| Main | VizMAP Sandbox | VizMAP Userbox Designs |
Michael S. Kearns (April 14, 1958 - ) is a candidate for Colorado's 6th congressional district, and is running on a "Grassroots Leadership" platform, promoting a Direct Democracy Self-governance Consortium for advancing fully transparent Internet Socio-political consensus decision-making functionality for participative legislation at the U.S. Congressional District level. For Kearns, an ex-Assistant Professor of Political Science at Tiffin University in Ohio, "The U.S. Constitution dictates a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time" [Article I, section 9, clause 7], and I contend the Internet should function to provide a window on the soul of partisan politics, such that James Madison's call for creativity in the moderation of political faction (Federalist No. 10) can finally be realized." Further, Kearns contends, "Full transparency, accountability, and due diligence in politics is Internet-based self-governance at the Federal level. We are at a stage in modeling and simulation technologies wherein our own learned helplessness in
Michael is the first person to have parachuted over all seven continents. Notably, on December 6th, 1997, Kearns is the sole survivor of the world's first four-way skydive over the geographic South Pole.[1] His military and parachuting exploits were chronicled in MAXIM Magazine (May 1999), The Washington Post (Style Section, May 1998), Outside Magazine (Dispatches, February 1998), and Business Inc. (May 1998). Kearns also appeared on National Public Radio's Morning Edition by Bob Edwards (January 5, 1998),[2] and various sports-talk programs in the Washington, DC area. The Washington Post calls Kearns, "...the clean-cut Boy Scout type who does everything by the book," and Business Inc. notes, [Kearns'] "...professional background reads like the protagonists from best-selling authors Robert Ludlum or Clive Cussler."
Early biography edit
Michael Shawn Kearns was born and raised in Dundalk, Maryland. He is the Great Great Grandson of Father Moses "Mogue" Kearns, hero of the 1798 Irish Rebellion, and Grandson of Michael Anthony Kearns, participant of the 1916 Irish Rebellion, and WWI combat veteran. He is the son of Richard A. Kearns (1926–2003), a master electrician and general contractor (owner of Bayside Electric Company, and Chief Electrician at [[Fort Howard Veterans Hospital), as well as WWII, US Navy combat radioman, and Janet E. (née: Horn) Kearns (1925–2004) a public school administrative secretary and librarian. A 1976 graduate of Patapsco High School and Center for the Arts, Kearns 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).
Early Military career edit
Michael Shawn Kearns enlisted in the Maryland Air National Guard in January 1977 as an Intelligence Specialist and was trained as an Air Intelligence Operations Specialist at Denver, Colorado's Lowry Air Force Base, where he received advanced training in Evasion and Escape (E&E) operations. He was initially assigned to the 104th Fighter Squadron, and later cross-trained as a C-7 Caribou Aircraft Loadmaster with the 135th Airlift Group supporting the 20th Special Forces Group and test and evaluation elements of the National Security Agency. Michael Kearns attained the rank of Sergeant in 1980. Upon being commissioned 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).[3] 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 SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape) Agency (JSSA)[4][] at Fairchild AFB, Spokane, Washington where he served as the "Special Survival Training Program" Operations Officer and Master Instructor. His last US military posting was in Washington, DC, where he served on the Headquarter staff of the Defense Mapping Agency (DMA) providing technical support to operational US forces in the Gulf War Operation Desert Shield. His last assignment in DMA was as Liaison Officer to the Intelligence Community (IC) Staff where he conducted the Geoscience Intelligence Systems and Requirements Study as part of the design for the IC's Future Imaging Architecture. He was retired from the US Air Force in July 1990 on a service-connected injury.[5]
Early Public Service career edit
Subsequent to his military career, Kearns 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 / Photogrammetric program from Panama, Central America, to Fort Belvoir, Virginia. He also aided expansion of the Defense Department's Geo-sciences International Military Education and Training Program into Former Soviet Union, Eastern Block Nations, helping create mini ex-Soviet centers of excellence in the mapping sciences.
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.[6]
Corporate career edit
From the time he was old enough to pull wires, Michael Kearns worked as an apprentice electrician in his father's sole proprietorship, Bayside Electric in Dundalk, Maryland. As a young man, whether selling greeting cards, seeds, or convincing local businesses to promote his Aviation Explorer Boy Scout Post, Michael had a hankering in sales, business development, and marketing. Eventually, in 1997, after establishing the US Naval Special Warfare Command's (Nacy SEALs) Office of History within the Special Operations Plans Directorate (NSWC-N5), Michael's life-long experience in business went to good effect, when he joined the $4Billion computer visualization giant, Silicon Graphics, Inc.[7] Kearns was the Senior Marketing and Business Development Manager in Federal Business Development, and was responsible for placing teaming arrangements together for top corporate organisations and SGI.
In 1997 Kearns left public service to work in Silicon Valley for Silicon Graphics, Inc. as a Senior Marketing Manager in the Modeling and Simulation and Geospatial Imaging (MS&I) areas. Kearns was responsible for not only world-wide marketing and business development in advanced MS&I with major corporations like Space Imaging (the first commercial high-resolution satellite company which Michael helped negotiate place SGI's logo on the launcher -- to the 1997 Mars Pathfinder project, where Michael gave briefings on the technological solution JPL employed for the Rover lander). After the dot.com bust of 1999, Michael was part of the initial group of ten employees who started-up a high-tech Silicon Valley corporation, Terrain Experts, Inc. (DBA: TERREX) with a seed money from Electronic Arts (EA). TERREX was sold in May 2005 to Canadian Simulation giant, CAE Inc. ($1.4B). It's TerraVista software became the core visualization engine for the US Special Operations Command's SOFViz 2/3D Mission Planning software.
Thereafter, Kearns was able to effectively apply his talents as the CEO of his own high-tech consulting company start-up based in McLean, Virginia, Meta-Matics, Inc., working primarily in the Middle East, and within Australia-Asia.
Australian Military career edit
After a successful employment in the fields of high-technology business development and marketing, Kearns was recruited for, and accepted a reserve military appointment in the Australian Air Force in February 2001. He helped initiate Defense Policy in modeling and simulation technology, and served as Director of the Air Force's Simulation Agency. After the hideous events of 9/11, Kearns became the deputy director of operations for Australia's Defense Department security transformation, working directly with Australian MI-5 and Federal Police. In 2002, he was promoted into public service as an executive level Defense Strategist, where he was responsible for the initiation of a the concept development and experimentation/analysis framework, streamlining defense war planning and execution, and contributing directly to the security requirements in the global war on terrorism.
Kearns briefly left active defense service to take an academic appointment as an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Tiffin University in Ohio; and in 2004 Kearns re-entered defense service to participate in a Chief of Defence directed project to articulate and implement a technical solution to operational planning within command and control computer systems at the Headquarters Joint Operations Command (Australia). Wing Commander Kearns' most recent posting was as Deputy Director of the Deputy Chief of Air Force's initiative to reform the processes and procedures for professional military education and training. In this role Kearns was the RAAF's liaison / technologist to Google, Inc. and was a graduate of Google's first Enterprise Professional certification training program in April 2008.
Education and Awards edit
Kearns is a graduate of the US Air Force's (USAF) 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 Air Force Achievement Medal (for an act of bravery), the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal, the Air Force Combat Readiness Medal, the Air Reserve Forces Meritorious Service Medal, the National Defense Service Medal, and the Australian Defence 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, and he wore the Joint Chiefs of Staff Identification Badge. In 1978, whilst in Air Force ROTC, Cadet Master Sergeant Kearns was awarded the Daughters of Founders and Patriots ROTC Medal,[8] and the American Society of Military Engineers Award.[9] Captain Kearns' official Department of Defense form DD 214 lists the following foreign service awards: Canada, El Salvador, Guatemala, Israel, China, Hungary, and German Democratic Republic Airborne parachutist wings, China Special Warfare Badge, Republic of China General Staff Badge, Parachutist Badge, Enlisted Aircrew Badge, Information Management Badge. The DD 214 also lists the following official training courses: Mapping, Charting, and Geodesy Officer course (12 weeks, 1983), and Staff Course (2 weeks, 1991), Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape Course (18 days, 1989), Dynamics of International Terrorism Course (5 days, 1988), DoD High Risk Training Course (5 days, 1987), Hostage Survivor Course (5 days, 1987), Special Survival Training Course (5 days, 1987), Combat Survival Training Course (17 days, 1987), Intelligence Applications Officer Course (680 Hours, 1997), Fundamentals of Intelligence Course (304 hours, 1987), Battle Staff Course (3 weeks, 1984), Modular Architecture for the Exchange of Intelligence Analyst course (40 hours, 1984), Strategic Intelligence Course (5 days, 1984),
Post-secondary education and academics edit
While he was Sergeant, Michael Kearns accepted an AFROTC scholarship to the University of Maryland, College Park in August 1980, and he was graduated in 1982 with a BSc degree in Cartography and Remote Sensing. Kearns also earned an Associate of Applied Science degree from the Community College of the Air Force in Intelligence and Imagery Analysis in March 1982.
At the University of Maryland, Michael was inducted into the Gamma Theta Upsilon honorary Geographical society, and the Sigma Chi Social Fraternity. Notably, Michael earned his own living expenses working for Pinkerton's as a private investigator in an undercover position, and volunteered as a firefighter at the Mount Rainier, Maryland, Fire Department, where he lived in-house.
After being commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force as a Mapping, Charting, and Geodesy officer, Kearns attended the Defense Intelligence Agency College and Georgetown University National Security Studies Program during the period 1982-84. In 1987 Captain Kearns was the class leader for the first class to graduate the Air Force Intelligence Officer training program at Goodfellow Air Force Base, graduating with an 90.4% average. He also was a 1991 graduate of the Gonzaga University Master of Arts in Organizational Leadership program, where he specialized in Cognitive Psychotherapy in Resistance to Interrogation Training, as well as Spatial Cognition and map-reading skill. The Gonzaga University Organizational Leadership Program is recognized as one of the first leadership graduate schools in the United States, and employed the Harvard University Case Study Methodology to James MacGregor Burns' theories of transforming and transactional leadership.
Kearns held several appointments as an academician at various colleges and universities in the United States and Australia. He was Lecturer of the course "History of Espionage" at the University of San Diego (1995), an Assistant Professor (adjunct) of Geography and Leadership at Vincennes University (US Navy campus in San Diego) (1995–96) where he co-founded the Leadership Studies Minor Program; Lecturer of Physical Sciences at National University in San Diego, Senior Lecturer of Business and Management at Lord Fairfax Community College in Virginia; an Assistant Professor of Political Science and Geography at Tiffin University, in Ohio (2002); Lecturer (adjunct) at Terra Community College[10] in Ohio; and an Assistant Professor (tenure-track) of Leadership Studies at Fort Hays State University (FHSU) in Kansas (2005), and a Lecturer of Business and Management at Red Rocks Community College in Denver, Colorado (2008). Whilst at FHSU, Michael protested the University's policy to reject the Governor's (then Kathleen Sabelius) directive to have Veteran's Day as a mandatory holiday.[11] In a Nationally syndicated New York Times "Times Talk" lecture, titled, "War... What is it good for?," Kearns accentuated the issues of one's service to one's country and the issues of military strategy in war.[12] Kearns organized and officiated a Veterans Day ceremony at FHSU on the 11th of November, 2005 at 11:00am.[13]
Kearns is presently all but dissertation in a PhD in Leadership from Andrews University in Michigan, where his dissertation chair is James Tucker, PhD; Distinguished Professor, and McKee Chair of Excellence in Educational Psychology, and founding director of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga's doctoral program in leadership and learning. Michael is also a Research Fellow at the University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy, in Canberra, Australia, where he is researching Organisational Learned Helplessness. [1]
Memberships, Associations, and Certifications edit
Special Operations Association (#949 Life), Air Commando Association (Life), Association of Former Intelligence Officers, Association of Old Crows (Electronic Warfare and Information Operations, Life), National Military Intelligence Association (Life), International Law Enforcement Educators and Trainers Association, California Association of Licensed Investigators, American Society for Industrial Security, American Association of University Professors.
California Licensed Private Investigator, Florida teachers' pre-certificate 6-12 Social Science, Certified Law Enforcement Thermographer (1995–97), Certified Tax Practitioner (CPTx).
Kearns as Adventurer edit
Master Parachutist with over 1,250 skydives and 24+ hours of free-fall time, Kearns was a military and civilian jumpmaster and earned over one dozen military parachutist insignia 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 military forces, just after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 (while they were still communist countries). Michael earned the US Navy / Marine Corps parachutist insignia in 1985 by participating in parachute operations with the US Marine Corps 2nd Force Reconnaissance Company in 1988, and has enjoyed parachute demonstration jumps with the U.S. Navy SEAL's "Leap Frog" parachute team (1996), and the Australian Army's "Red Beret" parachute team (1999).
Kearns' Philanthropic Activities edit
University of Maryland Governor's Award for Civic Action (1980), and Knighted in the Royal Order of Scotland in 1995.
Kearns' Recent Sporting Activities edit
Kearns studied Malaysian Kuntao Silat with Dato Cikgu Abdul Mijid Mt Esa, President and Master of the Pertubuhan Silat Seni Pusaka Guyong Malaysia (PSSPGM) in May 2010 where he was awarded the honorary title of Pendekar (Warrior), and 3rd Degree Yellow belt.[14]
References edit
- ^ "Jump on the Pole". Air Sports International reprinted from Washington Post. May 1998. Retrieved March 26, 2010.
- ^ "Skydiving Tragedy". National Public Radio. January 5, 1998. Retrieved March 26, 2010.
- ^ "Michael Kearns Military Credentials". Retrieved March 26, 2010.
- ^ "Survival Training". Special Forces. Retrieved March 26, 2010.
- ^ "Certificate of Release or Discharge from Active Duty". Retrieved March 26, 2010.
- ^ "The Public War of Captain Greene". San Diego Magazine. October 1996. Retrieved March 26, 2010.
- ^ "Modeling, Simulation, and Imaging team at Silicon Graphics, Inc. (1997). Notably, Mark Aubin became Co-Founder of Google Earth". Retrieved March 26, 2010.
- ^ "Daughters of Founders and Patriots ROTC Medal". the Orders and Medals Society of America. Retrieved June 21, 2010.
- ^ "the Society of American Military Engineers ROTC Award of Merit". the Society of American Military Engineers. Retrieved June 21, 2010.
- ^ "Terra Community College". Retrieved March 26, 2010.
- ^ "Leadership Professor protests lack of vet recognition, plans ceremony" (PDF). The Edge - Fort Hays State University. November 4, 2005. Retrieved March 26, 2010.
- ^ "Michael Kearns FHSU Times Talk 2005". YouTube. Retrieved March 26, 2010.
- ^ "Fort Hays". YouTube. Retrieved March 26, 2010.
- ^ "Pendekar Warriors". YouTube. Retrieved June 21, 2010.
