A Day in the Life: Administrative Assistant

A Day in the Life … of the Air Force Marathon Administrative Assistant

When asked what the administrative assistant at the Air Force Marathon does, the better question to ask is, “What doesn’t the office administrative assistant do?” When you enter the office, the smiling face of the admin is who you will see. That role has at times been referred to as “the face of the marathon” because not only is she/he the first person seen, but is the person also pulling a lot of the strings behind the scenes. The admin can answer nearly any question about the event by default.

“The better question to ask is, “What doesn’t the office administrative assistant do?””

To begin, the admin is the person behind the answers to your email questions that come to our office’s inbox. Thus, she knows nearly everything about the event because she answers questions from “how much is a registration” to “what gel flavors are there and at what miles can I expect to have those on the course.”

She also answers the phones and directs calls to the appropriate staff member or even often times answers a question in lieu of a staff member not being there. Between answering emails and calls, the admin is busy keeping track of meetings for Brandon, the director, and helping keep his schedule up to date. She also takes care of payroll, which means she also tracks the other staff member’s schedules closely.

The marathon could not go on without the admin, as she processes all the payments and logs the financials for the event. She manages the updates to the systems which process our payments and maintains relationships and contact with the other entities on the base with whom we closely work in regards to financials.

She also perfects spreadsheets as part of her role because she keeps track of a variety of aspects of the event from managing the elite runner correspondence, to tracking which codes have been used to how many pasta dinner tickets we have left. She is the key person behind the registration flow and upkeep with the updates of changes to a registrant’s information.

“She is the key person behind the registration flow and upkeep with the updates
of changes to a registrant’s information.”

The admin also communicates monthly with all the groups on base involved in our event, such as Security Forces, Protocol (those who manage leadership schedules), Safety and more. She makes sure they know of the upcoming meetings and how to go about getting their updates accomplished. Then, in such meetings, she drives the slide deck and is responsible to make sure those slides are ready to go.

You know all those items you see race weekend? The admin is responsible for submitting all the paperwork to make sure we get those- like race shirts, medals, heat sheets, fireworks, etc. It is a team effort, but in the end, she is the one who submits the requests to see them come to fruition.

Race weekend you will find her in the Solution Center at the Health & Fitness Expo. Since she knows everything about the event, she is truly the one fixing any issues that arise with registration or runner questions and making calls between to continue executing pieces of the event. She works closely with the timers to make sure they have the up to date information for every runner. She spends time ironing out issues that come to attention and partners up with the events manager closely to help the expo run smoothly. If you have a question, she is the one who can answer it or find the appropriate contact to do so.

“If you have a question, she is the one who can answer it or find the appropriate contact to do so.” 

On race day, you will find her busy in the food tent, directing what goes where and helping all the volunteers stay organized. Also, at any given moment, she could be thrown another task on race day randomly because she will likely know quickly where to go or who to ask to make said task complete.

In short, the office administrator is the quiet, but an ever so important person behind the scenes executing many aspects for our runners to have a smooth-sailing experience. She is essential to the success of the Air Force Marathon.

Comment below if you have ever worked in a job where you wore many hats and how you handled all the moving pieces successfully.

Related Pages:

Events
Meet the Team