Tuesday Future 5 Spotlight: Matthew Copeland

	Matthew Copeland

Each year, AOC recognizes five young professionals as the year’s "Future 5" – individuals who actively innovate and strive for excellence as they support their respective organizations and build their EMSO careers. In each issue of the Show Daily, we will spotlight one of this year's Future 5 and their career goal in their own words.

Today, we recognize Matthew Copeland, Electronics Engineer, DOD - C5ISR Center - RTI - CEMA Division - IOEW Branch. 

My ultimate career goal is to help save a soldier’s life. Early in my career I had trouble understanding the impact of the work that I was doing, since I was fixated on my small task instead of how it contributed to the entire military. My interest in work was reinvigorated when I was able to begin researching threats and EW capabilities. I was able to understand a variety of ways that the EMS was utilized and how it was being used by our adversaries to potentially put our soldiers in danger. Suddenly, I was focusing on understanding how these systems worked and how everything works together since I needed to discover how threats can be defeated to protect our troops. When I transitioned to working as a civilian employee for the C5ISR Center, I was finally able to apply what I had learned to provide direction to my branch and highlight opportunities for further work. On the Susquehanna chapter’s coin this year we put a quote from a soldier in binary that said, “EW saved my life”. This resonated with our committee and me because it highlights the importance of the work that we are doing. If someday I hear a story at a conference or on the news about something that I worked on helping to intercept a missile, take the first shot, or give a solider enough time to retreat, I will have used EW to help save a life.