On Feb. 10, 2026, Senior Master Sgt. Diana Sena-Melero became the Human Resource Office Remote for the New Mexico Air National Guard at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico. In this new role, she supports and researches matters affecting the unit’s full-time members, including Active Guard Reserve and technicians.
The creation of this position addresses a need for local human resources support where most Airmen work. Previously, HR for the New Mexico Guard was located in Santa Fe. Melero said she believes she is the first HR remote the New Mexico Air National Guard has had.
“It exists normally within the force support squadron, there’s other states that have multiple wings, and so they have an HR remote that sits within the wing (…) But because we are a one-wing state, we decided to try it at the state level instead of the wing. And basically, I mean, it’s new for us, because we’ve needed that support, right? I think we’ve always only had a member managing the AGR program, but we’ve never had an HR remote to help with both AGR and technician,” according to Melero.
Melero said her daily responsibilities include learning about different employment statuses and tracking manpower across various sections of human resources. She expressed confidence in her ability to be effective in this new role.
“Success, to me, for this position, my goals, if there’s anything I can leave behind, would be clarity and what I mean by clarity. I mean a standardized process for how we hire people, how we support (…) I just think there’s a lot of gray area with some of these HR actions. I think the technician side is a little bit easier, because HR already has a lot of that in place. It’s just communicating it down at this level. But for the AGR side, I feel like there hasn’t been much,” Melero said.
As she continues in her new position, Melero emphasized her commitment to supporting all members: “I tell this to everybody every day, everybody is my boss, right? I work for everyone. I’m here for the people. I think we all want the same things. I really believe in my heart that the whole New Mexico National Guard wants the same thing when it comes to resources and hiring people and really having a solid foundation there. But change is hard. We just need to be deliberate with how we update things and what we’re changing and what we’re not changing,” Melero said.
