WO André Gignac will be retiring after approximately 30 plus years of loyal and dedicated service to the Canadian Forces.

WO Gignac enrolled in the 12 RBC (Militia) in Trois-Rivières, Québec Sept 1979 and joined the Regular Forces as a Mobile Support Equipment Operator (MSE Op 935), on 11 Feb 1987. Upon completion of basic language training in St-Jean and bypassing TQ3, he was posted to Base Transport in Ottawa. He was to remain in Ottawa for five years when he was posted to CFB Edmonton in 1991. Much to his amusement, as soon as he finished driving across the country Edmonton, he found out that he had made the selection board for 141 Topo Surveyor and had to drive immediately back to Ottawa.

In April 1992 André was one out of the six from the 25 from the selection board who made the cut and went on to his third part of his career as a 141 Topo Surveyor. Subsequent to his TQ4 training, he was posted to the Mapping and Charting Establishment (MCE) in Ottawa. In 1993, he worked on a gravity survey job (OP BOUGUER) in Yukon and Northern British Columbia. Andre completed his OJT in 1995 after cycling through all the different sub components of MCE. He deployed twice to the Former Republic of Yugoslavia; Bosnia (UNPROFOR), and Kosovo (KFOR). He supported many domestic exercises and operations in this time frame as well including OPERATION PERSISTENCE, the Swissair crash in 1998 in the waters off of Nova Scotia. He also did his time in Digital Production (DP) Sqn as a Data Collector in Vector map and Digital Nautical Chart production.

In 2000, he was posted to National Defence Operation Centre (NDOC) and then six months later promoted to Sergeant and posted to the Canadian Forces Joint Imagery Centre (CFJIC) at Tunney’s Pasture. During this posting, he was employed as Geomatics Support for ”B” Sqn and then in the Advanced Exploitation Section (AES). André kept a pulse Geospatial issues both domestically and abroad during this posting, and was the subject matter expert on shape file collection and dissemination during Op Peregrine, the Canadian Forces support to fighting BC forest fires.

In June 2005, André was promoted to WO and posted back to MCE Ops as Quality Assurance/Quality Control manager. His time back in the Unit was to be short as he was posted again March 2006 to the new Virtual National Defence Command Centre (NDCC) at the Star Top building for a three year tour.

WO Gignac has completed his service in the CF this month, and has taken a position with MCE DP Sqn in Ottawa as an EG- 04. André, his wife Louise, and two daughters, are looking forward to their new civilian life.

In recognition of WO Gignac’s distinguished career and to honour him, we will be hosting a Departure with Dignity presentation at 1030 hrs in the MCE Conference room at 615 Booth St. Ottawa, a followed by a luncheon on 20 March 2009. The luncheon will be held at the Dow’s Lake Mexicali Rosas located at 1001 Queen Elizabeth Dr. Ottawa. Please forward any anecdotes and messages to MWO Bailey 613-995-4931, email Stephen.Bailey2@forces.gc.ca