A career Guardsman has taken the helm of the Guam National Guard and will lead through diversity. This is the first time a career Guardsman has been appointed adjutant general of the Guam National Guard, and it is because of his nearly 30 years of service that Brigadier General Roderick Leon Guererro is an asset to the military.

"One of the benefits of me being a career Guardsman is I have a lot of institutional knowledge. I joined the Guard in 1985 when the very first adjutant general, general meets was the tag and so I have seen the Guard grow, I have seen the guard slip and fall. I have seen the Guard mature and so that forced me as the Guard grew that forced me to mature," he shared.

He says over the years watching the Guard fluctuate in funding and manpower authorizations gave him firsthand experience and institutional knowledge of the Guard. "Prior to being appointed as the adjutant general, I was the chief of staff. So I know the strengths and weaknesses of the Guard, and from my perspective one of the things that I would like to change is just the developing of leaders."

His vision for the Guam Guard is to be a main contributor to the island and provide more leaders to the community. "It's an avenue for people to grow and develop in the Guam Guard - you can get a bachelor's degree or you can get a masters degree through some of the education programs, and so we can help develop business leaders, local Government of Guam leaders, as well as federal leaders," added the general.

He would like to focus on this by giving Guard members hands-on training give them an opportunity to lead and allow them to make mistakes so that they can learn, noting, "When they make those mistakes, they will benefit from it and learn from it, as opposed to not giving them any authority."

And while he has yet to unveil his command philosophy, he does share that it will stress excelling through diversity, explaining, "To me, diversity is very important and in the military we need to identify the differences and complement each other rather than focus on the differences that we have because of different sexual preferences or race just focus on our differences and build on that, rather than 'hate', as I call it."

He believes that everyone can contribute to the growth and organization of the Guam Guard.