Meet Hull Maintenance Technician 1st Class Daphny Davila, a Recruit Division Commander (RDC) at Recruit Training Command (RTC), the Navy's only boot camp.

Davila is a native of Spring, Texas, and joined the Navy in August of 2015.

She was recently recognized as the honor graduate of her RDC "C" school class and spoke about her journey and how being the top-performing student validated her hard work.

"At times, I felt discouraged, thinking I fell short, but I pushed myself to stay motivated and reminded myself why I wanted to be here," she said. "I am very thankful for everyone I had the pleasure of meeting along the way that helped me break that barrier and overcome the mental and physical challenges."

Davila reported to RTC from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Maintenance Center, where she was the leading petty officer of the Non-Destructive Testing Lab.

Throughout her time in the Navy, she had various mentors and leaders, but she noticed there needed to be more female leadership in the engineering community.

"I would've loved to have female mentorship. I quickly realized that I was a minority, as a female in engineering, as a Hull Technician, and as a Sailor," she said. "I want to be that representation and reminder that you can be your authentic self regardless of gender and still achieve great things."

Davila took some time to reflect on her career, and she concluded that it starts at boot camp, which made her want to become an RDC.

"Your RDCs are among the first people to influence your career," Davila said. "My goal is to inspire and fill that niche for Sailors. In the little time I've been here, I feel as though my entire perspective on leadership has changed. I plan to use these skills and experiences wherever the Navy takes me."

Boot camp is approximately 10 weeks, and all enlistees in the U.S. Navy begin their careers at the command. Training includes five warfighting competencies of firefighting, damage control, seamanship, watchstanding, and small arms handling and marksmanship, along with physical fitness and lessons in Navy heritage and core values, Warrior Toughness, Life Skills, teamwork and discipline. More than 40,000 recruits train annually at the Navy's only boot camp.

For more news from Recruit Training Command, visit www.navy.mil/local/rtc