El Paso Coast Guard team talks aviation and cybersecurity careers

Water tends to come to mind first when we think about the Coast Guard.

Official response and confirmed impact

But when we spoke with the El Paso recruiting team on Daytime on 14, we wanted to look beyond that familiar picture and learn about the careers available.

Francisco Cortez and his fellow recruiters walked us through job opportunities, education benefits, possible assignments and parts of the joining process.

For someone in the Borderland considering military service, those are the practical questions: What could you do, where might you go, and what would it take to get started?

A career decision with family in mind Before we got into job descriptions, we asked Cortez what made him join.

He said he had served in the Coast Guard for 21 years at the time of our conversation, and his reason for signing up was connected to the people he wanted to support.

“I was looking for something that would help me. Not only me, but my whole family,” Cortez said.

That answer gave the benefits discussion a practical starting point.