EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF OVLS Staff Sergeant Sam Tyler has been preparing for his newest assignment as the first director of OVLS for a very long time. His military career was built on the development of new projects and programs, and he is a champion for connecting veterans to resources in the Sunshine State! A native of Grove Hill, Alabama, Sgt. Tyler enlisted in the Air Force in 2015 after deciding to pivot from a career in music. This was a fortuitous step, as his grandfather had served in the Marine Corps and his uncle in the Army. At 19 years old, Sgt. Tyler was stationed at the 51st Civil Engineering Squadron in South Korea. During this assignment, he served as a member of a command support staff and conducted administrative work with evaluations, records, and emergency and security management. Sgt. Tyler credits his experiences in South Korea with developing into the professional that he is today. Luckily, Sgt. Tyler’s supervisor, Jennifer Tucek, helped him learn about life and work. “To this day, I can still give her a call for anything that I need.” A formative experience from Sgt. Tyler’s deployment to Kuwait was when he joined a new unit to establish a command staff “from the ground up.” Within one month, the command staff of three were involved in administrative tasks and providing support to airmen who were working on anti-terrorism assignments. In Sgt. Tyler’s words, this experience was where he learned “how to establish something new and make it work.” Sgt. Tyler was stationed at Joint Base Charleston, South Carolina, where he was assigned to the 628th Comptroller Squadron, 628th Air Base Wing, and 373rd Training Squadron, respectively. In each of these assignments, Sgt. Tyler took on additional roles of responsibility and honed his skills as a manager. Sgt. Tyler was promoted to Senior Airman in June 2018 and promoted to Staff SGT SAM TYLER Introducing Sergeant in March 2020. It was his latest promotion that led Sgt. Tyler to become the NonCommissioned Officer in Charge with Air Force Reserve Officers' Training Corps (AFROTC) Detachment 172 at Georgia’s Valdosta State University. In working with the AFROTC, Sgt. Tyler leveraged his administrative knowledge and skills to help empower future airmen. That assignment was unique in that it came at a time when Sgt. Tyler “really started aspiring to management and to make an impact on others.” Working with future airmen allowed for Sgt. Tyler to have a positive impact on graduating students who were preparing to enter the military as commissioned officers. Sgt. Tyler was drawn to Florida as a veteran because the state had everything he wanted. While close in proximity to his home state of Alabama, Sgt. Tyler remarked that the Sunshine State is well-suited for veterans: “Florida is home to a million-and-a-half veterans and I think that number is growing every single day. And the infrastructure here for veterans is great and everywhere you look, you find some sort of military installation or support organization. I think the support here in Florida is just extremely robust.” Sgt. Tyler stands ready to execute the vision of OVLS by using his administrative and leadership capabilities to create “something that works and is efficient in getting our veteran health care practitioners what they need.” 06 MEDICAL QUALITY ASSURANCE | 2023 FLORIDA VETERAN HEALTH HEROES
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