In this issue, The AFIT Foundation will be recognizing Colonel (Ret.) Tamer Ozmen, Director of Defense and Aerospace of DHL Global Forwarding.

Colonel Ozmen received his M.S. in Operations Research from the U.S. Air Force Institute of Technology in 1993. He joined the military due to a love of service to his country. After retiring as a full staff colonel in 2012, Colonel Ozmen served as Vice President of Turkish Aerospace Industry (TAI) and for the last 3 years has been working as the Director of Defense and Aerospace of DHL Global Forwarding.

Colonel Ozmen vividly remembers his excitement on his first day at AFIT. This excitement was mixed with an anxious desire to succeed that he felt when he entered the classroom and saw that he was one of two foreign students in the classroom. When Dr. Reynolds who taught Statistics said that you will do your homework on the computer, he almost fell off my chair because he had never even pressed the on-off button on a computer until that day. Colonel Ozmen also expresses the honor and excitement he felt on graduation day two years later.

Colonel Ozmen’s experience at AFIT completely changed the course of his military life. It also made proud contributions to his following civilian life. It provided him with the opportunity to work in high commands, work on large-scale important projects with scientific decision support competence, be a staff officer, work at NATO headquarters in Brussels, and work in high-level strategic positions when he retired. AFIT provided Colonel Ozmen with analytical thinking, to be a manager of complex projects, perform high-level duties in financial responsibility, be a self-confident decision-maker, and many other competencies focused on individual development.

Colonel Ozmen believes that military service is a way of life to be proud of and should never be seen as a profession to earn money. He writes, “Military life provides very positive contributions to the person physically and mentally, it brings the person forward in the struggle for life and these competencies also provide positive contributions to your family.” Thank you, Colonel Ozmen!