West Point Exoskeleton Capstone Team is Awarded the 2014 Scott R. Clark Innovation Award: Team T-REX (Tendon-assistive Rigid EXoskeleton), made up of cadets and faculty Reported by Dean’s Institute of Innovation and Development from Civil & Mechanical Engineering was awarded the 2014 Scott R. Clark Innovation Award, which acknowledges a project that demonstrates an innovative approach to solving a problem of direct application to the Army. The team was made up of CDTs (now 2LTs) Ryan Polston, Meagan Latimar, Brandon Zwank, Adam Hamner, and Zachary Reichert, as well as faculty advisors Dr. Becky Zifchock and MAJ Amber Walker. Charged with designing a device that would assist the soldier in carrying that load, the 2014 West Point Exoskeleton Team looked to smart materials to take a novel approach. Rather than a traditional exoskeleton which transfers load to the ground, the team designed a small, lightweight device that spans the ankle joint to provide energetic assistance during the propulsive plantarflexion phase of gait. The energetic assistance is provided by Flexinol®, a thermal-reactive nickel-titanium alloy that is only microns thick. With improved metabolic efficiency the soldier can travel further, faster, and with decreased fatigue and injury susceptibility. In addition to their recognition by the Clark Innovation Award, the team’s work was also featured in the July – August 2014 issue of Popular Mechanics: Found here and on their website: here. POCs are Dr. Becky Zifchock: rebecca.zifchock@usma.edu, and MAJ Amber Walker: amber.walker@usma.edu

A West Point graduate died Wednesday while fighting in an Ukrainian army unit near Donetsk. Mark Paslawsky, 55, graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in 1981, but recently joined the Donbas volunteer battalion and has fought in the region since April.

Mr. Paslawsky, who went by "Franko" in a recent Vice News interview, told the news outlet "I'm of Ukrainian decent, and because of my parent's background, I'm entitled to immediate Ukrainian citizenship. So before I joined the battalion, I took on Ukrainian citizenship so I'd fight as a Ukrainian." Read More

The White House announced on Tuesday it would award the Medal of Honor to an Army officer who distinguished himself during the Civil War Battle of Gettysburg more than 151 years ago.

Army artillery officer 1st Lt. Alonzo H. Cushing continued to issue orders despite being wounded numerous times in the bloody battle, and will receive the posthumous award on Sep. 15. According to the Washington Post, relatives of Cushing and others have spent decades lobbying on the soldier's behalf.

“First Lieutenant Alonzo H. Cushing will receive the Medal of Honor posthumously for his actions while serving as commanding officer of Battery A, 4th United States Artillery, Artillery Brigade, 2nd Corps, Army of the Potomac. Cushing distinguished himself during combat operations against an armed enemy in the vicinity of Cemetery Ridge, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on July 3, 1863.”

A graduate of West Point, Cushing was just 22-years-old when he was killed in the battle. On the battle's third day, Cushing's unit faced the Confederate "Pickett's Charge" and his artillery battery took heavy losses. Read More

West Point Alumni Mike Urette ’61 has been named board chair of the The John and Mabel Ringling Museum of Art Foundation, Inc. Board of Directors.

He will assume the role of chair at the board’s next meeting in October.Urette is the founder and chief executive of Great American Corporation in Tampa. The 32-year-old family-administered organization is a diversified real estate construction, development, and management company.

Urette has been active in the Tampa community for more than 30 years. He has held a variety of civic positions focused on the arts and support for the military. 

As Chairman of the Building Committee at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, he was responsible for over-seeing the construction of the Patel Conservatory.  Urette received the 2010 Impact Award from Tampa Bay Businesses for Culture & the Arts. Urette and his wife, Karen, are also donors to the Community Foundation of Tampa Bay, the Tampa Bay History Center and the Tampa Theatre. 

He served as president of the local Military Affairs Committee, the West Point Society and Leadership Tampa Alumni. Urette is currently an active member of the American Committee on Foreign Relations, the Society of International Business Fellows, and the Tampa Yacht and Country Club. 

He is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, and he holds Master Degrees in Operations Research and Economics from Indiana University. Urette has served on the Board at The Ringling since 2009 as a Chair of the Development Committee and the Budget, Finance and Investment Committee.

United Allergy Services (UAS) a leading healthcare services company that enables family physicians pediatricians and health systems to deliver safe and effective allergy testing and customized immunotherapy services today announced that John Thresher ’98 has accepted the position of national director of sales. Thresher will be rejoining UAS after a brief stint as vice president of regional development at Airrosti Rehab Centers where he was responsible for all operational and marketing functions for a large group of healthcare providers in Texas. John previously served as regional sales manager for UAS from October 2012 to November 2013. As national director of sales Thresher will oversee the training strategy and direction of the UAS sales team.

"I have experienced firsthand United Allergy Services' commitment to providing exceptional support for its partner physicians as they seek to improve the health of their patients" said Thresher. "I look forward to helping execute the company's strategic initiatives to increase the scope of services performed within the primary care setting and expand access to safe and effective allergy care for millions of Americans."

"United Allergy Services is thrilled to welcome back John Thresher as national director of sales" said Nicolas Hollis UAS president and CEO. "His years of sales experience combined with a deep knowledge of the company and primary care settings as well as his leadership in the military will be instrumental in driving the company forward." Read More

COL John Graham, a former Fort Bragg paratrooper and currently a USMA professor deployed to Afghanistan as an Afghan advisor and Deputy Commander for Regional Command Capitol, receives a Joint Service Commendation Medal and a Combat Action Badge from LTG Joe Anderson, Commander of ISAF Joint Command. Graham led an Afghan assault force in March to extract two American adults and an American child, then coordinated the evacuation of 28 Americans after an International Day Care was attacked in Kabul. (article shared on XVIII Airborne Corps Facebook page)

Two members of the class of 1960 participated in the annual Appalachian Trail hike – John Sherden (AKA trail name “Crocodile Dundee”) and Chan Duryea (AKA trail name “Duzzer”).  Their hike was from Shelburne, NH to Andover, ME, and included the famously challenging Mahoosuc Notch, reportedly the most difficult and longest mile on the Appalachian Trail. Car-sized boulders, leap of faith drops, and narrow tunnels make even fast hikers slow down to a snail’s pace.  After completing the “Notch” and a few more miles, John and Chan were rewarded with visiting at one of the trail shelters with two recent veterans participating in the Warrior Hike– a therapeutic hike for returning veterans trying to put their combat experiences behind them.

Pictured in the photograph, left to right:  “Viking” – an Air Force veteran on the Warrior Hike, John Sherden, ‘60 AKA “Crocodile Dundee”, Chan Duryea, ‘60 AKA “Duzzer”, and “Machine” – a Navy veteran on the Warrior Hike.

Dewberry, a privately held professional services firm, has hired John Boulé, PE, as senior vice president and manager of the firm’s New York City office. In addition to his operational responsibilities, Boulé will be focused on growing Dewberry’s already robust transportation, water resources, and facility engineering practice in the region. He will also seek to enhance Dewberry’s support of local, state, and federal agencies’ post-Superstorm Sandy rebuilding efforts and resilience initiatives in the northeast.

Boulé has more than 28 years of experience in the engineering industry, specializing in resilience, risk mitigation, water resources, environmental restoration, and infrastructure and facility services. His portfolio includes projects throughout the United States and abroad, such as Saudi Arabia, Germany, Iraq, and Korea. Prior to joining Dewberry, Boulé served as the vice president and resiliency director for Parsons Brinkerhoff, where he coordinated with local, state, and federal clients on the planning and engineering of large-scale resilience projects. He served in the U.S. Army from 1986 to 2012, attaining the rank of colonel before retiring. From 2009 to 2012, Boulé was commander of the New York District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. In this role, he was responsible for the Corps’ water resource development, and regulatory activities in much of New York State and New Jersey, as well as parts of Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. The New York district is also responsible for the programming, design, and construction of Army and Air Force facilities in New Jersey, New York, and Greenland. As commander, he was responsible for the award and management of hundreds of contracts with an average annual value of over $1 billion.

“I am elated to join Dewberry as their New York City leader. With deep and diverse service lines, talented people and an enterprise-wide collaborative spirit, this firm is poised to expand the superb service we already provide to our valued clients across this market space,” says Boulé.

Boulé serves as a director of the Society of American Military Engineers, New York Post; is the vice chairman of the board of trustees at the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance; is a member of the board of directors of The Nature Conservancy’s Eastern New York Chapter; and serves on the NYSDOT liaison committee of the American Council of Engineering Companies of New York and is a member of the Association of the United States Army. He has presented and published articles at many conferences throughout the country and has received numerous awards and honors. Boulé has a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from the United States Military Academy at West Point. He also has two master’s degrees from Stanford University in environmental fluid mechanics and hydrology, and structural engineering.

Excuse Me

Vote for West Point Grad Joshua Sik, ’05, Excuse Me video. After his military service Joshua began making films as a director. the short film titled Excuse Me was chosen out of thousands to be in the top 20 of Project Green Light.  The winner of the competition gets to direct a Hollywood feature film produced by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. To vote you will need a facebook account. Share on Facebook and help spread the word. 

The man tapped by President Obama to lead the war on Ebola is a long-time Army leader who has experience on the battlefield, in Africa, and the medical arena. Major General Darryl A. Williams just took over command of U.S. Army Africa, in June, and on Tuesday it was announced that he would set up a command center in Monrovia, Liberia, and oversee as many as 3,000 military personnel who will help with training new health workers and setting up new facilities.

"He just arrived today and is now on the ground in Liberia," Obama said of Williams and "Operation Unified Assistance" on Tuesday. "And our forces are going to bring their expertise in command and control, in logistics, in engineering."

After graduating from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., in 1983, Williams became a field artillery officer and platoon leader based in Scheinfurt, Germany, according to his Army bio. He then had assignments in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, before being deployed to the Persian Gulf for Desert Shield and Desert Storm in the early 1990.

He later earned a master’s degree in leadership development at West Point, and served as a tactical officer for the U.S. Corps of Cadets. And from 1998 to 2000, under Bill Clinton, he served as Army Aide to the President of the United States.

After more leadership positions both stateside and in Germany, he served as the deputy director for "Comprehensive Soldier Fitness," and served as the Assistant Surgeon General for Warrior Care and Transition — a role in which he oversaw programs geared towards the well-being of soldiers returning from battle.

Harper Voyager Impulse is issuing a call to arms: we aim to launch and support a brilliant new science fiction author, and his riveting new work of speculative fiction:  GLORY MAIN (eBook ISBN 9780062359186, $2.99; print ISBN 9780062359193, $5.99) by talented writer Henry V. O’Neil.

His novel, GLORY MAIN, was selected by editor Kelly O’Connor from among thousands of manuscripts submitted during Harper Voyager’s unprecedented open call for new talent.

The author’s own experience in the military arena adds a patina to the work: O’Neil served as a US Army Infantry officer, and he holds a Bachelor’s degree from West Point. O’Connor asserts, “We’ve seen that military SF readers can appreciate when the author speaks from personal knowledge.”
About the book: We are closer to the Sims than we think…
For decades, mankind has been locked in a war with an alien enemy that resembles the human race so closely they are known as the Sims. Both sides battle for control of habitable planets across the galaxies—often at any cost.

Lieutenant Jander Mortas is fresh out of officer training and new to the war zone but eager to prove himself. There's just one problem: disaster strikes while he's traveling to his first assignment. He wakes to find himself marooned on a planet that appears deserted, with the only other survivors: a psychoanalyst, a conscientious objector, and a bitter veteran of a brutal slave-scout detachment. As the group struggles to reach safety on a nearby base, Glory Main, they discover a Sim colony—which could mean their salvation, or their demise.  Thrown together, they must fight the harsh elements, an ever-present enemy, and possibly each other.

HENRY V. O’NEIL is the name under which award-winning mystery novelist Vincent H. O’Neil publishes his science fiction work. A graduate of West Point, he served in the US Army Infantry with the Tenth Mountain Division at Fort Drum, N.Y. and the 1st Battalion (Airborne) of the 508th Infantry in Panama.

Joseph M. Sheairs Sr. ’79, a veteran executive with more than 35 years of experience in aviation, engineering, technology and business, today was named the new executive director of the Stockton Aviation Research and Technology Park by the board of trustees of The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey.

Sheairs is a graduate of West Point and the New Jersey Institute of Technology and holds degrees in engineering and computer sciences. In 2009-2010, he served as interim executive director and then deputy executive director of the Next Generation Aviation and Technology Park, a precursor to the Stockton ARTP.

According to a news release, Sheairs was instrumental in securing the Virginia Tech Federal Aviation Administration Unmanned Aircraft Systems test site designation, which includes work in southern New Jersey. Stockton College and Stockton ARTP are members of the Virginia Tech team known as the Mid-Atlantic Aviation Partnership, which is helping to test unmanned aircraft systems. Read More

Like thousands of graduates before him, CPT Kevin W. Mott ’07 accepted an offer to attend the United States Military Academy at West Point because he “wanted to make a difference.” What a difference he has made, especially while fighting in Afghanistan as a platoon leader with the 2nd Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment (“No Slack”), 101st Airborne Division during Operation Strong Eagle III. Anticipated to last just a few days, this mission to clear an insurgent stronghold in the Kunar Province turned into a nine-day battle against a well-fortified enemy. “Their command and control ability was amazing,” said Mott. “Before we moved down the mountain to clear the Kalats, they mobilized unseen into the hills and spread out across 10-15 kilometers worth of terrain.”

On the first day of the mission, March 27, 2011, his unit was ambushed as soon as it lost its air support after a storm moved into the valley. Eleven soldiers in his platoon’s lead section were cut off and under heavy fire from all directions. Three were shot. Mott radioed in the casualties. He then put himself in the line of enemy fire so that his pinned fire team could move to a better position. Finally, getting to a position where he could see the enemy (less than 50 meters away), he called in indirect fire, effectively suppressing the enemy. “This went on for nine days,” said Mott, “with something bad happening in the mission every day.” Full Story

Check your mailboxes, the fall addition of The West Point Magazine will be coming soon!  You can view the Online version now... Just click here

West Point graduate and Guyanese American author, Conrad Taylor ’73, captured a fourth award for his book, PATH to FREEDOM: My Story of Perseverance. It just won "Honorable Mention" in the Readers' Favorite 2014 International Book Competition, which attracted more than 3,000 entries. The contest holder will feature all award-winning books at the Readers' Favorite Winners' booth on the last three days of the annual Miami Book Fair. Taylor will receive his award in the Non-Fiction Military category at a November 22nd evening ceremony at the Regency Hotel Miami.

PATH to FREEDOM: My Story of Perseverance offers a ringside seat to the cultural trauma of emigration, the unique experience that is West Point, the personal side of Cold-War-era geopolitics, and the mayhem of Third World politics. The view is nostalgic for some, shocking to many, and enlightening for others.

A judge praised the book as "a captivating memoir" that "gives me another level of understanding of what Third World citizens have to go through to obtain freedom as an unconditional human right."

"I am honored and humbled," Taylor stated, "that a book critic, trusted for honest reviews by the likes of James Patterson, Nicholas Sparks, and the big four publishers, praised my book for educating him." He added, "I am pleased that my story is helping others see why immigration is a lifeline for so many." Read More

With one of the Army Athletic Association's marquee events - its annual Hall of Fame Induction banquet - less than three weeks away, Army Director of Athletics Boo Corrigan added another special honoree to that night, announcing today that longtime athletic department backer John "Jack" Hammack will receive the ODIA Distinguished Service Award.One of the top honors bestowed by the Army Athletic Association, the ODIA Distinguished Service Award is presented to an individual for significant contributions to the intercollegiate program. It is not presented annually, but only in years when the athletic department identifies a deserving recipient. Read more...

The Steel Recycling Institute (SRI) of the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) has received national recognition from the National Recycling Coalition (NRC) in an awards ceremony during the Resource Recycling Conference this past week in New Orleans, hosted by Resource Recycling Magazine.

Gregory L. Crawford ’67, Executive Director, received the highest honor, a “Lifetime Achievement in Recycling Award,” recognizing his decades of leadership in the field of recycling. Read More

Assistant Professors LTC Ward Narramore (USMA ’95) and CPT Trent Powell (USMA ’00) completed the New York City Century Bicycle Tour, a 102 mile race through Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Manhattan. This annual event draws around 6,000 participants. The course is designed specifically to display the diversity and breadth of New York City.

East Greenwich, R.I.–Corvias Group announced that Charles E. (Chuck) Parker has been appointed division president of the company’s military housing division, Corvias Military Living.

In his new role, Parker, who previously served as the head of property Mmanagement for Corvias Group and executive vice president of property management for Corvias Military Living, will assume responsibility for managing all operational aspects of Corvias Military Living’s 50-year partnerships with the Army and the Air Force, including partner relations, program and property management, and construction.

Corvias’ military housing portfolio is comprised of almost 25,000 homes on more than 10,000 acres of land across 13 Army and Air Force installations from Alaska to Florida. As part of their efforts to continuously improve quality of life for service members and their families, the company has renovated 5,439 and built 3,887 homes and 30 community centers over the last 12 years.

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