Published April 2, 2014
Major Trent L. Watson was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, 7 January 1967. As a result of his father’s career in the Royal Canadian Navy, he lived on both the east and west coasts, graduating from Dartmouth High School in 1985. After a year in the Reserves, he transferred to the Regular Force under the Regular Officer Training Plan, and later graduated from the Royal Military College in Kingston in 1989 with a Bachelors Degree in Civil Engineering.
After his engineer phase training in 1990, he was posted to Germany where he served as a troop commander in CFB Lahr’s Airfield Damage Repair Squadron. In 1991 he was accepted into the Post Graduate training program and returned to Canada where in 1993 he completed a Master’s Degree in Surveying Engineering at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton.
From 1993 to 1997 he served with the Mapping and Charting Establishment in Ottawa, as a troop commander and as the Deputy Commandant of the Canadian Forces School of Military Mapping. In his final year he was responsible for the design and delivery of handheld GPS receiver training to the Land Force.
In 1997, he was posted to 4 Engineer Support Regiment in Gagetown where he served as both the Resources Squadron Commander and Construction Squadron Commander. During this time he deployed on three domestic operations. In 1999, he deployed to Bosnia-Herzegovina with the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Canadian Regiment on Operation PALLADIUM as the engineer squadron second-in-command.
Following attendance at the Canadian Land Force Command and Staff College in 2000, he was promoted and posted to the Combat Training Centre as the formation adjutant. In 2002, he was posted to National Defence Headquarters where he served one year on the J Staff as the J2 Geomatics Land Desk Officer. In 2003 he was posted to 3 Area Support Group, Gagetown, to fulfill the duties of G3 Range and Training Area Management Officer of Land Force Atlantic Area. Lastly, in 2005, he was appointed as Commanding Officer of Canadian Forces Recruiting Centre Fredericton.
Major Watson is married to his high school sweetheart, Jacqui Laing. They have two daughters, Nikole and Alyson.