David Ouillette

During a conversation with his high school football coach, David Ouillette ’71 ’73 (Forestry) said he knew he wanted to go to Alaska someday. The question was—how would he get there?

The answer: enlisting in the US Air Force as a new high school graduate on September 17, 1959. After being picked up from his front door, Ouillette, along with a group of 20, took a train—first class—to Lackland Air Force Base (AFB) in Texas.

“It was not easy for me,” he said. “The physical education was… I mean, they put us through the loops. But it got better. It all got better. I made a lot of friends.”

Ouillette was offered (and accepted) the Medical Service Corps and moved to a new section of Lackland where he could focus on medical training. He received orders for Gunter AFB in Alabama, where he went to dental school.

“Finally, these orders came in, and one was for Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage, Alaska, and one was for Fairbanks,” Ouillette said. “The people with the highest scores get first choice. Well, a guy walked up to me and he said, ‘You’re second,’ and the other fellow in front of me took Fairbanks. So I took Anchorage and Elmendorf, and that’s where I went. I got to go to Alaska.”

Ouillette’s assignment in Alaska was for one year. He stayed for four. 

“I volunteered and made sure I was available anytime the bush plane was going out,” he said. “We had maybe 10 radar sites scattered throughout the wilderness of Alaska. Personnel at Air Force stations would have dental problems that could not be resolved or saved by an onsite medic or first aid period, so we made these trips. We flew on anything that would fly, and I flew in some really ugly stuff.”

After Alaska, Ouillette was sent to Lincoln, Nebraska. While Nebraska may not offer the same thrill of flying planes throughout the Alaskan wilderness, Ouillette found a new kind of excitement: learning to skeet shoot and hunt.

“Because it was an SAC (Strategic Air Command) Base, the General always insisted that gunners on his planes learned how to wing shoot. That era was over, and so we had a club, and I started shooting skeet. That was exciting. I mean, dentistry wasn’t so exciting, but the shooting was. Hunting was fantastic in Nebraska, out on the plains. I did go to the Skeet Shooting Championship in North Platte, Nebraska… and I fell on my face.”

Ouillette arrived in Nebraska in 1963. By January 1966, they closed the base and he was assigned to Pope Air Force Base in North Carolina.

“Everything was Vietnam,” he said. “All I could do was listen to the stories of those who were there and the stories about airmen who unfortunately did not return.”

Throughout his years in the Air Force, Ouillette took classes at every AFB he was at. The education department in North Carolina brought up the conversation about him leaving the Air Force and pursuing higher education. By this time, Ouillette had gathered up 43 credit hours during his time in the service. 

On September 17, 1967—exactly eight years after enlisting, to the day—Ouillette left the Air Force and drove to Michigan Tech to begin his first semester. Right away, he learned that no one goes through Michigan Tech alone.

“They found me a place in Wadsworth Hall,” he said. “Within days, it was school time. And I didn’t know what I was getting into!” 

He chose Michigan Tech for a few reasons: his cousin attended, he liked the wilderness, and he wanted to be a forester. While he enjoyed his forestry classes, subjects like math and chemistry didn’t come as easy to him, and he leaned on roommates and friends for help. 

Ouillette shared a story about chemistry with Professor Myron (Doc) Berry: “He knew I was going to fail. He brought me to his office, and he just said, ‘You can’t go on like this. You can’t continue, or you’ll fail my class. So this is what you’re going to do. You’re going to work double time.’ So instead of doing one recitation, I had to do a second recitation with him. And I wasn’t the only one. I was the oldest, probably! So we concentrated on the math, which finally clicked in smaller classrooms rather than in a big lecture hall.”

By his third year at Tech, Ouillette had found his confidence as a student. 

“We got a little relaxed,” he said. “We had forestry summer camp, and you know, it was laid back. I probably got laid back a little too much, but it was just the greatest time ever.”

Ouillette graduated with his BS in Forestry in 1971. Gene Hesterberg (the department head of forestry at that time) asked Ouillette if he would like to pursue a graduate program. He stayed at Michigan Tech for his master’s and worked as a naturalist at Fort Wilkins in the summers—which started while he was still an undergrad.

His graduation research required Ouillette to move into the bush, so he set up camp at a friend’s family property along the north shore of the Keweenaw. His graduate research focused on the human impact on trails, which he completed at Estivant Pines. 

He graduated with his master’s in forestry in 1972. Ouillette and his wife at the time, Kathy, wanted to stay in Houghton but had no employment. They left for Zeeland, Michigan. Ouillette forgot that he had talked to Michigan Tech’s registrar about a job before he left.

“My wife and I were in the bush in Michigan, on a cross country skiing trip, and believe it or not, this little trailer we were at in the woods had a phone. It rang, and it was Tech! I said, ‘You have to give me time. We gotta get out of here.’ So we went back to Zeeland, got some clothes together, and had a car we thought would do all right—that would make it to Houghton.” The two drove back to Houghton, stayed with an aunt in Dollar Bay, and waited. After a week, Ouillette started his new job in the Registrar’s Office. He retired from Michigan Tech in 2000.

Later, he moved to Florida where he met his current wife, Mary Jo. After they married, the two lived in Tennessee for five years. They currently live in Ohio with their granddaughter.

Interview conducted as part of the Oral History Collection during Military Service Appreciation Weekend, hosted by the Office of Alumni Engagement, May 2–3, 2025.

Updated May 2025