MAJ (R) Dave Kopecky ’02 has worn quite a few hats, and military ranks, since he first enlisted in the Army in 1996. He went on to serve for 25 years before retiring from military service. Now he continues to serve the nation and other veterans as member of the Louisville District’s Louisville VA Medical Center construction team as a project engineer and contracting officer’s representative.
This is Kopecky’s second time working in the Louisville District. His first assignment with USACE was from June 2011 to June 2013 while he was still on active duty. During that time he served in the Fort Knox Resident Office as a project engineer for the Warrior Transition Unit construction project; then as the Deputy Chief of Engineering Division. He was later hired on to the Louisville VA Medical Center project as a project engineer in November 2021.
His journey with the military began when he enlisted as Signals Intelligence Voice Interceptor/Linguist where he specialized in Arabic languages. He later decided he wanted to apply to become an officer and entered the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York in 1998, and later graduated as a commissioned Engineering officer in 2002.
Kopecky’s time in the Army allowed him to hone his skills as an engineer and a leader while serving in units like the 27th Engineer Battalion, Fort Liberty (formerly known as Fort Bragg), North Carolina, the 173rd Infantry Brigade, in Vicenza, Italy, and the 5th Special Forces Group, at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, U.S. Army Europe Headquarters, in Wiesbaden, Germany, and Special Operations Command Headquarters, at MacDill Air Force Base, Florida. He also completed two deployments each to Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as a deployment to Syria, Turkey and Jordan.
