Archive for the Biographies Category

My Marine Corps career started when, on my 17th birthday, I walked into the USMCR recruiting office at NAS Alameda. I was interested in the MarCad Program – High School to Flight School. I passed all the tests, aptitude and physical. The minimum age for flight school was 19 and a minimum of an Associate’s degree. I enlisted in the USMCR MARTU Alameda NAS (delayed entry of 7 Jan 62 waiting for a slot for MCRD-SD Boot Camp). I was assigned to 4thMAW VMA-133 as an A-4C Skyhawk Avionics technician. In range of obtaining my Associates degree in Electronics I reported for my flight physical. A big disappointment came when I failed the eye test – something about binocular vision out of spec.

Undeterred, I transferred to San Jose State Univ. School of Engineering, joined the PLC Program (Jr and Sr) and graduated in June 1967 with a BS in Aeronautical Maintenance. I was discharged from the USMCR as a Corporal and accepted a Regular commission. With orders in hand, I was off to TBS 1-68.

After TBS I was assigned to the 3rd MAW 5th LAAMBn (Light Anti-Aircraft Missile Bn) at MCAS Yuma. I was put in the queue for Hawk Missile School. After a few months, I finally made it to the 6-week Hawk Missile School (6704) at USAADS Ft Bliss, TX.

Then it was back to Yuma and again in a waiting stance for the 9 month Guided Missile Systems Engineering School in Ft Bliss (6703). Upon graduation in May 1969, I had orders to RVN MACG-18 where I worked at 1stMAW G3 with Tactical Air Support/Control duties (6702) – mostly in The Bunker but thankfully, a few days in the field every month. And of all things, it was the USAF that gave me my I-Corps Area Fam.

After RVN I was off to 2nd MAW MCAS Cherry Point. The USMC was in a drawdown when I arrived. There were limited billets open when I checked in. I was assigned as an Intermediate Aircraft Maintenance Officer (KC-130) and was off to 3-months AMO School (6002) at NAS Memphis. In 1972 I left the USMC and became a graduate student at San Diego State Univ., earning an MS in Aerospace Engineering.

Hired by General Dynamics as a Structural Dynamics engineer, I had a 22 year career in the NASA/USAF Atlas/Centaur Space Satellite Launch Vehicle programs as well as the Tomahawk and Advanced Cruise Missile programs. With General Dynamics folding up shop in San Diego, I elected to not transfer to our new owner, Lockheed-Martin in Denver. I instead joined the BQM-145 UAV team at Teledyne Ryan.

With Teledyne Ryan subsequently selling out to Northrup-Grumman, I returned to graduate school at the University of Calif. – San Diego, earning a MS in Computer Science and Engineering. My next adventure was as a USN Civilian employee at the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR) where I worked in Cyber Defense and Satellite Communications Programs until my retirement in 2011.

Contrary to all appearances, my military career was not quite over when I left the USMC in 1972. In 1985 I joined the USNR Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) Unit at NAS-NI as an Aerospace Engineering Duty Officer – 1515. During the next 19 years, I did my yearly active duty at NAVAIR in Washington, DC as well as at SPAWAR in San Diego. In 1999, I was voluntarily recalled to 3 years of active duty at HQ SPAWAR. After 29 total years of USMC/USN service, I retired from the US Navy in 2004 as a Commander.

An accounting of my career would not be complete without mentioning my wonderful wife, Jeanne and our three kids, Alexa, Zach and Andy – the greatest children in the world! I met Jeanne in 1982 where we both worked as engineers at General Dynamics in San Diego.

UPDATED POSTING 3/30/2024

My dad’s mother moved to Los Angeles in the early 1900’s with her parents and two young sons.  My dad used to ride his bicycle over rolling meadows where I would later attend UCLA in the 60’s.  I was born in Los Angeles, California in April, 1945

My mom and her brother, my uncle, were both performers. My uncle came from Oregon to Hollywood in the big band era and started an orchestra while working in the furniture business. My mom followed him as a dancer – both tap and ballet and took a job in a flower shop frequented by a man who would become my dad.  He was a salesman in the stationery business in Hollywood.

Just before I turned five, the family moved from Los Angeles to Ventura, California when my dad became part owner of a stationery store. My mom died when I was five.  My dad remarried an employee who had known me since birth. She did volunteer work with the Red Cross.

My first summer job was with the City of Ventura Highway department (mainly hoeing weeds along the roads).  On weekends I worked at the launching ramp at the new Ventura Marina.

I attended UCLA where I also signed up for Navy ROTC which helped with books and tuition in exchange for 3 years of my life.  At the end of my sophomore year I switched to the Marine option and went to Marine boot camp at Quantico the summer following my Junior year (1966).  During camp I really appreciated my weed hoeing experience as many of the activities involved upper body strength.

I graduated from UCLA in 1967 with a degree in Speech Communications.  Within a few days I was married to my first wife Kathy and we drove cross-country to Quantico for TBS.  Being asthmatic as a kid, I was always short-winded.  Thanks to Dave Peake and Rob Winn for several pushes “over the hill”. As TBS concluded, I put in for Engineering and Language School, expecting 6 weeks of Vietnamese.  Upon graduating from TBS, I first served  two months as an assistant Personnel Officer at Quantico while I waited for Engineer School to start at Camp Lejeune.  We were there for six weeks while I learned to drive bulldozers and blow up things, then we had six weeks to report to the Presidio at Monterey where I was to spend a full year learning Thai.  By the time Thai language school finished, I had completed 2 of my 3 years military commitment.

During Thai school, I devised a system for teaching the Thai alphabet in half the time.  I applied to the Commandant to stay on at the Presidio for my last year to perfect the system.  The response was “you can stay for a year, but you need to extend for another year so you can go to Vietnam”.  I declined and arrived in Vietnam as a 1^st Lieutenant in March, 1969 – when most TBS 1-68 graduates were already home.

Vietnam was relatively uneventful for me.  We spent most of our time policing our own troops, dealing with racial issues and drugs.  After 8 months, I was about to leave on R&R and my mother-in-law at the time suffered a stroke, so I came home on emergency leave (thanks to my stepmother’s Red Cross connections).  After making care facility arrangements, I only had two months remaining of my three year hitch, so I was stationed at Camp Pendleton to finish up.  While there, I attended a job fair for officers getting out of the service.  The company reps spoke in alphabetic order so the Xerox rep was last.  Everyone was looking for sales reps but as he was sitting down, the Xerox rep said something about an administrative management position in the Santa Ana Regional office.  I got the job.  I was at the Region about a year and a half before they sent me to the Anaheim Branch for another year and a half.  In those jobs I was learning the company’s “paper-based” system for processing orders for renting Xerox copiers.

In 1974 I was asked to be part of a Task Force being assembled in Rochester, NY to determine how to use Xerox’s new mini-computers to automate the paper-based system throughout the seventy-some branches across the country.   My role in that task force led to a job offer in Rochester.

We completed the implementation of the new system in all branches ahead of schedule largely due to the use of computer-based training, or CBT.    We would mail out large training disk packs ahead of time so the branch personnel could “practice” on their own equipment. When our trainer arrived onsite the employees would start inputting live data.  We were onsite to deal with the “future shock” as processed reports would print out the next morning instead of being mailed back several days later.

Once the launch of the new system was rolling smoothly, I was tapped to become part of a new computer-based training department at Xerox.  By 1982 we were logging over 52,000 connect hours of online training each year.  That use of CBT was largely responsible for the company not having to add an entire new wing to the Leesburg Training Facility, not to mention saving millions of dollars in airfare.

After being in Rochester for a couple of years, I found myself a “born-again bachelor” as my wife moved to Dogpatch Arkansas with our two sons, Brett and Brian.

I bought a fixer-upper house that kept me busy for about 3 years.  One day I noticed an audition notice for “The Mind With A Dirty Man”.  I tried out and was cast as the Priest on the Pornographic Film Review Board.  The Producer of that show would become the second Kathy Piper.  She also had two sons — Brian and David, so I only had one new name to learn.

In 1983 I left Xerox and started Creative Approaches, Inc. (CAI).  We were the first custom CBT company in the entire world. Early on, most of our projects were mainframe-based.  We were developing and sending courses on magnetic tapes to many of the country’s Fortune 500 companies.

Being in the middle of societal computerization, CAI was constantly “chasing technology”; from Mainframe to AS/400 to DOS to OS/2 to Windows, the Internet and ultimately to the phone.  During the OS/2 days, IBM kept sending project after project, then one day we learned that IBM was canceling OS/2 – Microsoft’s Windows had WON!

In 1995 the firm developed its own (and first) Web site.  By 2007, Web site and Web Application development revenues had become half of our total revenue.  At the time of selling the company in 2012, the CBT-to Web Development ratio was more like 40:60.

Three of our four sons (and all 12 grandchildren) now live within 20 minutes of my house.  My wife and I started a Community Theatre troupe that just finished our 43^rd year of performances – whew!  Sadly, she passed this past January after 3 years in Assisted Living suffering from Alzheimer’s.

I am very thankful for and proud of my Marine Corps experience.  It definitely gave me confidence in myself as I did things I never thought I could.  I feel strongly that certainly every American male should serve in the military.

POWERS: Augusta National Golf 2014

Pearl Creek, NY, a small, farming community of less than 25 homes near Buffalo is where I was raised. Most neighbors were relatives and nearly every male was a WWII veteran. This included a Marine who, along with his twin brother, earned the Navy Cross for action at Cape Gloucester. Another Marine veteran and close friend of my parents would regularly win bets pounding out 50 push-ups at gatherings years after active duty. They, along with actors like John Wayne and James Whitmore, movies like Guadalcanal Diary and Sands of Iwo Jima, shaped my attitude toward the military and the Marine Corps.

After graduating from Pavilion Central HS I attended Canisius College, a small Jesuit school in Buffalo. I completed Platoon Leaders Class between junior and senior year. I recall the vice Chair of the College, a Jesuit Priest, providing his office for the PLC candidates to meet. He was that supportive of soon-to-be Marine Officers and this was 1967.

PLC provided indelible memories – two unforgettable Sergeant Instructors, the Hill Trail, pugil stick competition, close order drill and thirty-six fellow platoon members who made it. At college graduation, there was a sharp contrast between dress whites and the drab, green uniforms of dozens of Army ROTC candidates who shared the stage.

Immediately upon graduation, Barbara and I were married and drove to Quantico for our honeymoon. At my first double running of the obstacle course at TBS, Captain Len Eaton chided me for being slow on the ropes saying he too was just married. It impressed the heck out of me that he knew my name and that I was recently married. It served as a life-long lesson on the importance of knowing who you command or manage.

Upon graduating from TBS, I reported to MCAS New River, NC for training as an air traffic control officer. After two years at New River, I transferred to Futenma, Okinawa and returned to New River at the end of my overseas tour.

In December 1971, I left active duty and took a position with the VA Office of Construction. While working there, I served with Marine Air Control Squadron-24, a reserve unit located in Quantico, VA. Our reserve duty consisted of running ground controlled air intercepts with F-8’s based at Andrews Airbase. Doing this in airspace abutting the Capital is quite a contrast to what is permitted in the post-911 era.

After a short assignment in Durham, NH, we transferred to New Hampshire where we have lived since 1975. While in NH, I continued with the USMCR joining Marine Air Support Squadron-6 in South Weymouth, MA. MASS-6 duty involved many Combined Arms Exercises at 29 Palms. After a two year tour as the unit’s Commanding Officer, I retired from the Marine Reserve in 1993 at the rank of Colonel.

Thanks to the GI Bill, I was able to complete my MBA. In 1989 I joined New England Deaconess Hospital in Boston and served as Chief Information Officer. After merging with Beth Israel in 1996, I stayed as VP, Information Systems. Beth Israel Deaconess is a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School and official hospital for the Boston Red Sox. After retiring in February 2015, I continue to do part time consulting work for the medical center.

Barbara and I will celebrate our golden anniversary in two years and have four children and seven grandchildren with whom to share the occasion. We are both avid golfers and have the privilege of splitting our winter months between Arizona and Florida.

In closing, there is never a day that I forget that I am a Marine Officer and what it represents. The legacy that past and present Marines have built is awesome and something everyone who carries the title of “Marine” respects.

Semper Fi, John Powers

I arrived at the University of Missouri in September of 1962 fully intending to be a career Navy officer.  I had enlisted in the Naval Reserve as soon as I turned seventeen and promptly was investigated by the NIS because I had somehow gotten a perfect score on the GCT, the test they used to determine intelligence and career specialties for new recruits.  They finally determined that I hadn’t conspired to somehow steal the test out of the unit’s safe and I was off to Great Lakes for boot camp.  I became a quartermaster “striker” and a helmsman on the unit’s PCS and I did a week long cruise on a guppy submarine.  My efforts apparently made no difference to my congressman when I applied for an appointment to the Naval Academy, but I had hedged my bets and also applied for an NROTC scholarship.  I was selected for the NROTC program and applied to Missouri thinking I would have a plausible post-retirement career as a journalist. 

Things went well for me at Missouri.  I topped my midshipman class all four years, served as commander of the Battalion in my senior year, and was elected first as a senator, then as vice-president and finally as president of the Missouri Students Association, the University’s student government.  It was on my Fourth Class cruise following freshman year aboard the DLG-14 that I had my first doubts about remaining in the Navy.  I was dismayed by the lack of knowledge and leadership among the junior officers and the elitist culture of the wardroom.  But it wasn’t enough to push me into applying for the Marine Corps Option.  It was the next summer at Corpus Christi and Coronado that convinced me that this had been a mistake.  Fifteen hours in a T-34 trainer with a Marine Corps 1^st Lt and the amphibious training in California led me to request the option even though the deadline for making the request had long passed.  The Major who headed up the Marine Corps contingent at Corpus led me on a wild goose chase in 100+ heat just to make sure I was serious and somehow wrangled a slot that had gone unused at Harvard for me.  OCS came the following summer and I was certain I’d made the right choice.  I was granted permission to stay at Missouri for an additional year to complete my Master’s Degree and then we were off to Quantico for TBS.

After Basic School Ann and I went to Delmar for Amtrac School.  I had wanted Armor but I wasn’t too disappointed by the assignment.  I knew that WestPac awaited and that would be a new ballgame anyway.  When I got to Phu Bai I was briefed by the ADC who gave me the option of going to 3^rd Tanks or 1^st Amtracs.  He said that tanks weren’t doing a lot in I Corps and that Tracs had been dismounted and were holding down a regimental sized AO along the Cua Viet River.  So I asked to be sent to Tracs where I felt fairly competent concerning their AmGrunt role.  When I arrived in Cua Viet I was assigned as commander of 2^nd Platoon, Bravo Company.  The Company took turns with A Company operating out of C-4 and manning the platoon outpost at Oceanview, 2,500 m South of the Ben Hai River.  After a stint as platoon commander I went back to Cua Viet as Battalion S-2 and earned a secondary MOS in Intelligence.  Then I was moved to H&S Company as CO and returned to the COC bunker as S-3A to finish up my tour.  I also picked up another secondary MOS as Battalion Embarkation Officer. 

The most significant thing about my time in RVN was our adoption of eleven month old Amy Linh from the Catholic Orphanage in DaNang. This was a monumental task, and 3rd Division Legal and the G-2 helped with all the paper work in country while Ann petitioned Congressmen in Missouri and Florida to help with the INS. When I rotated I went down to IIIMAF and picked up Amy. General Cushman sent his staff car to pick us up and take us to the 15th Aerial Port, keeping us cool in an air conditioned office to avoid the 104 degree heat. We flew to Okinawa and were meet by a contingent of SNCO’S and their wives who had new clothes for Amy and tended her while I got a haircut, had my Summer Service C uniform pressed, got my shoes spit shined . Then they put us back on a new plane and we took off for El Toro. When we landed we were met by four Captains who took my orders for processing and put us in another staff car that took us to LAX. We landed in Kansas City that night in a swirling snow storm and I drove back to Columbia, Missouri. All this happened in one very long day and the Marine Corps never publicized the first adoption by a Marine in RVN. My only regret is that I never had the opportunity to thank whoever made all these plans that brought us home as soon as possible.

We had orders to report to the U.S. Naval Academy as an instructor in Political Science in the English, History and Government Department.  While at Annapolis I also served as the OIC for the 4^th Class rifle range qualification,  Officer Representative to the Small Bore Varsity Rifle Team, Leader of the Military Ethics Class for Midshipmen who had opted out of chapel attendance under a class action suit filed by Cadets and Midshipmen against the DOD (which included weekly meetings with the Superintendent, Vice-Admiral James Calvert), and was appointed Deputy Political Science Department Chairman when the Academy was reorganized on a university model.  I continued to teach and had the opportunity to write a new curriculum for the Department.

I left Active Duty to return to graduate school at the University of Michigan.  I started in Political Science and then shifted into the emerging field of Gerontology.  Ann had our son, Adam, and my savings were wiped out.  The Institute of Gerontology recommended me to direct the Area-wide Model Project on Aging, a planning project mandated for Michigan and all the other states under the Older Americans Act.  I interviewed in Lansing, was hired, and set up my office and staff under the City of Lansing’s Planning Department.  We finished the project a month early and I was preparing to return to Ann Arbor when the Planning Director offered me a job as a Division Head, directing all social planning for the City.  The money was better than the salary of an Assistant Professor so I decided to see where it would lead.  The next year I was promoted to Assistant Planning Director and I stayed in that position until I was promoted to Director of Administrative Services under a reorganization made under a new City Charter.  I served in that position until I took an early retirement in 1993.

When I arrived in Michigan I joined the 1^st Battalion, 24^th Marines and H&S Company Commander in Detroit.  I subsequently served as C Company Commander in Lansing and then returned to Detroit as the S-3A, S-4 and S-3.  I resigned from the Reserves in 1981 after serving for 17 years in the Naval Reserve, Marine Corps and Marine Corps Reserve. 

My life had taken a different turn and I had joined the Secular Franciscan Order.  I had converted to Catholicism while at Cua Viet and had become fascinated by the life of St. Francis of Assisi.  I served the Order first as our fraternity minister, then as Provincial Minister for Our Lady of Consolation Province, and finally as National Coordinator for Peace and Justice Ministry.  After three years of training I was ordained as a Deacon in 1987 and also served in that capacity at Lansing’s Holy Cross Parish for the next decade.  In 1997 I left that position for a period of reflection and discernment and in 1999 I converted once more and became a Jew.  During this period I served in several volunteer capacities including Chairman of the Salvation Army Board in Lansing, Secretary and Treasurer of the area’s Food Bank Board, a founding member of the local chapter of Habitat for Humanity, and Chairman of the Board for Advent House Ministries, a local provider of hot meals and job training for the poor and unemployed.

Ann and I divorced in 1976 and I married Mary later that year.  In 1978 we were blessed with Allison, Kate followed in 1980 and Jacob in 1985.  So, I have five children and ten grandchildren who are the focus of our lives today.  In 1998 I returned to the University of Michigan and earned a Master’s Degree as a Clinical Social Worker.  On graduation I worked as a therapist on the University of Michigan Hospital’s Psychiatric Unit and later as Team Therapist on the Tri-County Community Mental Health’s Assertive Community Treatment Team, working with individuals with diagnoses that included psychosis.  I retired again in 2008 and now see a small number of geriatric clients privately.