Jacob Ewing is determined to become a successful leader once he graduates from Missouri S&T. Through academic excellence and leading cadets in S&T’s Army ROTC Stonehenge Battalion, he’s well on his way. 

“I’m involved in basically every opportunity that you can be involved in,” Ewing says. “I just have this philosophy: I always want to be better tomorrow than I am today, so I always strive to be better.” 

Ewing isn’t just a leader in the making — he’s also a top student quickly earning multiple degrees. Ewing is a senior in engineering management with an emphasis and minor in explosives engineering. Through dual enrollment and S&T’s grad track program, his master’s degree in explosives engineering will only take him one semester to complete. He will graduate twice this year: earning a bachelor’s degree in May and a master’s degree in December.  

Both of Ewing’s grandfathers were military officers (Army and Air Force). Ewing says they passed away before seeing him choose the military, but he wants to follow in their footsteps. Ewing’s path to the military has certainly been a busy one. 

First year: Starting with success 

Ewing’s first college year began with glowing success. Along with getting involved in the ROTC color group, the cannon crew and various campus clubs, Ewing excelled in the Ranger Challenge, a military skills competition for the nation’s military academies and ROTC programs.  

The final competition, the Sandhurst Military Skills Competition comprises the top 16 ROTC teams in the nation, plus 15 international teams and military academies. The task force and brigade competitions determine which 16 ROTC teams advance to Sandhurst. Ewing’s team won the task force competition and placed second in the brigade competition, propelling them to Sandhurst, held at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. 

“We became the first school in Missouri to make it to Sandhurst,” Ewing says. “It was the first time in our school’s history that we ever made it to an international competition of that caliber.” 

Ewing’s summer following his first year of college was just as busy. Ewing completed an internship with the United States Army Corps of Engineers, where he worked at Fort Leonard Wood on a hospital replacement project.  

“I worked as a quality control and quality assurance engineer with Major Steven Lanni and saw how the Army Corps of Engineers operates in the engineering regiment itself,” Ewing says.  

Sophomore year: Developing solutions 

In addition to serving as the chair of a national scholarship committee, Ewing became more involved during his sophomore year as a team leader within S&T’s Stonehenge Battalion. By earning the highest combat fitness test score at S&T, he achieved the role of master fitness trainer, in which he developed personal training plans and curriculum for S&T cadets.  

He became involved in the recruiting committee, and even developed a software program that helped recruit more cadets. 

“That software I helped develop — that’s some of the knowledge I got from my degree that really helped our program,” Ewing says. “It basically automated our process that we already did but just streamlined it and made it more efficient, so we didn’t have to do it the old way with a pencil.” 

In recognition of his service to the campus and community, Ewing received the Donald D. Myers Scholarship, named for a professor of engineering management at Missouri S&T for over 30 years.  

During the following summer, he completed a course at the University of North Carolina through Project Global Officer to learn Mandarin Chinese in just two months. 

From North Carolina, Ewing flew to Fort Moore, Georgia, and completed airborne school. He learned how to safely jump out of an airplane wearing a parachute. 

“It was terrifying,” Ewing says. “I did jump school because one of my biggest fears is heights, but how I’ve defined myself is I want to do the things that I’m the most scared of. That was my way of conquering what I was most afraid of.”  

Junior year: The most involved 

During Ewing’s junior year, he became captain of the Ranger Challenge team and a platoon sergeant within the battalion.  

Year three is primarily preparing students to get ready for cadet summer training, he says. But during that year, Ewing joined Missouri S&T’s eSports club and became an officer in the American Society for Engineering Management (ASEM). He also joined the board for the Donald D. Myers Scholarship to help determine the next recipient. 

During the summer, Ewing attended cadet summer training in Fort Knox, Kentucky, where he validated himself as a leader. He was evaluated on individual military skills and his ability to lead a platoon of 40 cadets through a rigorous field exercise. At the completion of the training, he was ranked No. 1 out of 640 cadets that participated in his regiment. This exceptional performance contributed to his ranking as No. 13 out of 5,140 cadets in his graduation year group from across the nation. 

From there Ewing flew to Fort Lewis in Washington to complete another internship in the 46th Aviation Support Battalion. He worked with the Multi-Domain Effects Battalion, a separate organization. 

“I was learning how to be an officer in a real-life environment,” Ewing says. “We did a lot of training, learning signal operations such as how we secure our communication networks across the Pacific Ocean.” 

Senior year: The highest rank 

During his senior year, Ewing became the cadet battalion commander, the highest officer position available for a cadet — and leads 56 cadets. 

“Being a battalion commander basically means that you assume all responsibility,” he says. “Any training that we conduct is 100% on me to make that decision.” 

Ewing explained that he thinks of big ideas for the battalion, then ensures those ideas happen by bringing them to his staff, who then push it all the way down to each leader. 

“The major reason why I like leading is developing others and seeing other people succeed,” Ewing says. “That’s been my primary motivator for ROTC and being a leader within the organization.” 

Ewing said his senior year has been especially validating — this is the year they get back all of their results. In ROTC, he explains, everything a student does in their first three years is tabbed and put into an order of merit score, then an order of merit list where they get stacked against all 6,000 cadets across America. 

“Based on all the events this year, I ended up ranking No. 11 in the entire country out of all 6,000 cadets that competed in my year group,” Ewing says.  

Leadership on the horizon 

With Ewing’s ranking, he had the benefit of choosing where his future path goes. In December, he was officially awarded Cyber (the US Army Cyber Command) as his branch, which was his top choice. 

“It’s a cool honor to have the hard work over the last four years awarded,” Ewing says. “I would enjoy going to work at the National Security Agency, located at Fort Meade, or to work for a multi-domain task force protecting national security for the country. Working for an organization like that, the spearhead of the future of the military, is where I want to put myself because while they are one of the most rigorous and time-consuming jobs; they are the future.” 

Ewing said not only did S&T’s ROTC program help lead him toward his future in leadership, but his academic programs also played a major part, too. 

“I’ve learned a lot from ROTC, but I’ve learned just as much, if not more, about how to be an innovative leader in the engineering management department. The leadership skills that I’ve learned will allow me to be the best officer that I can be within the Army,” he says. “The explosives engineering department really taught me how to be a technical leader. ROTC was the thing that glued all of it together and connected all the dots. In the future, I’ll take that experience that I learned about being technical, innovative and a problem solver, and take it into the military as a leader.” 

Dr. Joan Schuman, teaching professor and associate chair for undergraduate studies in engineering management and systems engineering, was a pivotal part of Ewing’s success as his advisor. She noticed his leadership potential early on. 

“He will definitely be in leadership, regardless of whether he stays in the Army or whether he transfers into the civilian world, because that’s just who he is,” Schuman says. “He’s not one of those leaders that comes in and tells everybody what to do. He comes in and leads by example.” 

Schuman says problem-solving and critical thinking are the top skills the program focuses on. 

“Our program is a little different from other engineering programs,” Schuman says. “We try to look at the whole picture and how everything fits together. I think that we’ve provided that for him, and I think the Army ROTC has also provided a different piece of that.” 

Lieutenant Colonel Brett Weir, professor and chair of military science, says he’s proud of how much Ewing has grown as a leader in the past few years. 

“I think one of the coolest things about him is he’s not just really good at academics, he’s good at it all, and he does it all effortlessly,” Weir says. “But the biggest thing for me is that he does it with empathy, and he cares for his soldiers and his people. I think that truly will help him rise to the top.” 

Lieutenant Colonel Matthew Burmeister, former professor of military science at S&T, taught Ewing for three years. Before he parted, he gave Ewing a very meaningful review. 

“The best cadet I have observed in five years in the U.S. Army Cadet Command,” Burmeister wrote. “He goes the extra mile, and his extra effort is demonstrated by his top accomplishment marks…(he’s) an exceptional young leader who will make a difference in our Army.” 

“The part where he said I was the best cadet he had seen in five years in the cadet command stands out as the greatest remark anyone has ever said about me,” Ewing says. “He had worked in ROTC for five years and saw thousands of cadets, which makes that comment very touching … It really showed me that all my hard work paid off and motivated me to continue doing the best I could.” 

Ewing plans to become an officer in the Army’s Cyber branch and hopes that his influence as a leader will help develop others. 

“I’ll never define my success as an Army officer based on my personal achievements, but on the achievements of those I developed and led,” Ewing says. “At the end of my career, if I helped people achieve their goals, then I will define my career as having been successful.” 

About Missouri S&T  

Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T) is a STEM-focused research university of over 7,000 students located in Rolla, Missouri. Part of the four-campus University of Missouri System, Missouri S&T offers over 100 degrees in 40 areas of study and is among the nation’s top public universities for salary impact, according to the Wall Street Journal. For more information about Missouri S&T, visit  www.mst.edu.