Last night Ryan earned a Masters of Science in Logistics and Supply Chain Management. It was held at the Wright Brothers Air Museum in a hanger amongst the planes. AFIT stands for Air Force Institute of Technology. It is an honor to be selected to attend AFIT. While most students are active duty Air Force personnel, there are also civilians and active duty members from other branches of the American forces as well as abroad. The program is extremely rigorous and consists of 72 graduate credit classes plus a thesis within an 18 month period. During this time, the men and women are full-time students while maintaining active duty status. While we thought this schedule might allow for some additional family time, we were quite mistaken. For the first ten months Ryan worked 7 days a week averaging 80 hours per week of course and study time. For the last 8 months it eased to usually 6 days a week and we started seeing him at the dinner table again. :) Overall, Ryan really enjoyed his coursework but certainly wished there was a better balance between work and family.
I felt overwhelmed with pride as I sat there soaking it all in and reflecting on the last 18 months. When his name was called to walk across the stage I wanted to scream and run over all the chairs to hug him. Thankfully, I refrained until the end of the ceremony.
We were grateful my parents were able to come in town to attend the ceremony.
Ross was always so proud of Ryan and we are certain he was there in spirit.
