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Women Making History--
Col. Dombi commands USACE South Pacific Division
She joined for the challenge when Army was first integrated men and women in basic training
by Torrie McAllister, Public Affairs Officer
Army file photo
Col. Janice Dombi is a history lover suddenly caught in history’s spotlight. In January she became the first woman to command a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers division when she accepted the South Pacific Division colors from the Lt. General Robert Van Antwerp, the chief of engineers.
Like many of her fellow officers, she doesn’t see herself as a female in the Army, but as a Soldier. Her highest admiration is for the senior 
women of the Engineer Regiment who have all commanded in Iraq – Col. Laura Loftus, Col. Debra Lewis, and Col. Margaret Burcham.
An education major with master’s degrees in history, business management, human resource development, and strategic studies, Dombi counts herself as one of the fortunate generation of female officers whose distinguished careers helped lead the way for the regiment as the Army fully integrated women into all ranks and most military occupations.
“I’m honored,” she said at the change of command. “I know I’m fortunate to be in the right place at the right time. Brig. Gen. McMahon was needed in Afghanistan working with U.S Forces and NATO. But I don’t think this is coincidence. I believe God has a plan for us, and it’s His plan for us to be here together. Engineers love to build. They love to do work. They’re industrious. I look forward to that challenge.”
It’s fair to say that challenge is what first enticed Dombi into the Army. She says a military career was the last thing on her mind when she started college. Then her brother went into basic training and started moaning about how hard it was. Her curiosity was piqued by sibling rivalry.
“All I heard from him was how bad it was, how tough it was,” she said. “I thought ‘I’d like to know if it’s really that tough.’ I wanted to know how I would do.”
Not bad, as it turned out. Dombi enlisted in an Army Reserve that let her go to basic training during summer vacation and finish her reserve commitment by the time she graduated college. It was 1978 and the Army had just begun testing fully integrated basic training for men and women. Dombi finished first in her company of 200 men and 50 women.
Outdoor adventures enticed Dombi to start her journey toward becoming an Army officer. She had started ROTC without obligation during her freshman year to escape the desk-bound tedium of her math and science classes. The ROTC instructor was always heading out with his students. “‘We’re going canoeing. We’re going rappelling. We’re going hang gliding.’” Dombi said. “I thought ‘I’d like to go canoeing.’
When she graduated with a bachelor’s degree from Longwood College in Virginia, she decided to make the Army her career for as long as she was having fun. After nearly 31 years she’s still going strong.
As distinguished graduate from the University of Richmond’s ROTC program, Dombi had her pick of Army branches for her commission. She chose the engineers because she knew it was prestigious. “I didn’t really know what they did,” she said. “But I knew you had to be sharp and could make a difference.”
She began active duty as a training officer at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo. Dombi said, “People always want to know ‘Have you been discriminated against?’ When I started, women had only been in the engineer branch since 1976, and then only in headquarters. So it was still pretty new and there weren’t many of us.
“One senior officer told me I didn’t have any right to be an engineer,” Dombi said. “I thought ‘Oh man, this is going to be tough.’ Was it because I was a woman in a male profession? Was it because I didn’t have an engineer degree? Was it the Army? There is s difference between discrimination and poor leadership. If I could see more than one interpretation, I would press on and do my job.
“Besides those challenges are also opportunities to win hearts and minds,” Dombi said. “Often, people just don’t know. The wife of one of my battalion commanders confided in me that when her husband first found out he was getting a female officer he was upset. ‘But now,’ she told me, ‘he wishes there were more of you.’
Dombi tested her engineer mettle as commander of Far East District in Korea 2004-2007 where she had the opportunity of a lifetime helping the Army plan to vacate a city and build a new one for U.S. Forces in Korea. It is an incredible engineering feat because the new base at Camp Humphreys is built mostly on rice paddies.
- Hard work pays off.
- Know your strengths and weaknesses.
- Know how to take advantage of or compensate for them.
“When I came into the Army, I knew didn’t have an engineering degree and I knew I was going into a basic platoon right when West Point engineers were graduating,” Dombi said. “I knew all those bright guys were coming in. I knew I would have to study even harder, and I would need to link up with really smart friends. I knew that when I was 21 years old.”
One challenge that Dombi believes all engineers need to tackle together is building great engineers.
“We need to get more high schools and college students interested in careers in engineering,” she said. “It may seem strange that I didn’t know much about engineers when I first chose the engineer branch. But that’s not unusual for young people. Research shows that most of the high school students who are strong candidates for engineering schools don’t know what engineers do. Unfortunately, research also shows that most teachers and parents don’t know, either. We need to help schools show young women and men what a great opportunity engineers have to make a difference in the world, and have a fun doing it.”