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Colonel
Michael R. Emerson
Permanent Professor 1997–2004
B.S., University of Montana
J.D., University of Denver
Mike Emerson, the Academy’s 64th Permanent Professor, was born in 1944 to an Army family at Fort Benning, Georgia. After graduating from the University of Montana, Missoula, in 1966 with a major in Economics and a commission as an AFROTC Distinguished Graduate, he entered an educational delay while he earned a law degree from the DU Law School in 1969. Mike started active duty as an Assistant Staff Judge Advocate (SJA) with the 341st Combat Support Group, Malmstrom AFB, MT. From 1970 to 1971 he was an Assistant SJA at the 377th Combat Support Group, Tan Son Nhut Air Base, Vietnam. He was next assigned as Assistant SJA at the 32nd Tactical Fighter Squadron, Soesterberg Air Base, The Netherlands, 1972–1974, where he worked in international law, foreign criminal jurisdiction, and international claims. From 1974 to 1976 he was SJA at Tempelhof Central Airport, Berlin, Germany. From Berlin, he came to the Academy for his first assignment in the Department of Law, 1976–1980. Mike followed his faculty tour with an SJA assignment at Grand Forks AFB, ND, 1980–1983. From there he had a three-year assignment, 1983–1986, in the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force, Legislative Liaison (SAF/LL), the Pentagon. He was an action officer in the Legislation Division, which advocated the AF position to Congress on military personnel, military construction, nonappropriated funds, USAF Academy, and other issues and programs; then in the Long-Range Planning Division as Deputy Chief; and finally in the Weapons Systems Division. In this later position, he set up the first-ever SAF/LL intelligence desk and established enduring personal and institutional relationships with the nation’s Intelligence and Reconnaissance components and with members and professional staffs on the House and Senate Select Intelligence Committees and Armed Services Committees. In 1986 he was assigned as Base SJA, Ramstein Air Base, Germany. He returned to the Air Staff in 1988 to lead the AF General Litigation Division and in 1991 moved back to Legislative Liaison as Chief, Legislation Division (later the Programs and Legislation Division). Mike returned to the Academy in 1993 as Senior Military Professor of Law, and he was appointed Permanent Professor in 1997. His tenure was marked by establishing a Legal Studies major capstone course, and by interdepartmental teaching in National Security Law and Policy, Space Law and Policy, and Negotiations. He regularly co-taught a classical music appreciation course, and he helped develop and teach a selective humanities history course for cadets preparing for national graduate scholarship competitions. He was the Officer Representative to the varsity tennis team. Mike was deployed twice, in 1996 and 1997, as SJA to the Commander, Operation SOUTHERN WATCH, in Saudi Arabia. In addition, Mike and his faculty regularly traveled to Central America, Africa, and the former Soviet bloc Eastern European countries as part of the Department of Defense International Military Education Program. In 2001 Mike returned to the Pentagon for an extended military sabbatical in the Academy Liaison Office, where his relationships and familiarity with both the Pentagon and Congressional processes paid huge dividends during periods of intense scrutiny of the service academies.
Mike retired in 2004 but was soon recruited to join the AF Judge Advocate General’s elite Administrative Law Division, where from 2005 to 2010 he worked high-level military personnel and policy issues. He currently makes his home in Northern Virginia.