After four years in the U.S. Navy, Ashley Jordan found a new way to keep serving — as a CBP import specialist hired through a federal program built for recent graduates
For Ashley Jordan, service has been the throughline of her whole career. After four years in the U.S. Navy, she carried that same drive into a job with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, where she now works as an import specialist — and, in her telling, found a workplace that felt like a fit from day one.
Jordan’s path started with a simple goal: to do something different, travel, learn, and serve. Her Navy years didn’t take her around the world the way she’d pictured — her ship was in the shipyard and she never deployed — but she doesn’t regret it. “I met a lot of great people, had a good experience, and learned a lot,” she said. Along the way, she finished her degree in human resources management.
As her time in the Navy wound down, Jordan knew she wanted to stay in federal service. Scrolling through the federal USAJobs site, she stumbled onto a role she’d never heard of. “I was like, ‘Import specialist?’ Never heard of it before,” she recalled. The job description caught her interest — and when she saw it was open through CBP’s Recent Graduates Program, part of the broader federal Pathways Program designed to launch careers for new grads, she went for it.
Finding a Fit at CBP
What stuck with Jordan after she joined was the culture. “I really love the culture here. There’s a good mix of people…everyone gets to know each other. Being here is more family-oriented,” she said.
She also found room to grow. Jordan said CBP encourages employees to pursue training and travel to get it — something she hadn’t experienced as much in her previous job. “Now, being able to see that we have a lot of opportunities we can take up, that’s another thing I love about CBP,” she said.
The piece she credits most for her early success was mentorship. Jordan said she was paired with a mentor within two weeks, and got hands-on guidance from the start — sitting alongside her mentor to learn the systems, the daily workflow, and how to handle common mistakes. “The mentorship that’s in place is chef’s kiss. I love it,” she said.
Looking back, Jordan said the work itself is what makes it rewarding. “It’s satisfying when you read the news and see things that relate to what we’re doing here,” she said. “To be able to see that the things we’re doing make a difference is the biggest kudos, I think, that one can get while working in their career.”
