For the Reporter

While most teenagers were enjoying their summer break, Civil Air Patrol Cadet 1st Lt. Michael R. Zendejas was busy exploring the field of civil engineering.

Zendejas, a soon-to-be Running Start student at Green River College via Auburn Mountainview High School, where he plays football and baseball, recently participated in the Air Force Civil Engineering Academy. The week-long activity offered cadets the opportunity to study civil engineering with members of the 823rd Red Horse Squadron/Detachment 1 unit at the Tyndall Air Force Base in Panama City, Fla.

“Operation Red Pegasus is the assignment for each of the cadet flights, so that they have an opportunity to create a scenario that uses all of the skill areas that they will be participating in throughout the week” said Major John Payne, activity director. The cadets spent the week building tent shelters, processing undrinkable water sources to create clean, purified drinking water, establishing electrical grids and exploring base emergency services support.

“The academy offers the cadets a hands-on opportunity with equipment that most young people only read about” said Maj. Andrew Woodbridge, activity deputy director “It’s not every day that cadets pull the fuses on an 800-kilowatt generator, or get up close to heavy construction equipment, or operate a bomb-defusing robot.”

The cadets had dinner with some of the USAF Civil Engineer officers to ask questions and hear stories about their careers. There was also an opportunity to learn about civil engineering career opportunities in the private sector from Col. John Knowles, vice president for Logistics of Clarke Construction and the original designer of the activity, giving the cadets the opportunity to learn to read blue prints and to create model structures based on blue prints of their own designs.

At the graduation ceremony, all cadets presented their own base plans that they had worked on through the week.

Civil Air Patrol, the official auxiliary of the U.S. Air Force, is a nonprofit organization with 57,000 members nationwide.

For more information, visit www.gocivilairpatrol.com and use the squadron locator.