Woman Made Air Force History. How She Stays Winning (Exclusive)

• Tiffany Zaloudek made Air Force history on Nov. 1, 2024, when she became the first female survival, evasion, resistance, escape (SERE) specialist to earn their highest enlisted rank
• SERE specialists are the Swiss army knives of the military, teaching a myriad of versatile and vital skills like how to find food, build shelter, evade adversaries, navigate the terrain and assist in their own recovery
• “In order for me to be successful in my job I have to consistently outperform the men around me,” Zaloudek tells PEOPLE

In high school, Tiffany Zaloudek went so overboard on prom dresses and makeup that her mother had to put budget limits on her. 

“I would just go all out,” Zaloudek, who now holds the distinction of being the first female survival, evasion, resistance, escape (SERE) specialist to earn the Air Force’s highest enlisted rank, tells PEOPLE.

“I love dressing up, it’s so much fun,” she adds, “but at the same time, I can be at the complete opposite end — you never know what you’re gonna get.”

Wearing a U.S. Air Force uniform for the past 18 years, the chief master sergeant — known as Chief Z — achieved her history-making rank on Nov. 1, 2024. She’s got a tough job: The 38 year old’s mission is to prepare military personnel in high risk of capture or isolation for survival. 

“SERE specialists are a MacGyver of the Air Force,” says Lt. Col. Levi Cass, referring to the enemy-thwarting 1980s television character.

SERE specialists are the Swiss army knives of the military, teaching a myriad of versatile and vital skills like how to find food, build shelter, evade adversaries, navigate the terrain and assist in their own recovery. The training can be the difference between life and death.

“I think it’s a really impressive thing to be able to learn that big of a variety of skills and then teach them to other people,” says an airman who trained under Zaloudek. “She was out there moving heavy packs up and down mountains, certainly better than us students were — and absolutely equal to any of the male instructors.”

SERE specialist standards are the same for men and women, so Zaloudek is required to accomplish every task her male counterparts perform — eight pull-ups, 48 sit-ups and push-ups, a one and a half mile run in less than 11 minutes and a 200 meter swim in under 10 minutes.  

“She’s definitely one of the tough ones that made it through some pretty heinous training that I would say most guys don’t want to do,” says Cass.

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In the grueling six-month course, the former high school track star trained in remote forest, desert, coastal, tropic and open ocean environments — and mastered first aid and hand-to-hand combat. 

“She’s a competent warrior,” says Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Geraghty, who has known Zaloudek for over 10 years now. “I can’t even imagine an obstacle that would stand in her way between what she wants to accomplish and getting it done.”

When it comes to keeping in shape for the intensely physical job, Zaloudek tells PEOPLE she learned quickly that in order to succeed, she had to be better, faster and stronger than her male counterparts.

“Some people say my gender played a role in my success, but every move of mine has been dissected and amplified. People have just been waiting for me to screw up,” adds the Missouri native. “In order for me to be successful in my job I have to consistently outperform the men around me.”

And she does. When Zaloudek earned her coveted SERE specialist beret in 2007, she was recognized as a top performer by the SERE cadre. Colleagues in her training classes describe her as determined, competitive and encouraging. 

“She was really good at lightening the mood and being a very outgoing, positive person,” says former airman John Michels, “which is really important when you’re talking about training in austere field environments where everybody is sleep deprived and hungry.”

Michels recalls open water training with Zaloudek where the trainees were dropped off in the water, far from land, and tasked with getting to shore in a 20-person life raft. 

“It was really rough and everybody was feeling kinda sick,” he says. “Tiffany started singing these little musical jingles she was coming up with off the top of her head to keep people’s minds off it, as we’re all packed into this raft like sardines, super nauseous.”

For her part, Zaloudek concedes she’s a horrible singer, but Michels contends her jingles made the excruciating training exercise more bearable. 

Zaloudek is the oldest of four siblings who grew up in a Christian home (she still recites Psalm 23 before every one of her 1,000 or so aircraft jumps) — and she says her dad’s focus on preparedness had a big impact on her.

“When the year 2000 and Y2K was coming, our whole basement was like a bunker,” she recalls. “I’m not sure if that’s what inspired me to be a survivalist, but as I say it out loud, I think that could have been it.”

Zaloudek first felt the tug to serve her country as a school girl while watching the events of 911 unfold. She joined the Air Force after a year in college.

“I had this feeling of unrest and I was being pulled toward something bigger than myself,” she says, choking up. “The minute I walked into that Air Force recruiting office, I realized that spark, that passion, was lit inside of me again.”

The unmarried Airman says her sex and looks should not be part of the equation for how well she performs her job. For a time, she adjusted her demeanor to be more reserved, trying to fit a persona she thought was expected of her.  

“I really quieted down my femininity,” says Zaloudek. “I felt like I had to act more like a man, look more like a man to be better at that job.”

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However, time and experience taught her to be true to herself.

“You don’t have to act like a man or look like a man to succeed,” Zaloudek says. “You can be exactly who you are, exactly who you want to be and you can still thrive. Your uniqueness is what makes you beautiful.”