A Sailor and airman were recognized as the 2015 Commander, U.S. Naval Activities Spain (COMNAVACTS) Service Members of the Year (SMOY) at the base galley, Feb. 17.

Senior Airman Christian Glover, an aircraft support technician at 725th Air Mobility Squadron (AMS), was selected among two other nominees to win the Junior SMOY while Hospital Corpsman 1st Class Javier Palacios, Patient Administration's leading petty officer at U.S. Naval Hospital Rota, distinguished himself among six others to win Senior SMOY.

"I'm honored and thankful for the opportunities that the leadership has given me, not just the leadership, the base, and the way we work together with different services," said Palacios. "We just have a distinct opportunity that other bases don't have, which is to work with other branches."

This is the third year that COMNAVACTS has given out the award, which is open to soldiers, Sailors, airmen, and Marines. The award is designed to recognize the best all-around service members assigned to the installation and the National Support Elements who excel in performance, leadership, community involvement and personal and military appearance.

"It's absolutely amazing to be recognized for all the hard work over the past couple years working here," said Glover. "It's really an honor to be representing the Air Force and the base."

The journey to the top was a long one. Service members had to be nominated by their individual tenant commands and nominees were scaled down from a pool of submitted write-ups. Next, they had to pass a rigorous oral board covering a broad range of topics, run by senior enlisted leaders from all services and various commands throughout the base.

"It doesn't matter who actually wins today," said Capt. Greg Pekari, commander, U.S. Naval Activities Spain. "The fact is there were more than 1,000 E-5s and E-6s and more than 800 E-3s and E-4s in the mix and you were nominated by your command to come and represent."

Pekari explained that everyone should be proud of his or her accomplishment of being nominated.

"You should keep your head up regardless of if you win or not today because it's true, you're all winners," said Pekari. "You represent your commands with pride, professionalism, military appearance, your service to your community, as well as to your country and I appreciate it and your leadership definitely appreciates it."

While Glover and Palacios ultimately took home the awards, other service members were nominated. The nominees for Junior SMOY were: Aviation Boatswain's Mate (Handling) 3rd Class Angel Gomez, Naval Station Rota and Hospital Corpsman 3rd Class Joshua Casco, U.S. Naval Hospital Rota.

The nominees for Senior SMOY were: Hospital Corpsman 1st Class Nicole Gacayan, Navy Environmental and Preventive Medicine Unit 7; Tech. Sgt. Cameron Wood, 725th AMS; Sgt. Keila Ortiz, U.S. Army Medical Command; Information Systems Technician 2nd Class Laquisha Cooks, Naval Computer and Telecommunications Area Master Station Atlantic Detachment Rota; Aviation Ordnanceman 1st Class Radames Martinez, Navy Munitions Command; Master-at-Arms 2nd Class Antonio Oglesby, NAVSTA Rota and Logistics Specialist 2nd Class Darius Grays, Fleet Logistics Support.

For more news from Naval Station Rota, Spain, visit www.navy.mil/.