After more than 20 years of loyal and dedicated service to the Canadian Armed Forces and the Canadian Military Engineers Branch, MWO Joe Shea, CD, will retire on 02 January 2023. Anecdotes and retirement wishes may be sent to MWO O.R. Bennett at Oliver.Bennett@forces.gc.ca.
Joe joined the CAF in 2002 as a Direct Entry Firefighter. Upon completion of BMQ, he completed the QL3 Apprentice Course at EFFCA in Borden in 2003. His first posting was to CFB Greenwood where he completed the QL5 Journeyman Course, was promoted to Corporal, and deployed on OP ATHENA from December to June as CFI.
In July 2008, with his family by his side, he packed up and moved to CFB Esquimalt to be stationed on HMCS Ottawa. Shortly after arriving, he began training in Edmonton from February to October 2009 to deploy to Afghanistan as part of TF3-09. Upon his return, MCpl Shea served the remainder of his tour of duty on HMCS Regina.
In 2011, he and his family moved again, this time to CFB Trenton. While in Trenton, he became a member of the USAR team, completed the Supervisor 6A course, and was promoted to Sergeant. He then completed a six-month tour of CFS Alert that was followed by Boxtop duty and another three-month stint as "Smokey" fire chief. In 2017, Sgt Shea was promoted to Warrant Officer.
In June 2017, he was posted to 1 ESU in Kingston as the SME for Camp Firefighting Design. In 2019, he was selected to be the TFFM (Task Force Fire Marshall) for OP IMPACT in Kuwait from December to June 2020. Upon his return, he was promoted to MWO and assigned to CFFCA as Operations MWO and was to oversee the reconstruction of the training area. After a 10-month posting, MWO Shea accepted a posting to the LCMM position in Ottawa in 2021.
MWO Shea's last day in uniform will be 03 January 2023 when he will continue to serve Canada by transitioning to the public sector. He accepted a position as LCMM Technician at Assistant Deputy Minister (Materiel) / Director General - Maritime Equipment Program Management (DGMPEM). MWO Shea, his wife Renee, and their 7-pound Chihuahua “Duke” will remain in the Trenton area with his son residing in Kingston.
MWO Shea has decided not to have a formal DWD function but anecdotes and a congratulatory messages would be much appreciated. Please send them to MWO O.R. Bennett at Oliver.Bennett@forces.gc.ca