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Frontiers November 2014 Issue

minutes,” White said. “Sometimes I would race to the engine room to find water pouring through the holes and sinking the ship.” That type of work taught him how to trust his colleagues, he said. And in between patrol missions, the ship’s team would stop in places like Costa Rica and Panama, where they would do volunteer work, set up soccer games for young people, and perform other goodwill duties. White, who went to the Coast Guard Damage Controlman School, later was stationed with an industrial support unit, where he added to his technical knowledge. Upon leaving the Coast Guard five years ago, White followed a friend’s recommendation and applied at Boeing. He now is in Production Control, supporting the F-18 and F-15 programs, the C-17 program, and Phantom Works. “It was an easy transition, and I was overwhelmed with how much Boeing honors veterans. I was surprised at how many vets there are in the company,” he said. Trevor McDougall spent much of the Cold War years of the 1970s and ’80s in the air, keeping a wary eye out for Soviet submarines. He served 20 years in the Royal Canadian Air Force, including five years of studies at the country’s Royal Military College. “I was immersed in an atmosphere typified by the college motto ‘Truth, Duty, Valour,’ ” McDougall said, adding that the demanding institution taught him how to prioritize and accomplish tasks quickly. After his graduation, the newly commissioned first lieutenant spent more than a decade as tactical coordinator and air navigator aboard Canada’s anti-submarine aircraft. Those flights, in coordination with other NATO allies, often lasted 18 to 20 hours and involved flying only a couple hundred feet over the ocean. “There’s a real camaraderie within the military, especially when you’re flying for hours with a crew over the ocean. That’s your family,” he said. “The military ingrained in me a sense of honor, duty, hard work and dedication to my co-workers that has served me well in my transition to civilian life.” Since leaving the RCAF, McDougall has worked extensively in the aerospace sector and now works in Quality Assurance for Boeing Commercial Airplanes’ site in Winnipeg, Manitoba, the same city he trained in years ago. Echoing other veterans at Boeing, McDougall said he’s proud of his service, but he also values it for what it taught him about honor and duty. “To me, honor and duty means having self-pride in the work you do,” McDougall said. “It means going beyond what you need to do.” n eric.c.fetters-walp@boeing.com said, steered him into the aerospace field instead of private law firms. Now, years later, Tumminello said he is happy to see how the United States honors and respects its warfighters, something he didn’t see during his military years. There is no doubt his military experience set the direction for the rest of his life, he said. “I believe that as much as our service members give and do for America, their time in service will serve them well in their future lives,” said Tumminello, now senior counsel at the Boeing Mesa, Ariz., site. “The discipline, pride and ability to adapt to the new places and people they experience in the military will stay with them, and they will be the better for it.” John White grew up in St. Louis, well away from any ocean, but he ended up patrolling the coastlines of North and South America while serving in the U.S. Coast Guard for six years. Following in the footsteps of their father, White and two of his brothers joined the Coast Guard and all ended up based in Alameda, Calif. During his half-dozen years of service, White was part of a crew on a 378-foot-long (115-meter) ship that chased illegal drug smugglers. “We would board high-speed drug boats in the middle of the night, trying to keep them from opening specially made valves that could sink the ship along with all of the cargo within Trevor McDougall PHOTO: BOB FERGUSON/BOEING Frontiers November 2014 35


Frontiers November 2014 Issue
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