{"id":127056,"date":"2024-02-25T23:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-26T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=127056"},"modified":"2024-02-27T10:13:18","modified_gmt":"2024-02-27T10:13:18","slug":"rotc-scholarship-changed-engineer-officers-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=127056","title":{"rendered":"ROTC scholarship changed engineer officer\u2019s life"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n Lt. Col. Michael Pope speaks after receiving an award for professional achievement at the 38th annual Becoming Everything You Are (BEYA) conference, Baltimore, Md., February 17, 2024.
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\n Lt. Col. Michael Pope receives an award for professional achievement at the 38th annual Becoming Everything You Are (BEYA) conference, Baltimore, Md., February 17, 2024.
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WASHINGTON \u2014 Growing up as a self-described simple country boy in Anderson, South Carolina, Lt. Col. Michael Pope spent many summers on his grandfather\u2019s farm, where something always needed fixing.<\/p>\n

There, he worked on tractors, car engines and a wide variety of other pieces of machinery. It was here that his passion for engineering began.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always had a desire to understand how things worked and if they broke, how to fix them,\u201d he said. \u201cThat [desire] carried over in what I wanted to do in my career.\u201d<\/p>\n

That “simple country boy” received a professional achievement award during the 38th annual Becoming Everything You Are (BEYA) Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Conference last week.<\/p>\n

“It’s great to receive the award,\u201d he said. \u201cI really believe it’s a recognition to all of the people that have mentored me and supported me to this point.\u201d<\/p>\n

That list of people included his family, teachers, mentors and peers. His family had a history of military service with his father enlisting in the Army as a mechanic and his grandfather serving in the Korean War. He also had several aunts and uncles who served.<\/p>\n

Despite the deep ties to the military, Pope initially went into the workforce after high school to help his family financially. He worked at local grocery store as a meat cutter until one of his former Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps instructors helped him get an ROTC scholarship to South Carolina State University, where he majored in mechanical engineering.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was able to receive that scholarship and that really turned my life around,\u201d he said. \u201cGoing to college allowed me to broaden my outlook on the opportunities that I had in life.\u201d<\/p>\n

After commissioning in 2003, Pope spent the first five years of his Army career as a field artillery officer before using the Voluntary Transfer Incentive Program to become an engineer officer.<\/p>\n

His first assignment was with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers New Orleans District. There, he served as a project manager overseeing work to improve flood mitigation including widening the canals as the city handled the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. He also worked in the emergency operations center during Hurricane Isaac in 2012 partnering with community groups.<\/p>\n

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\n Lt. Col. Yun, Jeong Hyun, RoK Design and Construction Agent (DCA), officially transfers the final project of the Yongsan Relocation Project in the Pyeongtaek area to Lt. Col. Michael Pope, US DCA, in a ceremony on Nov. 30 at Osan Air Base. After over 16 years of construction, it marks the conclusion of the construction phase of the relocation of US troops to USAG Humphreys from Yongsan Garrison in Seoul.
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“That [assignment] really reenforced that I made the right decision to switch to the engineering branch,\u201d he said. \u201cI was able to not only utilize my technical degree as a project engineer, but also support emergency response operations to help the local communities.”<\/p>\n

Throughout the next several stops of his career, Pope was able to experience many aspects of being an engineer officer by working with civil affairs, being a battalion executive officer and then serving as a senior U.S. engineer to a foreign partner general.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that the engineer branch is one of the most diverse branches because you can be the tactical Soldier supporting maneuver elements all the way to working in USACE utilizing your technical skills,\u201d he added. \u201cI think you get that full spectrum.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2020 near the height of COVID-19, his experience with hurricane relief came in handy. He was assigned to Joint Task Force-Bravo in Honduras as the director of engineering. Only days out of his mandatory quarantine period entering the country, alerts started coming in for a potential hurricane.<\/p>\n

He quickly acclimated himself to the area, his unit and the local community. He worked to identify any potential facility damage and started tracking lines of communication for impacted transportation routes throughout Central America.<\/p>\n

Back-to-back Category 4 Hurricanes Eta and Iota then hit the region. For the next 45 days, he and his team worked to find available routes to deliver aide to the affected areas.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing able to go to those developing countries and provide that [emergency] support is one of the reasons why I stayed in the military,\u201d he said thinking about his experience.<\/p>\n

The Army also challenged him with his assignments. The biggest being his current role as the deputy commander for the USACE Far East District and the design and construction agent for the Yongsan Relocation Program with the Republic of Korea.<\/p>\n

The $10.4 billion program included relocating U.S. military personnel from the Yongsan Garrison in Seoul to the U.S. Army Garrison Humphreys near Pyeongtaek. Pope is overseeing the final phases of the program.<\/p>\n

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\n Representatives including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers \u2013 Far East District, the 51st Fighter Wing, USFK Transformation and Restationing (USFK T&R), Ministry of National Defense USFK Relocation Office (MURO) and more gathered to witness the signing of the chapel from the RoK to the U.S. as it underscored the shared commitment to servicemembers from both countries.
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He ensures that the proper facilities are built and works with senior Republic of Korea officials on high-level agreements between the two countries.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been the most challenging and rewarding job because I\u2019ve had to utilize both my tactical and [interpersonal] skills in order to move the program forward,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The team recently finalized a major construction project<\/a> on a new 24,000 square-foot chapel for multi-faith religious services.<\/p>\n

For more than 20 years, Pope has crafted a career within the Army and been able to pursue his passion for engineering. He said his time in service has been both a duty and an honor and one that sets him up for success when he retires later this year.<\/p>\n

“There are few professions that give you the level of responsibility and authority at such a young age and at the same time provide you with the mentorship to be successful,\u201d he explained. \u201cI believe that the military is the reason I’m successful now and as I transition to the civilian world, taking those skills over to be successful in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

RELATED LINKS:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Army Engineers honored at annual conference<\/a><\/p>\n

Army News Service<\/a><\/p>\n

ARNEWS archives<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1 \/ 2 Show Caption + Hide Caption \u2013 Lt. Col. Michael Pope speaks after receiving an award for professional achievement at the 38th annual Becoming Everything You Are (BEYA) conference, Baltimore, Md., February 17, 2024. (Photo Credit: Screen shot from BEYA awards ceremony) VIEW ORIGINAL 2 \/ 2 Show Caption + Hide Caption \u2013 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":127058,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-127056","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=127056"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127056\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":127063,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127056\/revisions\/127063"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/127058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=127056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=127056"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=127056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}