After more than 30 years of loyal and dedicated service to the Canadian Armed Forces and the Canadian Military Engineers, LCol Lee Goodman, CD, will retire on 14 August 2023. A DWD will be held on 20 July 2023 at 13:30 hrs at the Army Officers’ Mess in Ottawa, ON. If you wish to attend in person or if you wish to send anecdotes to be read during the ceremony, please contact Maj P.V. Daigle at Pierre-Vincent.Daigle@forces.gc.ca.
LCol Lee Goodman enrolled in the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) in 1993, after working several years in the construction industry in Toronto. Following military engineering training at Canadian Forces Base Chilliwack, she was posted to Edmonton in 1996, where she was employed as the Plans Officer in the Construction Engineering Section. This was the first of many postings, primarily within the Army and joint environments.
LCol Goodman enjoyed a great degree of geographic stability in her early career (Edmonton), and again in the last third of her career (Ottawa). In between, there were moves in and out of Ottawa, alternating with moves down to the US and east to Gagetown. During her many postings, she has served within six Level 1 organizations across DND and the CAF: Canadian Army, Royal Canadian Air Force, Assistant Deputy Minister (Infrastructure and Environment), Vice Chief of Defence Staff, Canadian Expeditionary Force Command (CEFCOM) and Canadian Joint Operations Command (CJOC).
The best experiences in the CAF are sometimes related to holding a specific position or title, but more often than not they are shaped by the people with whom one works; LCol Goodman counts herself lucky to have met and worked with so many great people from across the Defence Team. She particularly values her time spent within the Canadian Army, the challenging jobs at CEFCOM and CJOC, her sub-unit command as Senior Instructor of Construction Engineering and Management Squadron at the Canadian Forces School of Military Engineering, and her four years as the Canadian Forces Fire Marshal.
Since 2020, LCol Goodman has been Director of Land Infrastructure with Canadian Army HQ. She will retire from the CAF on 14 August 2023, after thirty years of service. In retirement, she looks forward to spending more time with family and friends, indulging in her quilting hobby, and heading out on RV road trips with her husband, Maj Maarten Annion.