After more than 25 years of loyal and dedicated service to the Canadian Armed Forces and the Canadian Military Engineers, WO Marc Pouliot, CD, retired on 28 June 2021. At this time, the DwD date has not been established. Congratulatory messages, anecdotes and best wishes can be sent to S.D. Deslauriers at Sophie.Deslauriers@forces.gc.ca.

Warrant Officer Marc Pouliot enlisted in the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) Reserves in Quebec City in May 1996 as a combat engineer with 10 Engineer Sqn. After participating in OP VERGLAS in the Farhnam region, he joined the Regular Force, still as a combat engineer, and was transferred to the 5^e Régiment du Génie de Combat (5RGC) in Valcartier in March 1998. He was accelerated promoted to Cpl in September 2000, just in time for his deployment to Bosnia on OP PALLADIUM. There, he was employed as a Bison driver for his section in Drvar.

In 2004, while deployed on OP ATHENA in Kabul, Afghanistan, as a heavy equipment driver and storesman, he received approval for a voluntary occupation transfer to geomatics technician. Upon his return home in June, he moved to the Military Cartography School in Ottawa for the two-year QL5A Geo Tech course. After this course, he was transferred to the Mapping & Charting Establishment in the summer of 2006 and was promoted to MCpl in early 2007. He specialized in the management of geospatial data on servers and subsequently deployed on OP ATHENA in Kandahar, Afghanistan, as Data Manager for Regional Command South in 2008 and 2009.

Accompanied by his family, he was then posted to Joint Task Force - North (JTF-N) in Yellowknife in 2010 as a senior technician. During his four-year journey north of the 60th parallel, he participated in a multitude of Canadian security and sovereignty operations in the Arctic. He received a commendation from the JTF-N Commander for the creation of a command and control tool on the classified network. The tool amalgamated geospatial information from intelligence, weather, and ice conditions in one place for the Commanding officer.

WO Pouliot returned to his hometown with his family in 2014 where he was appointed Chief of Geomatics of 2 Canadian Division (2 CA Div) with 5RGC in Valcartier. In 2016, he deployed on OP IMPACT in Kuwait as the Commander of the Geospatial Intelligence Support Team with the All-Source Intelligence Center and received a commendation from the Commander of the Joint Task Force - Iraq. During the unprecedented floods that stretched from Gatineau to Lac St-Pierre in 2017, he participated in OP LENTUS at 2 CA Div HQ in Montreal. He received a commendation from the Commander of 2 CA Div for the field work of his three teams and for his leadership with Quebec Public Safety. In 2018, he was appointed CAF Geomatics Liaison Officer on OP CADENCE within the Integrated Security Group (ISG) of the G7 Summit in Charlevoix. WO Pouliot was responsible for providing analysis and mapping to the ISG, including the RCMP, SQ, and SPVQ. He and his team received a commendation from the Commander of the Canadian Joint Operations Command for building a tool to exchange information between operational and tactical command and control software on a classified network. WO Pouliot saw his last international deployment in 2019 on OP CALUMET as Operations WO with the Multinational Force Observer (MFO) in Egypt. His efforts would be recognized with a commendation from the Commander of the MFO as well as a commendation from Commander of the Canadian Joint Operations Command.

After 25 years with the CAF, Marc retired on 28 June 2021 to the great pleasure of his wife, Anne, as well as his two daughters, Alycia and Audrey. He joined the Public Service the following day, working with Natural Resources Canada.