Our Story
The Question That Started It All
Rootline started with a question a few volunteers kept circling back to: what would it take for a military community to actually feel like home?
In the months before Rootline had a name, a group of spouses and volunteers at Camp Humphreys, South Korea kept noticing the same thing. People were giving real time and heart to the community and were still walking away from events without having found their people. The effort was going in, but lasting connections were not coming out.
Naomi Suguitan had felt both sides of military life, the good and the heavy, across more than one move. She kept showing up to serve, and kept watching capable people fade out before they ever found their footing. So instead of stepping back, she started sketching what a community would look like if it were built to hold people through every arrival, every change, and every goodbye.
The Question That Started It
In May 2025, three volunteers sat around a table in The Ville and asked: what if a military community could actually feel healthy? Each of them had watched good intentions be taken for granted, good people burn out, and qualified spouses be sidelined by a job market. What they wanted wasn't one more group to join. It was a redesign of how connection and growth work across a whole tour.
Rootline began there, in small conversations and honest reflection, on the belief that community can be both kind and built to last.
What Grew From It
The name came from a simple idea: strength starts underground and creates a linear connected network. A community holds when it is rooted in structure and shared values, sturdy enough to carry people through every arrival, change, and departure.
That belief became the ROOT Pathway, a framework of programs designs to support our military community through their entire tour. Inside it is peer guides that help you through the PCS journey, Circles that give people member-led groups built around what they care about, and MISSION to keep skills and careers moving through volunteerism and through duty stations.
Within four months, Rootline was more than an idea. Families were finding real continuity. Volunteers were leading without burning out. The model started to take shape because it was being built for people, and not for show.
Rootline Today
Rootline is now a volunteer-run grassroots organization serving the Camp Humphreys community with a vision to grow across military communities worldwide. It stands for connection that lasts, leadership that renews itself with each rotation, and a community that looks after its people as fiercely as they look after each other.
Our Mission
Rootline strengthens military readiness, supports retention, and elevates Quality of Life by building sustainable, peer-led systems of connection, integration, and leadership development for everyone living military-affiliated life
Our Vision
Rootline envisions a future where military family resilience and Quality of Life no longer depend on a single installation program, a single personality, or good timing, but are sustained by peer-built systems that travel with people across every PCS and every phase of service.
Our Values
Our values shape how we lead, support, and grow together. They protect our culture, guide how we treat people, and ground every decision we make.
People First. Healthy communities begin with healthy relationships. We treat every person with care, respect, and dignity. Relationships come before roles.
Belonging Before Doing. People need a place to plant themselves before they can grow. We make room for connection before we ask for contribution.
Access with Purpose. We build clear, equitable paths to leadership and contribution, grounded in mission and merit, not rank, status, or social capital.
Integrity in Action. We follow defined processes, communicate openly, and take responsibility for our decisions. Systems matter because people depend on them.
Community-Centered Design. We build programs that respond to lived experience and strengthen connection, trust, and visibility. We listen before we build.
Continuity That Lasts. We design systems built for stability and transfer, so support continues no matter who moves or leads next. Rootline outlasts any individual.
Meet the Board.
Rootline Community Initiative, Inc. is a volunteer-run, grassroots-approved private organization on Camp Humphreys and VMIS. We are not affiliated or endorsed by the Department of Defense, the U.S. Army, or U.S. Army Garrison Humphreys.
Naomi Suguitan
President & Founder
Tamara Beck
Founding Officer & MISSION Founder
Vacant
Board Chair
Tamara Beck
Founding Officer
Vacant
Legal Director
Vacant
Financial Director
Meet the Executive Team.
The Executive Team runs Rootline day to day, building the Rootline's programs from the ground up. they serve under the President and CEO and report to the Board on the matters the Board governs. Currently, every member of the Executive Team is still a volunteer, as Rootline continues to grow from an idea into a structured organization with proven programs.
Naomi Suguitan
CEO
Joanna Marshallsaey
Board Chair
Vacant
Legal Director
Vacant
Financial Director
Humphreys Branch Leadership
As Rootline grows and starts to prepare for its founding officers to PCS from Rootline's first branch at Camp Humphreys, Rootline is starting to build its leadership structure at the branch level to ensure program and values continuity.
Naomi Suguitan
Branch Lead
Jennifer Wilson
Seed Lead