2nd Lt. Sydney Gilliam receives her first salute as an officer from her grandfather.
Commissioned Officers
- Taylor Ayers. Active Duty Air Defense Political Science degree
- Emerson Brock. Army National Guard Engineering. Construction Management degree
- Nicholas Chauncey. Active Duty Ordnance Corps. Sport, Outdoor Recreation and Tourism Management degree
- Evan Cowger. Active Duty Field Artillery. Psychology degree
- John Crain. Army National Guard Signal Corps, Human Resource Management degree
- Audrey Creighton. Active Duty Ordnance Corps. Environmental Science degree
- Connor Dufrane. Army National Guard Political Science degree
- Sydney Gilliam. Army National Guard Medical Services Corps. Exercise Science degree
- Anthony Gorkowski. Active Duty Quartermaster … Criminal Justice
- Megan Hawksford. Active Duty Signal Corps. Exercise Science degree
- Joselyn Quintanilla. S. Army Reserve Adjutant General. Criminal Justice degree
- Cole Whitaker. Active Duty Armor. History degree
Twelve graduates of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga’s Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program have been commissioned as U.S. Army second lieutenants.
The May 15 commissioning ceremony involved the largest ROTC class of UTC graduates since the program was reactivated at the University in 2007.
“We are continuing to grow and produce quality officers for the United States Army,” said Capt. A.J. Herink, head of the Department of Military Science. “We have between 60 to 70 cadets in the program every year, but they don’t have to make a decision if they want to contract with us until junior year—and getting up at 6 a.m. to go running every morning isn’t for everyone.
“To see our largest cohort at one commissioning is great. It shows the continued support we receive from the University and the campus partners in the community. Students have been actively seeking us out.”
Herink, who joined the UTC program before the start of the 2020-2021 academic calendar, explained that degrees must be awarded before ROTC cadets can be commissioned. This year, UTC spring graduates were official on May 8.
“Once they get the gold bars placed upon them, there are no take-backs,” Herink said. “The Army regulation is very clear: We have to wait until final grades are in.”
Among the new second lieutenants is Emerson Brock, who was commissioned into Army National Guard engineering. A native of Lookout Mountain, Georgia, Brock received a bachelor’s degree in construction management from the College of Engineering and Computer Science.
“The engineer corps is used to support things like infantry-level operations and the National Guard,” Brock said. “As it pertains to guard-related activities, that will be mostly related to construction, but also movement and maneuver. So what I’ll mostly get trained in is the basics of being an engineer officer, including basic survival skills, land nav(igation) and the ordnance and engineering involved in construction.
“I also wanted to be involved in something directly applicable toward a civilian career.”
Brock recently started his civilian career as a project engineer with BerryHutton Construction, a Chattanooga-based company. In June, he will report to the National Guard and leave for Basic Officer Leaders Course in March 2022. He will maintain his job with BerryHutton while serving in the National Guard.
