Women's law center honors Kirtland colonel

  • Published
  • By Argen Duncan
  • Nucleus editor
KIRTLAND AIR FORCE BASE, N.M. --  The senior legal adviser to the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center commander has blazed trails for women in her field, according to the Southwest Women's Law Center.

The center honored Col. Gail Crawford and two other women at its Celebrating Women's Stories awards banquet Saturday night at the University of New Mexico Student Union Ballroom.

Crawford said she was the "least of the bunch" of recipients, but she was humbled and honored by the recognition. Florenceruth Jones Brown, one of the first female lawyers in New Mexico, and Gayle Dine'Chacon, the first female surgeon general of the Navajo Nation, were honored along with Crawford.

She's currently the highest-ranking active-duty African-American female member of the Judge Advocate General Corps, and one of four African-American females in Air Force history to become an active-duty colonel in the JAG Corps.

"The levels from where she started to what she achieved were very inspiring," said Southwest Women's Law Center Executive Director Pamelya Herndon.

Herndon said she and others with the center wanted women to know they can rise to any level they want, and Crawford demonstrated that concept. Herndon was also impressed that Crawford is a career woman and a mother.

"That, too, is a greatly inspiring story that we were very excited about," Herndon said.

No one can apply to be honored with Celebrating Women's Stories. Center representatives seek out inspiring women to recognize.

Herndon said someone told her about Crawford, and she then interviewed the colonel on her public radio show, "Women's Focus." After hearing Crawford's story, Herndon knew she wanted to recognize her.

Crawford is a native of Jacksonville, Florida, and the third of four children.

Neither of her parents attended high school. Her father dropped out of school in fourth grade.

"His father was a sharecropper and the kids had to work to support the family," Crawford said.

As a child, she wanted to be a surgeon.

"There was something about what I learned in school that made me think I would be a professional and lead people," she said.

She enlisted in the Air Force at the lowest rank, with her first duty station being Kirtland Air Force Base. She eventually cross-trained to become a paralegal and did that job for four years.

During that time, now-retired Col. Gary Halbert encouraged her to attend law school.

"That was the guy that met Staff Sgt. Crawford and said, 'Young lady, what are you doing?'" Crawford said. "That man changed my life."

Gen. Randy Starbuck and Gen. Sandy Finan, immediate past commander of the Nuclear Weapons Center, have also been important mentors to Crawford.

During law school at Florida State University, she served in the Reserves because the Air Force had no program to allow her to go from enlisted to a lawyer on active duty.

Crawford graduated in 1996, the first Air Force paralegal to become a judge advocate. Two other people have done so since, and she's mentoring three Kirtland paralegals she hopes will go to law school.

She came to the Nuclear Weapons Center in 2014 and was promoted to colonel in 2015. Her husband of almost eight years, Lt. Col. Brian Freiburger of 377th Air Base Wing Plans and Programs, said the promotion ceremony took place in the same Kirtland hangar where Crawford worked as an airman basic.

Her law career has taken her across the country, and even out of it.

"I think the thing I like about it most is the opportunities it opens up to help people," Crawford said.

She is a "champion" in the AFNWC Mentoring Program, participates in Big Brothers Big Sisters Mentors 2.0 to encourages teenagers to finish high school and is helping kick off the "Lean In" initiative to support women. She also has pen pals she mentors via correspondence but has never met in person.

Crawford said she mentors others because of the difference her mentors made.

"I wouldn't be here if they hadn't reach out and mentored me," she said, adding that her mentors reached across cultural barriers to support her.

Crawford and Freiburger adopted three children, siblings ages 4, 5 and 7, in December.

"And that has been my proudest moment yet, to be a mom of three little kids," Crawford said. "... We'll see over time who rescued who."