A Missileer’s Master’s Degree

I found the mention of Whiteman Air Force Base (“Preserve and Protect,” Spring 2017 Montanan) and Minuteman missiles interesting.

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Categories: Alumni , Campus , History , Research

A Bugs Bunny mural is painted on the wall inside a bunker below was U.S. Air Force base.
A Bugs Bunny mural is painted on the wall inside a bunker below was U.S. Air Force base.

I found the mention of Whiteman Air Force Base (“Preserve and Protect,” Spring 2017 Montanan) and Minuteman missiles interesting. I was an Air Force Minuteman II missile launch officer at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls from 1970 through 1972, with many tours of duty in the underground launch capsules.

At that time, the Air Force Institute of Technology sponsored free graduate education programs at the six Minuteman missile bases. The courses were linked to a university in the states of the bases – Montana, North and South Dakota, Missouri and Wyoming. That’s how I earned my MBA from UM. The University operated an “extension” campus on Malmstrom Air Force Base, directed by a resident dean, two or three full-time professors, a few part-timers and a librarian. The UM library on the base was well-stocked.

I was on the Missoula campus only two times – once I drove over to the main library to find additional information for my master’s professional paper, and a copy remains at https://scholarworks.umt.edu/. After my discharge from the Air Force, my second trip to Missoula was from the East Coast for the Commencement ceremony in June 1973. Well-known western writer Dorothy M. Johnson was the guest speaker.

During the past few years of retirement, I’ve been reading books by her, A.B. Guthrie Jr. and my favorite, Ivan Doig.

Keep up the good work with the magazine.

Sincerely,

George S. McElhinney MBA ’73
Erdenheim, Pennsylvania

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