Finding your tribe: Veterans discuss community and belonging

Delta Dental Insurance Company is proud to be one of the largest oral health employers of Veterans hailing from diverse backgrounds across the United States military branches.

In August, a group of Veteran employees established and launched the Veterans & Allies Workgroup to better support and empower service people and military spouse employees living across the country. The group, open for all employees to join, offers members a unifying sense of community and space for open dialogue and career-building resources.

“Servicepeople and their families often have experiences that are uniquely shared,” said Dr. Allen Edwards, principal advisor of government groups at Delta Dental Insurance Company, who is the executive sponsor of the group. “The workgroup is a place for them to share their stories and access career opportunities tailored to Veterans.”

At its core, the community aims to support Veteran employees with a wide range of career resources designed to support servicepeople through distinct challenges, including networking opportunities, mentorships, training programs, and educational activities.

“Developing a strong professional network is critical after service. Our vision is to build a place for our servicepeople to feel connected and supported in their careers,” said Michael Gonzalez, Delta Dental Insurance Company onboarding projects manager. “That sense of community is critical to adjusting back to civilian life.”

This Veteran’s Day, we celebrate Delta Dental Insurance Company’s active-duty servicepeople, Veterans, and their families by highlighting four extraordinary stories of service from across our organization.

Michael Gonzalez, onboarding project manager at Delta Dental Insurance Company
 

Michael Gonzalez flying a Black Hawk helicopter.

Before joining Delta Dental Insurance Company’s commercial group, Michael Gonzalez served eight years in the U.S. Army as a pilot flying Black Hawk helicopters in combat missions. After completing his bachelor’s degree in 2008, Gonzalez was commissioned through his university’s Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) Program as a healthcare administrator. He was first stationed in Uijeongbu, South Korea, a city just north of Seoul, where he established and oversaw integrated medical services for roughly 11,000 U.S. soldiers and personnel.

In 2012, he was deployed to Kandahar, Afghanistan as a MEDEVAC pilot flying UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters to provide soldiers medical care during combat operations abroad. He completed more than 85 life-saving missions and 170 combat flight hours across four medical evacuation (MEDEVAC) locations in Southern Afghanistan.

In December 2016, Gonzalez transitioned from the Army to becoming a student at The University of Texas at Austin. Gonzalez joined the campus Student Veterans Association, where he quickly connected with other student Veterans through shared experiences. Finding his “tribe” was critical to acclimating back to everyday life as he could relate to and learn from servicepeople’s challenges.

“I wasn’t always in a war zone during my time in service, but I found myself to be consistently in that mindset,” he said. “Finding a sense of community on campus was integral to transitioning to civilian life after the Army.”

Dr. Allen Edwards, principal advisor to government programs at Delta Dental Insurance Company
 

Dr. Edwards (center) during a Senate committee meeting.

Before joining Delta Dental’s government programs team in 2023, Dr. Allen Edwards had a decades-long career traveling the world with the U.S. Air Force and serving as a federal government civilian.

He graduated dental school in 1981 and worked for three years as a dental practice associate, leaving private practice in 1984 after being commissioned as a general dentist in the Air Force. “It was a very difficult economic period at that time,” said Dr. Edwards. “Skyrocketing interest rates made it challenging to have a successful dental practice. The Air Force offered a great experience and exciting career opportunity in healthcare.” He provided a full range of oral healthcare services to Air Force personnel and was trained to be a wartime operating room surgical assistant.

After five years stationed in North Carolina, the Air Force reassigned Dr. Edwards in 1989 to Royal Air Force Chicksands outside of London. In his free time, Dr. Edwards and his family enjoyed exploring England and mainland Europe – most notably a road trip through Germany shortly after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. He recalls being amazed as he watched excited Eastern German families packed into their small cars to visit Western Germany for the first time.

After three years stationed in the United Kingdom, Dr. Edwards returned to the United States with his family for two separate assignments in Georgia and Alaska where he served as a general dentist. He was also the Officer-in-Charge of maintaining 25-bed mobile hospitals for rapid deployment worldwide.

Dr. Edwards's final Air Force assignment took him to the Pentagon to serve as the Deputy Dental Program Officer for the TRICARE Management Activity. He retired from the Air Force in 2005 and accepted a role with the Department of Defense as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs serving as a congressional and legislative specialist on healthcare policy.

In 2013, he joined the U.S. Senate as a professional staff member on the Committee on Armed Services, where he authored comprehensive legislation to reform the Military Health System and the TRICARE Dental Program. In April 2023, Dr. Edwards retired from the Senate and joined Delta Dental Insurance Company as a full-time principal advisor for federal government programs.

Brittany Nunziato, Network Development Specialist for Dentegra
 

Brittany and her husband Michael at Vatican City in Italy.

Brittany Nunziato’s husband Michael was deployed by the U.S. Navy just 10 days after their wedding in her home state of Wisconsin in 2011. Thirteen years later, they’ve moved 11 times across the U.S. and abroad.

The newlyweds reunited later that year in June when Brittany moved to Atsugi, Japan where Michael would be stationed as a Lieutenant and Naval Flight Officer flying E-2C Hawkeye planes. They traveled and climbed Mount Fuji during that time abroad in Japan, and Britanny was able to secure several jobs, including one as Vice President of Fundraising for Atsugi Officer Spouse's Association, a charity that supports Military families stationed in Japan.

“Most people don’t understand the unique struggles military families face,” she said. “When you’re constantly moving around like we were, it makes holding down a job tricky. Especially when stationed overseas.”

The Nunziatos returned to the U.S. in 2013 when Michael was reassigned to an Air Force base in Mongomery, Alabama, where her husband completed a Master’s Degree in Military Operational Arts and Science and welcomed their first child, a son in 2014. Their daughter was born in 2016 in Norfolk, Virginia, and by the time she was six months old, the family was deployed to Naples, Italy. They were stationed there for two years and quickly acclimated to Italian culture after developing a strong sense community with other local military families.

“Living overseas changes your perception,” she said. “We found our tribe and created life-long bonds with these incredible families who we were able connect with over shared challenges. They eventually became our family.”

The Nunziatos were deployed to Rome in 2019 where Brittany worked as a Public Affairs Associate for the U.S. Embassy in Rome and even met the Pope. By that time, both of her children attended elementary school and became proficient Italian speakers.

In December 2023, Michael retired from The Navy after more than 21 years of service and the Nunziato family returned to the U.S. to live full-time in the Washington D.C. area. Brittany joined the Dentegra team in 2022 as a Network Development Specialist. She is a member of Delta Dental Insurance Company’s new Veterans and Allies Workgroup and actively volunteers within her local Military spouse network.

Kristie Steinmeier, customer service supervisor

When Kristie Steinmeier enlisted in the Air Force in December 1987, she didn’t expect to end up in the small coastal town of Misawa, Japan.

Steinmeier was stationed in Misawa as a Morse Code Operator at the U.S. Naval Air Facility. Morse Code is the language of the telegraph composed of short and long tones representing letters of the alphabet. Working odd hours, she would collect, interpret, and translate the radio-based communications from foreign militaries.

“It was like working at a radio station,” Steinmeier said. “We would spend our shifts listening to the airwaves for Morse Code and type out the messaging we heard from other militaries. The hours were irregular, and with the 13-hour time difference, it was challenging to connect with my family back home in Pennsylvania.”

After two years abroad, she returned home to Kelly Air Force Base in San Antionio, Texas. By that time, the Air Force was planning to merge Morse Code operations with a faster automated printer system. Steinmeier was honorably discharged from the Air Force in 1994 to pursue a new career path in customer service.

Steinmeier eventually landed customer service roles at telecommunications giants like AT&T before joining Delta Dental’s Camp Hill team as a customer service agent in 2016. Leveraging her leadership skills from her time in the Air Force, she has since climbed the ranks of supervisor.

Additional Veteran resources

Delta Dental is the largest oral healthcare company offering tailored plans to meet the needs of more than 1.1 million Veterans, military retirees and their family members, and participates in the Veterans Affairs Dental Insurance Program (VADIP). We are also honored to be a long-standing partner with other recognized Veteran advocacy organizations, including the Disabled American Veterans association and the Veterans Affairs Community Care Network (CCN).

To learn more about our Veteran benefits, please visit deltadentalins.com/vadip.