Michael S. Kearns
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Michael S. Kearns (April 14, 1958- ) is the first person to have parachuted over all seven continents.[1]
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[edit] Early biography
Born and raised in Dundalk, Maryland, Kearns is the son of Richard A. Kearns (1926-2003) and Janet E. (née: Horn) Kearns (1925-2004). He is a 1976 graduate of Patapsco High School where he performed as one of the Patriot mascots, often commemorating the State of Maryland Defenders Day, Battle of North Point (The turning point of the War of 1812, and name of Michael's junior high school). Whilst in the Boy Scouts of America's Aviation Explorer Program, Michael learned to pilot glider aircraft in the US Army Reserve's Summer Career Interest Program. He made his first parachute jump in 1976 (against the advice of his parents). From those modest beginnings, Michael was hooked on all things related to aviation.
[edit] Military, corporate, and public service career
Michael Shawn Kearns enlisted in the USAF in January 1977 as an Intelligence Specialist and later worked as an Aircraft Loadmaster. He attained the rank of Sergeant in 1980. Upon being commissioning in 1982 as a second lieutenant, Michael was assigned to Air Force Headquarters and served as an Air Staff Mapping, Charting, and Geodesy, Targeting (warfare) Intelligence Officer where he was responsible for the review and certification of US operational war plans. In 1985 he was selected to be the aide-de-camp to the Director of the Defense Mapping Agency, now the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. He then completed a brief Joint Chiefs of Staff assignment in the Joint Special Operations Agency at The Pentagon, and was subsequently assigned to the Joint Services Survival, Evasion, and Escape Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE)[2] Agency at Fairchild AFB, Spokane, Washington where he served as the "Special Survival" Operations Officer and Instructor. His last posting was back in the Washington, DC area where he served on the Headquarter staff of the Defense Mapping Agency providing technical support to operational US forces in the Gulf War Operation Desert Shield. His last assignment was as Liaison Officer to the Intelligence Community (IC) Staff where he conducted the Geoscience Intelligence Systems and Requirements Study as part of the deisgn for the IC's Future Imaging Architecture. He was medically retired from the US Air Force in July 1990.
Subsequently, he joined the US Civil Service as Chief of the Defense Mapping Agency School's Department of Geophysics, International Training Division, where he facilitated the migration the DoD's Inter-American Geodetic Survey's Cartographic program from Panama, [Central America, to Fort Belvoir, Virginia. He also was responsible for expansion of the Defense Department's Geo-sciences International Military Education and Training Program into Former Soviet Union, Eastern Block Nations.
In 1994 Kearns moved to Coronado, California and later was employed as the inaugural US Naval Special Warfare Command's Force Historian within the Office of Special Operations Plans. In this position, it is notable, he was supervised by Navy SEAL Captain Everett Greene[3]. Kearns left public service in 1997 to work in Silicon Valley for Silicon Graphics, Inc. as a Senior Marketing Manager in the Modeling and Simulation and Geospatial Imaging areas. In 1999 he was part of the initial group of ten employees who started-up a high-tech Silicon Valley corporation, Terrain Experts, Inc. Thereafter, he was able to effectively apply his talents as the CEO of his own high-tech consulting company, Meta-Matics, Inc., working primarily in the Middle East, and within Australia-Asia.
After a successful employment in the fields of high-technology business development, he was recruited for, and accepted a reserve military appointment in the Australian Air Force in 2001. He initiated Defense Policy in computer technology, and served as Director of the Air Force's Simulation Agency, advanced modeling and simulation solutions for military operations. After the hideous events of 9/11, he volunteered to become the deputy director of operations Australia's Defense Department security transformation, working directly with Australian MI-5 and Federal Police. In 2002, he was promoted in public service as an executive level Defense Strategist, where he was responsible for the initiation of a technical experimentation and analysis framework to streamline Defense war planning and execution, which contributed directly to the security requirements in the global war on terrorism. He left defense to take an academic appointment, and in 2004, then Wing Commander Kearns participated in a Chief of Defense Force directed project to articulate and implement a technical solution within command and control computer systems. Wing Commander Kearns' most recent posting was as the Deputy Director of a Deputy Chief of Air Force's initiative to reform the processes and procedures for professional military training and education. In this role he was the liaison technologist to Google, Inc.
Kearns is a graduate of the NCO Leadership Academy, the USAF Squadron Officer School and the US Marine Corps Command and Staff College. His awards include the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, the Joint Service Commendation Medal, the Air Force Commendation Medal, the Joint Service Achievement Medal, the Air Force Achievement Medal (for an act of bravery), the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal, the Air Force Combat Readiness Medal, and the National Defense Service Medal. Unit awards include the Joint Meritorious Unit Award (with one oak leaf cluster), the Air Force Outstanding Unit Award, and the Air Force Organizational Excellence Award.
[edit] Post-secondary education and academics
Kearns earned an Associate of Applied Sciences degree from the Community College of the Air Force in 1980. He then accepted an AFROTC scholarship to the University of Maryland, College Park where he was graduated in 1982 with a BSc degree in Cartography and Remote Sensing. At university, he was inducted into the Gamma Theta Upsilon honorary society, and the Sigma Chi Fraternity. Notably, Michael earned his own living expenses working for Pinkerton's as a private investigator, and volunteered as a firefighter at the Mount Rainier, Maryland, Fire Department, where he lived in-house.
Kearns attended the Defense Intelligence Agency's College and Georgetown University's National Security Studies Program during the period 1982-84. He is a 1991 graduate of the Gonzaga University Master of Arts in Organisational Leadership program.
Kearns held several appointments as an academician at various colleges and universities in the United States. He was a lecturer at the University of San Diego, an assistant professor (adjunct) at Vincennes University (US Navy campus in San Diego); senior leturer at Lord Fairfax Community College in Virginia; an assistant professor at Tiffin University, in Ohio; lecturer (adjunct) at Terra Community College[4] in Ohio; and an assistant professor at Fort Hays State University in Kansas.
[edit] Aviation
Master Parachutist with over 1,250 skydives and 24+ hours of freefall time, Kearns was a military and civilian jumpmaster and earned over one dozen military parachutist insigna from Countries across the globe: Israel, Guatemala, El Salvador, Canada, The Republic of China, South Africa, Australia, Holland, Myanmar, Chile, East Germany, Hungary, and Thailand. He participated in one military parachute jump during combat operations in El Salvador (1988), and was with the first (and only) handful of US and Allied military parachutists to make a military parachute jump with both the East German and Hungarian militaries, just after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 (while they were still communist countries).
[edit] References
1. Air Sports International, Washington Post article, May 1998. http://airsports.fai.org/may98/may9804.html
