This Veterans Day, four University of Southern Maine alumni are among those being honored for their service. For each of them, serving veterans extends well beyond the holiday. It has become their life’s work.
Their jobs span state government, a congressional office, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, and the nonprofit world. Dave Richmond ‘93 and Jacob Piper ‘17 came to USM before serving in the Army. A.J. Jones ‘15 and Rob McCann ‘20, ‘21 attended after serving in the Marine Corps. USM offered each of them something different — a commission for some and a fresh start for others. For all four, it was a step toward the work they do today.
Dave Richmond ‘93: An artist’s path to service
In 1988, Dave Richmond enrolled at USM to study art, a decision he traces to a high school workshop led by USM drawing professor Michael Moore.
Two years into his studies, as the Gulf War began, he called his father.
“I told him I was thinking of leaving school to join the Marines,” said Richmond, whose father, stepfather, and both grandfathers served in the military. “He said that he was proud that I wanted to serve, but suggested I look into ROTC, finish school, and potentially enter service as an officer.”
Richmond joined USM’s Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program and spent that summer catching up on training at Fort Knox, Kentucky.
“I returned to USM that fall as a changed young man,” he said. “The Army had given me discipline and drive and USM had given me the tools and space to learn and grow.”
After graduating in 1993 with a bachelor’s degree in fine arts, Richmond served four years as an Army armor officer. When he returned to Maine, he joined a corporate leadership program, but felt something was missing.
“I later realized that I needed to work in an environment of service to others,” he said.
In 1998, he found that at the Maine Bureau of Veterans’ Services. He has worked there ever since, now serving as its director. From offices across the state, Richmond and his staff help veterans and their families claim the state and federal benefits they’ve earned.
He didn’t become a professional artist, at least not yet, he said, but his art education stayed with him.
“I learned how to use creativity to solve problems,” he said. “So much of what I learned at USM, I use every day.”
Art runs in the Richmond family, and so does USM. His wife, Rachael Richmond, earned a bachelor’s degree in art education from USM in 1993, and their daughter, Olivia, followed in 2022 with degrees in fine arts and art education.
A.J. Jones ‘15: Looking for purpose
A.J. Jones arrived at Marine Corps boot camp on his 19th birthday. He’d made the decision quickly. A friend was enlisting, and with his father nudging him in the same direction, it wasn’t long before he was in a recruiter’s office.
He served two tours in Iraq, in and around Fallujah, in 2004 and 2005, driving ammunition to artillery units and driving the lead vehicle for teams clearing roadside bombs.
“There were some close calls,” he said.
When his enlistment ended in 2007, he didn’t reenlist. “I felt like I’d pressed my luck,” he said
Back in Maine, the structure he’d relied on in the Marines was suddenly gone. He moved between jobs until a fellow veteran encouraged him to use his GI Bill.
He studied art education at Southern Maine Community College and the University of New England, where he spent a semester studying in Italy.
“I wanted to erase the negativity of traveling abroad to Iraq,” he said. “Now I was traveling abroad for something positive.”
There, he began a series of paintings honoring service members from his hometown who were killed in action, one of them his cousin.
“It was therapeutic for me,” he said.
Jones brought the series home with him and continued working on it at USM, switching his focus to fine arts. Friends had told him the art program was strong, and he wanted to be in Portland — a community he knew and loved. At USM, he also found the structure he’d been missing since the Marines, in an advisor he leaned on throughout his time there.
After graduating in 2015, Jones showed and sold his art in Portland galleries before turning to manufacturing for steadier work. The real turning point came years later, when he helped a fellow veteran file a successful claim with the VA.
“I thought, ‘I want to do something like that,’” Jones said.
In 2023, he joined Veterans Forward, a part of Easterseals Maine, where he is a data and quality analyst.
“I know that feeling of getting out and not knowing what to do next,” he said. “My very first week working there, I was like, ‘Wow, I found my purpose.’”
Jacob Piper ‘17: From cadet to congressional aide
When Jacob Piper arrived at USM in 2013, he came in knowing he wanted to serve. His grandfather, a 20-year Air Force veteran, had always been his role model.
At USM, Piper majored in political science while completing ROTC, a choice he jokes fulfilled his one requirement of minimal math. It ended up shaping his career more than he expected.
“USM played a pivotal role in my life,” he said. “Through attending USM and earning my undergraduate degree while simultaneously completing ROTC, I was able to serve on active duty as an officer and have unique experiences that will always stay with me.”
After graduating in 2017, he was commissioned as an Army armor officer — the same role Richmond took on about 25 years earlier.
Serving as an officer gave Piper a new perspective.
“I became interested in how decisions were made at a national level that affected my day-to-day life,” he said.
With a clearer sense of direction after active duty, Piper used his veterans’ benefits to attend graduate school, where that curiosity grew into a fascination with Congress and the legislative process. After graduating, he returned home to Maine and found a career at the intersection of service and policy.
Today, as a Green & Gold Congressional Aide, Piper represents U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree at events across Maine and handles veterans’ casework, from VA health care and benefits to military pay.
“When I found this opportunity after graduation, it was a natural fit,” he said. “Being able to come back home to Maine after almost a decade away was an added bonus.”
Rob McCann ‘20, ‘21: From dodging college to the Dean’s List
Rob McCann’s interest in the Marines started early. It grew out of a family with a history of military service and took shape in the years after 9/11, when he was still in middle school.
By the time he finished high school, dyslexia had made the classroom such a struggle that college was the last thing on his mind.
“I think I also enlisted partially because I was trying to avoid the age-old question of ‘What do you want to study next year?’” he said.
McCann served as an infantryman in the Marine Corps and deployed to Afghanistan twice, in 2010 and again less than a year later, the second time as a squad leader.
“I don’t think I truly understood what those experiences would translate to,” he said. “People have this conceptual reality of what war is from movies, but once you live it, it’s a very different reality.”
Back in Maine, McCann faced a familiar situation for many veterans: a fresh start with no clear structure or direction. Eventually, his father pushed him to seek help, and within a week, McCann had a job at Preble Street, helping homeless veterans find stable housing.
A couple of years and another job later, McCann came across a posting for a congressional fellowship for veterans. After it sat on his desk for more than a month, he applied, and he spent the next two and a half years in Pingree’s office, handling casework and outreach.
“I didn’t really think I had any interest in politics,” he said. “But it was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. The staff in that office have continued to be mentors and have a significant influence in my life.”
Those same colleagues urged McCann to consider college. He wasn’t eager to go back. School had never come easily, and he worried about fitting in among students nearly a decade younger. In the end, he decided to give it a try.
At USM, he found more support than he expected. McCann earned credit for his military training and years of real-world experience, and successfully petitioned to skip a public speaking requirement, pointing out that he was already speaking on Pingree’s behalf several times a week. He took full advantage of the resources available to him.
“When they told me, ‘We have office hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2 to 4,’ I would be there for all two hours of both sessions,” he said.
He made the Dean’s List every semester, earning a bachelor’s degree in political science and then a master’s degree from the Muskie School of Public Service through an accelerated pathway.
“Coming to USM was one of the best choices I ever made,” he said.
Today, McCann works as a public affairs and government relations officer for VA Maine Healthcare System. He works with Maine’s congressional delegation on veterans’ cases and policy, oversees the health care system’s communications, and often serves as the public face of VA Maine, speaking with media and at veterans’ organizations across the state.
“I never would have envisioned this for myself or thought this would be my professional life,” he said. “I’m very grateful that it is, and I think a lot of that started here at USM.”
Beyond Veterans Day
When it comes to advice for student veterans at USM today, all four had similar messages.
“Use your time at school to adjust to being a civilian again, and to solidify what you want your post-military career to look like,” Piper said.
Richmond encourages students to think beyond what they’re good at.
“Give plenty of thought,” he said, “to what will bring you the most fulfillment and satisfaction in your work.”
For Jones, it comes down to asking for help.
“Don’t let your pride get in the way of the things you need,” he said.
On this Veterans Day, most of them will be at work.
“I was given a gift in life, and that is that I survived the deployments I went on, and I have more than a handful of friends who didn’t,” McCann said. “I feel this inherent responsibility to live a meaningful, purposeful life dedicated to the population of people I care about. Working on Veterans Day makes me feel like I’m doing what I’m supposed to do.”