Lena Burch Gallitano (b. 1943), from Durham, North Carolina, served as an officer in the Woman in the Air Force (WAF) from 1967-1971. Lena Burch Gallitano was born 2 September 1943 in Durham, North Carolina. After graduating from high school, she went on to attend Women's College, now the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and eventually graduated in 1965 with a degree in home economics. Gallitano then moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where she worked for a year and a half in retail at Hutzler Brothers Company department store. In 1967, Gallitano joined the United States Air Force, was commissioned for four years, and sent to Lackland Air Force Base in Texas for three months of Officer Training School, specializing in Food Services. During the last six weeks of training, Gallitano was designated the senior woman in her class. Gallitano was then assigned as the Food Services Officer to Blytheville Air Force Base in Arkansas, and was the first female officer, other than female nurses, to be assigned to the base. Her duties included supervising multiple dining halls across the base, including the fire department dining hall, which did twenty-four-hour rotations; the flight line dining hall, whose crews needs meals to take on training missions; and the alert facility dining hall, which provided meals for emergency crews. After resigning her commission in 1971, Gallitano worked for the Department of the Army in Fort Lee, Virginia, creating master menus for the military. After a year and a half, Gallitano went to work for the Department of Agriculture's National School Lunch Program in Chicago, Illinois, where she utilized her knowledge of running a dining hall. Gallitano subsequently spent time in Connecticut, where she wrote financial management computer software for private schools, and then Raleigh, North Carolina, where she began attending North Carolina State University, eventually earning her master's degree in horticulture science.
