2018: a year for increasing membership
Former Marine Gunnery Sgt. Jason Fischer, a newly-promoted Navy lieutenant commander has renewed his membership in the USMCCCA.
President’s Notes
A recent spate of new and renewed memberships is helping your Association vault into the 2018 with high expectations for roster gains and robust registration for our gathering in New Bern this summer.
Former Marine Gunnery Sgt. Jason Fischer, a newly-promoted Navy lieutenant commander, has re-upped within the past two weeks; as has affiliate member Dan Heath (retired Navy senior chief and chaplain of South Carolina’s Iron Mike Chapter in the mid-1980s; and Master Sgt. Jeremy Vought, our annual awards liaison (and a multiple DPA winner himself).
Retired mustang Capt. Ron Tucker, President and CEO of the prestigious Beaufort International Film Festival and Beaufort Film Society.
Also coming back aboard is retired mustang Capt. Ron Tucker, President and CEO of the prestigious Beaufort International Film Festival and Beaufort Film Society. Many Marines know Ron from the Desert Storm veteran’s 20 year run heading the two South Carolina Lowcountry companies he founded: Sandbar Productions and Good-to-Go Video.
Ron’s wife, Rebecca, has served alongside in leadership, management, marketing and production roles just as she does in the couple’s current endeavors.
CHECKING IN WITH …
Caught up by phone with Dub Allen over the holidays. Retired to Arkansas, he and wife Jessa checked a big one off the bucket list last year by flying to the Netherlands where they boarded a cruise ship to visit Normandy and Belleau Wood.
The Vietnam veteran and broadcaster worked in the L.A. office among other assignments during a colorful career, including liaison duties with the late 1970s NBC hit, “Baa Baa Black Sheep.”
The storyline was loosely based on the exploits of famed Marine aviator Pappy Boyington and starred Robert Conrad, who was a special guest at our 2007 conference in the City of Angels.
A footnote to Dub’s historic battlefield excursion in France: He reports that Chicago Airport TSA confiscated the small sampling of earth he’d bottled from Omaha Beach and Belleau Wood.
“It still contained enough explosive residue to trip the security alarm,” he said. “They cleared me for the flight home, but they would not return those few ounces of sacred ground.”
“TSA said the only place that dirt was going was to hazmat,” he reported.
Pat Gibbons checked in.
Pat Gibbons checked in during a Christmastime trip to Florida where, years ago, then-Staff Sgt. Gibbons captured wife Cricket while attending UF on the MECEP program.
These days, the Desert Storm Marine and PAO to Commandant Gen. Jim Jones, is serving at the University of Notre Dame as Executive Director of Academic Communications.
When our fellow CC was hired last year, University Provost Thomas Burrish called Gibbons “the overwhelming choice of the search committee,” bringing to bear “wide-ranging strategic and tactical experience in higher education, government and the non-profit sector.”
Pat’s previous civilian gigs have included stops at Johns Hopkins, North Carolina’s Research Triangle and the State of Arizona.
INTERIM VICE-PRESIDENT
Per the Association by-laws, the national board and officers unanimously approved my nomination of member Shawn Rhodes to serve as Interim Vice-President until the annual election is held in conjunction with the 2018 USMCCCA Professional Training Symposium in New Bern, North Carolina August 20-23.
The change became effective on New Year’s Day.
Shawn succeeds former Vice President Kate Stark, who has stepped down in order to avoid any appearance of conflict of interest while she executes increased communications and graphics responsibilities in her contract services role as USMCCCA webmaster.
Kudos to Kate for her continuing, incredible energy and commitment in all manner of assignments. And welcome aboard to Shawn who will help us seize and maintain momentum in this important year of growth for the USMCCCA.
By way of background, Shawn is a former Marine public affairs sergeant, oft-deployed (including combat operations in Iraq), who owns and operates a business consulting firm in Tampa, Florida.
The author, columnist and speaker is a graduate of Western Carolina University (Suma Cum Laude). Shawn and his wife, Elyse, expect their first child in the spring.
NOTE: CCs interested in running for national office are encouraged to contact Nominations Chair Mike Frank not later than May 15, 2018.
Semper Fidelis!
Keith Oliver, National President