News - Local - North Coast

Friday, Jun. 27, 2008

Woman hurdles gender, age divides in military with Legion post

The first female commander of the American Legion post in Cambria, Karina Tiwana is also a corporate attorney, surfer, former Air Force vehicle mechanic and community leader

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A corporate attorney, avid surfer and former Air Force vehicle mechanic has become the first female commander of American Legion Post No. 432 in Cambria.

When 43-year-old Karina Tiwana of San Simeon took command June 18, she also became one of the post’s youngest leaders in its 77-year history. She was elected by unanimous vote in May.

Breaking through glass ceilings is nothing new for Tiwana.

After enlisting in the Air Force in 1986, she became a vehicle mechanic and, she said, “the only woman turning a wrench” at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany.

Working on vehicles ranging from “deuce and a half” (a two-and-a-half-ton military cargo truck) to, occasionally, the commander’s Mercedes- Benz, she earned medals and awards during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm.

The San Francisco native later trained in cryptography. She left the

service in 1995 and graduated from Lincoln Law School in San Jose in 1999.

She is now a corporate counsel for Alcatel-Lucent, formerly Lucent Technologies. Tiwana usually cyber-commutes, working at home, with occasional trips to the corporate office.

She moved to Paso Robles in 2002 and to San Simeon in 2003.

She’s active in the Surfrider Foundation and Second Chance at Love Humane Society. And she served on the North Coast Advisory Council and came within a few votes of being elected to the San Simeon Community Services District board.

“I’ve found no other community where the people care for each other and for the community as we do here on the North Coast,” she said. “We may disagree (sometimes loudly and contentiously) on how to care best, but we all care. I like that.”

Tiwana’s legion leadership role isn’t a first for the county. Paso Robles, San Luis Obispo and Arroyo Grande posts have had female commanders.

The former Cambria commander, Ron Waltman, has overseen a growing legion family. There are now 322 legion members (including about 20 women), 120 in the Legion Auxiliary and 43 in the Sons of the American Legion.

Members of all three units increasingly have stepped up to help the entire community — beyond those with military connections—Waltman said at the installation ceremony.

“We do action, and we do it immediately,” he told about 70 attendees. Even so, he added, with Tiwana’s dynamism, “you guys have no idea what you’re in for.”

While the new commander isn’t expected to have legionnaires dropping to do pushups, she does have some fresh ideas. Tiwana plans to tap non-military members of the community for a Commander’s Citizens Council for advice, and to start an occasional Commander’s Hour for the public at the legion’s members-only club.

The post is “no longer the club where the old guys play bingo,” she said. “They’ve proved that by electing me.”

But she also plans to follow firmly in the footsteps of her predecessors by focusing on “service to our community, our veterans and our active-duty military members.”

Cambria legion post members won Tiwana’s heart and dedication, she said, “because of their tireless and selfless commitment to serve the youth, the seniors and, above all, the veterans in this community.”