{"id":31376,"date":"2025-11-11T20:21:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T20:21:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/31376\/"},"modified":"2025-11-11T20:21:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T20:21:08","slug":"philadelphia-navy-veteran-works-to-improve-life-in-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/31376\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia Navy veteran works to improve life in city"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to cover? Let us know!<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

Claire Gunnison wanted to be an astronaut growing up. She decided that one of the quickest ways to do that was to join the Navy. Out of all service branches, the Navy has produced the most astronauts, closely followed by the Air Force, she said.\n<\/p>\n

The Winwood resident\u2019s 15-year plan was to enlist in the Navy, go to test pilot school and eventually go to NASA.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cClearly I did not end up doing that,\u201d Gunnison said.\n <\/p>\n

Instead, Gunnison served for a decade in the Navy as an F-18 weapons systems operator and flight instructor. Now those experiences inform her work at the Children\u2019s Hospital of Pennsylvania and Action Tank<\/a>, a veteran-led non-profit. In the nonprofit\u2019s inaugural year<\/a>, the team worked to fight against the opioid epidemic and since then has tackled issues like food insecurity, gun violence and period poverty. Most recently, Action Tank supported the community by irrigating book deserts around the Greater Philadelphia area.\n<\/p>\n

From a summer seminar attendee to becoming squadron leader<\/p>\n

Following her initial interest in the maritime branch of the armed forces, Gunnison attended a summer seminar at the Naval Academy<\/a>. She would go on to apply for an ROTC scholarship at Penn State and was accepted into the program.\n<\/p>\n

After college, Gunnison opted to join aviation, serving as an F-18 wizzo. The nickname for weapons systems officer, wizzos sit in the back seat of the cockpit, responsible for navigation, communication and weapons systems in the fighter jet.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile I was in my squadrons, I really enjoyed understanding the tactics and looking at how to standardize our approach to tactics,\u201d Gunnison said. \u201cSo I applied to Top Gun, became a strike fighter tactics instructor and went back to the fleet and was an instructor at our fleet replacement squadron.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Even though Gunnison spent her naval career flying jets and instructing others how to do so, she said that people were often surprised to see her in an F-18. Her call sign was \u201cHooks,\u201d a reference to a Police Academy character known for their soft-spokeness.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that a lot of times people underestimated me, which just meant that I needed to work a little bit harder and prove to them that I was capable,\u201d Gunnison said.\n<\/p>\n

The Navy didn\u2019t have many women in leadership roles, Gunnison said. She was one of the few in a leadership role in her squadron.\n<\/p>\n

Although some had preconceived notions of her abilities, not everyone questioned Gunninson\u2019s skill, she said. The fighter pilot veteran says she received support from many of her male counterparts, an understanding that she was just as capable as they were.
\n\"ClaireClaire Gunnison\u2019s homecoming from a deployment. (Courtesy of Claire Gunnison)\n<\/p>\n

Changing policies to improve lives<\/p>\n

While in the Navy, Gunnison had her son. As an officer, unlike a lower-ranking enlisted soldier, she was granted autonomy of her scheduling, allowing her to provide more care for her son.\n<\/p>\n

Seeing the differences between enlisted and officers, how one group wasn\u2019t able to have control at a pivotal time like having a new child, led Gunnison to earn her master\u2019s degree in public health and health management and policy at Drexel.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI really wanted to focus on policies that improve quality of life and outcomes for different populations,\u201d Gunnison said.\n<\/p>\n

During her time at Drexel, she interned at CHOP before eventually joining full-time after graduating. Gunnison now works as the manager of clinical outcomes and reporting, focused on understanding how the hospital\u2019s treatment improves families\u2019 quality of life and outcomes.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31377,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[69,71,70,19906,15041],"class_list":["post-31376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-u-s-navy","tag-veterans-day"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31376\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}