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Lt. Col. (Ret.) Steven A. Simon is a 1977 Air Force Academy graduate who served on active duty for 22 years and retired as a Lieutenant Colonel. Much of his career was spent working at or for the Academy, including five years at USAFA (1984-1989). He also had a five-year assignment as the Academy’s Congressional Liaison stationed at the Pentagon. He completed his active-duty career in Washington D.C. as the Academy expert on the Secretary of the Air Force’s Personnel Council. After his wife Paula completed her Air Force career at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, they returned to Colorado Springs. He then served as a Department of Defense civilian at the Academy for 11-1/2 years (2003-2015). During most of that time, he was the Academy’s liaison to the Association of Graduates and the graduate community.
In that post, he was key to the Academy’s commemoration of its 60th anniversary. He conceived and researched a “This Day in Air Force Academy History” project to recognize significant events. Those dates ran weekly in the base paper and daily on the Academy’s official website throughout 2014. He continues to conduct research on the list, which now contains more than 6,500 items. He also wrote several Academy history articles for the AOG’s special 60th anniversary commemorative issue of its quarterly magazine, Checkpoints. One of the articles, “The Building of the Air Force Academy,” was named Best Article of the Year by CASE (the Council for Advancement and Support of Education) District IV. Prior to working on the Academy staff as a civilian, he researched and co-wrote the Rocky Mountain PBS documentary “Jewel of the Rockies,” which examined the Academy’s founding and its first fifty years.
Since August 2017, he has worked at the AOG. He served as the organization’s Executive Vice President for more than two years, before deciding to devote his time to history and heritage. He continues to write for Checkpoints and conduct “This Day” research. Along with Jeff Holmquist and Ryan Hall, he developed the “Heritage Minute,” a series of short videos telling various aspects of the Academy’s history. The award-winning series premiered on September 11, 2018, with an episode about the Academy’s 9/11 Memorial. Nearly 60 episodes have been posted, with another 40-50 installments in various stages of production.
Steve is also the author of two novels, "On the Dead Run", and "Service Before Self."
The Heritage Minute Channel and Podcast is a production of the Long Blue Line Podcast Network
and presented by the U.S. Airforce Academy Association and Foundation