After retiring from a 22-year career in the U.S. Navy, Michelle Emerson serves those currently serving in the military by working in S&T’s Engineer Captains Career Course.

Michelle is a student support specialist in S&T’s engineering management and systems engineering department at S&T.

“My department is great,” she says. “We all work as a team.”

Michelle runs the day-to-day operations of the Engineer Captains Career Course, or ECCC, a cooperative program with Fort Leonard Wood. Through this program, soldiers can earn a master of science degree in one of four areas: engineering management, geological engineering, civil engineering or environmental engineering.

Michelle joined the engineering management department in 2011 as an office support assistant and has worked in her current position for a few years.

Michelle describes her role as behind-the-scenes. In the military, she was a chief yeoman, which is a person who performs administrative and clerical work. She has been stationed at the Pentagon working for the chief of naval operations and was aboard the USS Samuel Gompers in the Republic of the Philippines for over a year.

Her naval career and her husband’s army career took the couple throughout the country. Michelle has lived in Orlando, Florida; Miramar in San Diego, California; Pensacola, Florida; Fort Drum in Jefferson County, New York; and Waco, Texas.

“I like traveling,” Michelle says. “I’m on a different adventure now.”

She says going from a military job to a civilian job was a big adjustment and she is grateful for her S&T colleagues.

Michelle At A Glance

Hometown: Born in Logansville, Georgia, raised in Social Circle, Georgia

People are surprised to learn: Michelle served in the Navy for 22 years

Hobbies: Spending time with family and selling Mary Kay, which she started doing in 2006 when her husband was deployed and she wanted to meet people and talk about non-military topics

Family: Husband, Bill, and four children (two daughters and two sons), currently a college freshman, high school sophomore, sixth-grade and fourth-grade students

Favorite food: Anything dark chocolate

About the spotlight

Missouri S&T’s Staff Council launched the staff spotlight feature in February 2019 as a way to highlight staff members throughout the university. Legends Bank, Au Bon Pain and the S&T Store are sponsors. The articles are published in eConnection and shared on Staff Council’s Facebook page.

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