alumnispotlight
Navigating a Path to the Sky
I
n the fall of 1984, a slightly less-thanenthusiastic Tom McDevitt arrived in North Bridgton. This Massachusetts native was not so thrilled to find himself headed to an all-male school in the foothills of Western Maine, but like many who find their way to North Bridgton, Tom’s high school performance had not left him with the future options he had hoped for. “I remember pulling up to the school and realizing ‘I’m here. There’s no changing that. I can either embrace it or continue being not happy about it.’ I decided to embrace it.” As Tom’s year unfolded at Bridgton, it came with revelations about himself and his abilities, authentic relationships, and shared experiences that have stayed with him to this day. For McDevitt, the structure of Bridgton garnered a variety of positive results. He recalls that the level of teacher focus and involvement was like nothing he had ever experienced, except maybe in his earliest years of school. He was pushed, held accountable, and inspired by faculty, such as Mr. Gately and others, who made things interesting and demonstrated that they truly cared. Tom was also away from home for the first time, surrounded by peers from all
different walks of life. Not only did he find that the transition to single-sex education was less challenging than he anticipated, he also felt that this shift in focus changed the social dynamics and allowed for real and genuine friendships to form between the young men of his class. Once he completed his Bridgton year, McDevitt went on to attend Boston College. He eventually found himself on a bit of a meandering path, a senior in college unsure of his next steps, not particularly feeling drawn to any single calling. One day, one of Tom’s friends asked him to go with him to a meeting with a Naval recruiter. His friend dreamed of being a fighter pilot. “This was the era of Top Gun,” McDevitt recalled. “We all sort of idolized that vision.” When they met with the recruiter, Tom was curious and
asked a few questions. He did have a bit of a family history in aviation, as his father had operated a business based in that industry. Tom had also spent his summers growing up at a family beach house in New Hampshire located near an Air Force base. He recalls, as a child, how he loved to see the jets fly down the beach. As he spoke with the Navy recruiter and his curiosity grew, the recruiter pulled out an application folder of a high performing senior from Yale. He proceeded to tell Tom that, in essence, he wasn’t quite the caliber of recruit that would likely succeed in their program. For McDevitt, that casual meeting was, in some ways, an important steppingstone along his path. He remembers this as a moment when a fire was lit. “I am the youngest of six Irish-Catholic siblings. I didn’t take it well when someone told me, out of hand, that I just could not do something.” The idea of a career in aviation and learning to fly had taken root, and, whether Tom knew it or not, he was starting down a path that would come to define his career. Looking back now, the fact that he was on a path leading to a destination now seems clear, yet at the time, Tom felt he was searching for his next steps. An opportunity to visit a Coast Guard air station in Cape Cod truly began to clarify for Tom how he might achieve his goal of flying. “I was honestly not even aware until that point that the Coast Guard had an aviation program. I fell in love when I visited this air station. It was kind of part military, part firehouse. The people were great, and I realized this was what I wanted to do—to be a Coast Guard pilot.” The path to this goal continued to prove circuitous. McDevitt, who was now two years into life after college, was rejected twice by the Coast Guard. After his third attempt to gain entry into this branch of the service, he received the call he’d been
“Have faith...If you believe in God—have faith in God. If you don’t, have faith in something bigger than you.”
summer 2020 25
