Lance Gillingham Memorial Scholarship

I served in the United States Marine Corps for 6.5 Years, and my wife served for 4 years in the Marine Corps also. Today, we support many charities that provide transition and educational support for Post 9/11 Veterans. The USMC taught me more than I realized, and for the next 25 years of my life, I have been utilizing the leadership skills that were instilled in me during that period. For 4 years in the USMC, I attended night school with two goals: 1, To be the first in my family to graduate college, and two, to become an officer in the Marine Corps. I was accepted into the MCEP program to attend full-time and OCS. Upon going through the physical, I was medically disqualified for back surgery that was from an injury sustained during training, which caused a lot of nerve damage. This ended for the time being, both goals I had set out to achieve. For the following 25 years, I focused on my career and raising 5 lovely girls in the home. While supporting them and working with veterans, it has become clear to me that the leadership skills being taught are nothing like those that are instilled into veterans during their service. I have decided to re-enroll to finish my degree in Organizational Leadership to build the skills necessary to build leadership programs for this new generation. During my career, I was able to travel the world and meet individuals all over the globe. Through those relationships, it continued to become clear that continuing to learn and educate yourself is critically important. I have been in leadership most of my career and focused my team on achieving goals. My 3rd daughter is about to begin her college journey, and I felt it was time to set the example again and prove that it is never too late to achieve your dreams. This transition is not only checking the goal box but is being driven by needing a career change as my injury while serving in the Marine Corps has continued to deteriorate my back. I am excited for the next journey that life has to bring and for community members like yourself who have established scholarships like this to enable dreams to stay alive. With the information I am studying and learning, I am continually giving back to our veteran community through speaking and mentoring for organizations and retreats that help combat veterans transition back into the workforce. This degree will allow me to have a greater impact moving forward. I hope you will consider me for the scholarship so I can continue moving in a direction to provide more to my local and veteran community.