After more than 26 years of loyal and dedicated service to the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) and the Canadian Military Engineer Branch, WO Shane Tighe, CD (bio attached), will retire on 15 Mar 16. A Depart with Dignity Ceremony will take place at the Barrhaven Legion, on 08 April 16 at 1300hrs. Attendees are requested to advise the OPI of their planned attendance NLT 01 Apr 16. Anecdotes or retirement wishes may be sent to the OPI WO Jim Spence by email or by phone at 613-996-2240.

WO Tighe joined the CAF on 29 June 1989, at the tender age of 17 as a reservist at 45 Field Engineer Squadron in Sydney Nova Scotia. He remained as a reservist until his component transfer in April 1995 when he was posted to 2 Combat Engineer Regiment, CFB Petawawa.

He was posted to 23 Field Squadron and remained in 23 Fd Sqn for his entire time at 2 CER. While at 2 CER he held the positions of Section Member, Recce driver, Section 2 IC, Section Commander and Squadron Sergeant Major’s driver. He deployed to Bosnia (1996 and 1998), Central America (1998), and Turkey (1999). He also completed various courses including HA, Mountain Ops, Track and AFV driver.

WO Tighe was posted to the National Defence Command Center in 2001 as an Operations Watch NCO and it was during this time that he applied and was accepted to transfer to the Geomatics Technician trade. He started training in 2002 and graduated his QL5 in 2005. Soon after graduation he began pre-training to deploy to Afghanistan and deployed to Kandahar from January – July 2006 in the ASIC. Upon return to Canada he was posted to Geo Sp Sqn as the Data Conditioning 2 IC. In January 2007 he was promoted to Sgt and became the Data Conditioning Section Commander. In January 2008 he was posted to the School of Military Mapping, Algonquin College (SMMAC) as a course instructor. He remained in that job until his promotion to WO in 2011 when he became the Standards WO at the SMMAC. In the fall of 2012, WO Tighe was selected to attend the University of New Brunswick in the Geomatics Diploma program. Upon his return to MCE in May 2013, WO Tighe was posted as the LifeCycle Material Manager WO in MCE Engineering and remained there until Oct 2015 when he started his VOCREHAB at the National Search and Rescue Secretariat (NSS), Public Safety. WO Tighe will be retiring from the CAF on March 15th, 2016 after almost 27 years in the CAF (reserve and reg force combined). He will be staying in the Ottawa area with the plan of continuing to work at the NSS and enjoying more time with his wife of 17 years, Robin, and their 13-year old daughter, Bridget.

A DWD ceremony will be held at the Barrhaven Legion ( 3A- 3500 Fallowfield Road, Ottawa) on Apr 8th from 1300 – 1600. Please contact WO Jim Spence if you are planning on attending or if you wish to pass on any messages.