Penn State employees and staff share ‘Profiles of Service’

Editor’s note: This is the second story in a three-part feature in Penn State Today in honor of Military Appreciation Week. The first story is available here.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State’s 11th annual Military Appreciation Week honors all active-duty and veteran service members and this year highlights University faculty and staff members who serve or have served in the U.S. armed forces. 

This week at Penn State features a variety of events including the 11th annual military appreciation football game against the University of Maryland on Nov. 12. Both Centre County and State College Borough also have presented proclamations in support of Military Appreciation Week to recognize veterans and active-duty service members. 

Penn State community members submitted “Profiles of Service,” which are all available online at https://militaryappreciation.psu.edu/. Some of those individuals also are featured in downtown State College on banners during the month of November. Below are four Penn Staters who shared their stories for Military Appreciation Week.

Marine Corps Col. Jacob Graham, veteran

Col. Jacob Graham always has had an interest in aviation from the time he was a young child.

He said he remembers seeing the moon landings and watching pioneers in flight like Chuck Yeager. While in college, Graham lived with a former Marine who would bring posters featuring Marine Corps aircraft to decorate the room.

He was interested in learning to fly and after a group of friends gifted him a flight lesson at a local airport for his birthday, he was hooked. This passion for flying and service took Graham all over the world as a pilot with the U.S. Marine Corps.

“It is always exciting and always has the potential for excitement,” he said.

Graham joined the Marines in 1980 and served for nearly three decades in positions including attack helicopter commander, mission commander, and aviation weapons and tactics instructor. He also spent four and a half years flying U.S. presidents and world dignitaries. As a Marine One pilot, he flew for former U.S. Presidents George H.W. Bush and William J. Clinton and other world leaders overseas and to Camp David and many places in between.

He and his wife, Lt. Col. Kim Graham, who is also a retired Marine and Penn State graduate, traveled with their two children across the world serving in Washington, D.C., the western Pacific, Japan and Germany. Graham said he spent about eight years overseas, and the experience of living all over the world was great for his family.

The Grahams retired in Centre County, where he for 15 years he has been a professor of practice with the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology.

“I never in my wildest dreams imagined that I’d be teaching at Penn State,” he said.

Graham said he uses his skills and experiences to help prepare students to be better citizens. He focuses on leadership and completing whatever “missions” they may face in their lives, he explained.

“When you are deployed in the military, you don’t pick the mission, you are sent to the mission,” Graham said. “And you have to accomplish it.”

Graham also teaches his students to understand that one can’t know someone else’s perspective unless you’ve walked in their shoes.

“I can watch them walk in their shoes," he said, "but it doesn’t mean I know what they’re experiencing."

Air Force Lt. Col. John Barlett, veteran, Human Resources strategic partner, College of Earth and Mineral Sciences and College of Information Sciences and Technology

Lt. Col. John Barlett earned a degree in secondary education/social studies at Penn State. However, after graduation, he found himself looking away from teaching, but didn’t know what his career would be.

A U.S. Air Force recruiter had contacted Barlett’s roommate, but eventually also asked Barlett what his plans were. Barlett joined the Air Force thinking he would serve for a few years and then move onto another job, he said. More than 20 years later, Barlett retired from the Air Force as a lieutenant colonel who traveled and worked all over the world.

“The Air Force gave me and my family a good life,” he said.

Barlett spent his career primarily in personnel and human resources. He started out at Langley Air Force Base before serving in England at Royal Air Force Lakenheath for four and a half years. He served as squadron section commander for the 494th Fighter Squadron before moving to become the 48th Operations Group executive officer, working directly for the operation group commander, and finally as the Military Personnel Flight commander.

“The people I worked with and for were phenomenal,” Barlett said. “I was happy to be a part of this organization.”

Barlett said he is also grateful for the travel opportunities he and his wife had while they lived in England, visiting Paris, Rome, Greece and Egypt.

After returning to the states, Barlett worked out of the U.S. Pentagon and traveled with a three-star general around the country before teaching ROTC at his alma mater, Penn State, for three years. He left the University to attend Air Command and Staff College in Alabama, became a deputy squadron commander in Utah, participated in U.S. Military Training in Saudi Arabia, and worked at an air force personnel center in Texas.

One of his most memorable moments, he said, came from his time at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey, where he was the commander of the 87th Force Support Squadron and the deputy group commander for the 87th Mission Support Group.

One memorable evening, Barlett received a phone call after 11 p.m. instructing him to attend a midnight meeting. He learned that two aircrafts carrying Haitian refugees displaced by an earthquake were en route and needed a place to stay. He said he is proud of how everyone worked together to quickly make the base gym ready to receive them by setting up cots and producing much-needed supplies, blankets and food. Community members from a local Haitian church also aided in translation efforts and providing home-cooked meals.

“From almost going to sleep one night to six o’clock the next morning having a full operation to bring 300 people to safety, fed and in contact with their loved ones was probably one of the most professionally rewarding memories,” he said. “It was really cool to see it happen in action.”

Barlett retired in 2015, returning to State College to work at the University as a human resources strategic partner. He continues to follow the Air Force’s core values of integrity first, service before self and excellence in all he does.

“I approach everything I do with having the best interest of people and the University in mind,” he said.

Army Col. Kelly A. Wolgast, Veteran, Ross and Carol Nese College of Nursing Assistant Dean for Outreach and Professional Development, associate teaching professor, director of Penn State COVID-19 Operations Control Center

Col. Kelly A. Wolgast encourages her students to say “yes” to opportunities because they never know what doors may open. It is a mindset she practiced all over the world during her more than 26-year career in the U.S. Army.

Wolgast attended Penn State, drawn to the University by its nursing program, and spent four years involved in ROTC. At graduation, she received her degree and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Army.

“I knew I wanted to take care of people and I knew I wanted to be a nurse. But I didn’t really know anything about the military until I got into ROTC at Penn State,” she said.

Wolgast learned a lot about service through ROTC and nursing in her academic classes and wanted to combine the two. “They’re actually very complementary and they offer a lot of wonderful experiences around the world,” she said.

Wolgast said she joined the military to fulfill a duty of service to others, a value she still holds today.

“The service never ends. You can be of service in any form of fashion to your family, your community, your nation, to the world. And I believe in that. I believe everyone has something to contribute,” Wolgast said. “I just think giving back is important.”

Wolgast held several clinical and leadership positions as a nurse and officer, mostly at warfighting installations. She served as commander of Evans Army Community Hospital at Fort Carson, Colorado, for two years. Wolgast also deployed as the deputy commander and chief nurse of the 14th Combat Support Hospital to New Orleans, Louisiana, to aid in Operation Katrina after the hurricane in 2005.

Wolgast also led in combat for a year in Afghanistan, a huge honor and responsibility, she said. Representing nurses in the Army was an important achievement to her.

“I was afforded opportunities to integrate with the warfighters. Sometimes nurses who are more hospital-based don’t get the opportunity to do that,” Wolgast explained.

Wolgast said she never thought she would end up in Happy Valley, but a chance conversation at a conference led her back to Pennsylvania and closer to her family. She said she is grateful for her experiences and the skills and teamwork she learned in the Army.

“It’s about taking care of each other to accomplish the mission,” Wolgast explained. “It’s helping people to rise to their fullest potential so that you can accomplish whatever mission is in front of you.”

Marine Corps Staff Sgt. Nathan Zechman, veteran, assistant teaching professor of kinesiology

Staff Sgt. Nathan Zechman joined the Marine Corps Infantry when he was 17, three weeks after 9/11. Zechman said he always wanted to be in the military and had family who served in the Navy. It was a path he wanted to take because he enjoyed being physically active and traveling, and didn’t have a major interest in school at the time. Today, Zechman is a two-time Penn State graduate and an assistant teaching professor of kinesiology at University Park.

“The Marine Corps changed me in that aspect. After three combat deployments, I needed to switch things up,” Zechman said of pursuing his bachelor’s degree.

Zechman completed a four-year contract serving in Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii, the south Pacific and twice in Afghanistan.

“The call to serve has a sense of adventure. You get the opportunity to work with different people from various backgrounds who are like-minded in wanting to do good and be part of something bigger than yourself — a service to better the world,” Zechman said.

Zechman said he is proud to have participated in a variety of special trainings, including Assault Climbers School, a rigorous program in Camp Pendleton, California. He learned to climb in difficult mountainous terrain and completed a program that not many finished.

He then returned to Pennsylvania, where he enrolled in classed at Penn State Harrisburg, and completed two semesters before being recalled back to the Marines. His contract included four years of active duty, followed by four years of inactive duty, said Zechman. He received a letter from then President George W. Bush asking him to return to lead a group in Iraq as part of a combat-zone surge in 2008, so he left Penn State Harrisburg to serve for a year in Iraq.

One thing he said he wishes civilians understood is the gravity of the sacrifices service members make.

"The things we've seen and done for the betterment of humanity aren't always understood.  Some things could only be understood by those who were there, shoulder-to-shoulder with you," he said.

He returned home and enrolled at University Park and credited his professors and mentors in guiding him through his undergraduate and graduate degrees, as well as for the encouragement to apply for his current position.

Zechman said being a Marine taught him to approach, adapt and overcome difficult obstacles to reach success. He said he focuses on leading by example, something he wants to instill in his students. He strives to create a welcoming environment in his classroom where students can learn from one another and build their confidence before entering the workforce.