As the MMA community celebrated the opportunity to reunite, one alumnus shared lessons learned and hopes for the future.

Frank Tepedino has seen a lot since graduating from MMA in 1958 as an engineer.

He served as an engineering officer in the U.S. Navy; third assistant engineer in the Merchant Marine; came ashore to earn a degree in industrial management and study finance in graduate school; worked for Lockheed Shipbuilding, Electric Boat, and Pacific Power & Light; and, following graduation from the University of San Diego Law School, worked as House Counsel for FMC Corp. Later he founded and was CEO of The Condor Group, a consulting and executive training firm from which he retired a few years ago.

But on Thursday, September 27, the beginning of Homecoming 2018, he looked about, walking across the early fall-green lawn behind Dismukes Hall, MUGs hurrying by, and was summarily impressed by all that has changed at MMA.

“It was a different school then than it is now,” he said. “The student makeup is different. The facilities, instructors’ roles and qualifications, and the academy’s purpose are also different.”

“We shoveled coal at 1:00 A.M. into the academy’s furnaces,” he said as he pointed to Dismukes. “We drove the garbage to the landfill, cleaned and polished the decks in the buildings, painted bulkheads…”