By Blake Herzog, photos courtesy of Laurie Lawton Scott
Retired Navy SEAL Platoon Chief Richard Rodriguez, Veterans Support Coordinator for Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s (ERAU) Prescott Campus, would go back into the military if he could. Since aging out, he’s devoting his life to helping vets access and create their own support networks, as well as assist others in the community.
He is the veteran support coordinator at the campus. His job is to connect veterans with services on and off campus.
“I love it, I absolutely love it, because it keeps me young, keeping up with all the shenanigans that go on with them. I’m 63. They keep me involved. I have always been pro-military,” he says.
He is campus adviser for the Student Veterans Association, which meets every other week during the semester for a barbecue that doubles as a fundraiser — either for veteran scholarships or, twice per academic year, an outside organization.
Every October the association raises about $2,000 during Pink Friday, which funds about 20 mammograms provided by SimonMed Mobile On-site Mammography to low-income patients. In springtime another barbecue raises the same amount for HunterSeven Foundation, which researches and educates about military-connected cancers and assists those who have been diagnosed.
ERAU’s Prescott campus enrolls about 120 veterans out of its enrollment of 3,200, and has been named No. 1 in Best Colleges for Veterans by U.S. News & World Report for the last five years. Rodriguez took his current job in May 2018, just after graduating from the campus with a Bachelor of Science in Aeronautics and his commercial helicopter license at age 55.
He served for 20 years in Navy Special Ops and was assault team leader for SEAL Foxtrot Platoon during the initial stages of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003, earning the Bronze Star with Combat “V” for valor. He filled numerous leadership and educational roles in the military, including developing a Tactical Ground Mobility Department in the Advanced Training Detachment.
He and wife Laurie Lawton Scott, a Nations Lending branch manager deeply committed to writing VA and first responder mortgages, support numerous local activities including the one closest to Rodriguez’s heart, a November flag retirement ceremony he describes as “basically a combination of a Navy retirement and a military funeral.”
He says, “If you haven’t seen a military ceremony, this is one you don’t want to miss. It’s a tear-jerker, though.”
