanistan mission came along I really wanted to represent Canada and be a part of the good work that we were doing there.”
Surtees deployed as a Civil-Military Cooperation Operator and her job was to work with the local population.
“To me, that was a really valuable position and I don’t devalue any other job that was there, but for me, I got to be face to face, right on the ground speaking with people and having a grassroots effect within the work that I did. That was worth the sacrifice of me leaving home,” says Surtees.
Surtees says they had interpreters and “They were our lifeline.”
There are also domestic operations that the Reservists can be called to assist with and Surtees points to the current flooding situation in British Columbia as something military personnel could be asked to handle.
“Anything that happens to Canadians on Canadian soil is considered a domestic operation which is not an aggressive operation, it is one where we support Canadian citizens,” says Surtees who was part of Operation Laser and Operation Vector which was related to the COVID-19 response.
“I was a part of the Local Response Force for northern Ontario and our job was to react if anything happened. Thankfully we didn’t have to. People maintained their distances and stayed home and we didn’t have the same kind of spread of the virus that other areas did,” says Surtees.
“In Operation Vector I was a Regional Liaison Officer and I was in touch with the Health Units just to see if they needed support with respect to the delivery of the vaccinations. In the end, we weren’t needed because they had everything under control and that’s really want you want because calling in the military should be the last resort if all else fails.”
Surtees has had a successful career, earning the highest of the non-commissioned ranks.
“To be an officer you have to hold a degree but non-commissioned officers don’t, although they can. The role that I’m holding right now is called Regimental Sergeant Major. So not only am I at the top of the non-commissioned officers' ranks, but I’m also in charge of all the other non-commissioned officers,” says Surtees.
That means she’s got a long list of boxes to check off.
“I’m responsible for their dress, their deportment, their discipline, their career progression and so everything that’s related to any private, corporal or sergeant, it’s my job to make sure they are taken care of.”
This is the first time a woman has held this role in the Algonquin Regiment and is currently one of two women in this role in a Combat Arms Unit in all of Ontario.
“It means a lot,” says Surtees.
“When I started at 17, I didn’t know where I would be, but it has meant that there has been a shift in the understanding that leadership doesn’t have to fit into that box of the angry drill sergeant yelling in the army. As Canada has evolved the military has evolved we’re now looking into different styles of leadership.”
Surtees says, “It’s been a slow progression to make this happen. I’ve been involved for 25 years now and it takes a lot of training, a lot of leadership courses and a lot of teaching and mentoring and guiding other people in that leadership.”
“It’s a privilege but there is that sacrifice because it’s a lot of weekends away from home, some birthdays missed here and there.”
Surtees says if you have ever been interested in serving and supporting the public, there’s never been more of an opportunity to do that than by becoming a Reservist.
“You really are a part of something larger. It’s about your community. We need to have people who are willing to serve and support. The money is good if you are going to compare it to a part-time job. There are benefits, there are travel opportunities, but more than that you’re going to gain a set of skills that no other job is going to give you,” says Surtees.
“We actively train people to be leaders not just in the Reserves but in society and some of the things you get to do, nobody else gets to say they get to do.”
If you have a story idea for the Jobs of the Future Series, send Matt an email at [email protected]
