ST. PAUL, Minn. – The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, St. Paul District, will host a change of command ceremony in St. Paul, Minnesota, June 30.
Col. Sam Calkins will assume command of the St. Paul District from Col. Dan Koprowski. Calkins will become the district’s 65th commander and district engineer. Koprowski will move on to his next Army assignment, serving at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.
Prior to assuming this command, Calkins served as the command engineer for the U.S. Army Cyber Command at Fort Meade, Maryland. A Miami native, Calkins earned his commission in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers from the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1993. He has commanded the 1st Special Troops Battalion, 1st Brigade, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Kansas, and the 562d Engineer Company, Fort Wainwright, Alaska. Additional assignments include professor of military science at the California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, California, and assistant professor of economics at West Point.
Calkins is a graduate of the Engineer Officer Basic and Advanced Courses, the Combined Arms and Services Staff School, the Army Command and General Staff College, the National War College and the Army Airborne School. His awards and decorations include the Legion of Merit, Bronze Star Medal with 1 oak leaf cluster, the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, the Meritorious Service Medal with 3 oak leaf clusters and the Bronze Order of the DeFleury Medal.
The St. Paul District is celebrating its 150th Anniversary this year as it traces its origins to 1866, when Congress authorized the Corps of Engineers to establish a 4-foot navigation channel on the Upper Mississippi River. Maj. Gouverneur K. Warren, a West Point graduate widely acclaimed for his leadership at Battle of Gettysburg, was tasked with establishing the district and conducting preliminary surveys of the main river and its tributaries. Warren arrived in St. Paul and opened the first district office in August 1866.
The nearly 600 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, St. Paul District, employees working at more than 40 sites in five upper-Midwest states serve the American public in the areas of environmental enhancement, navigation, flood damage reduction, water and wetlands regulation, recreation sites and disaster response. Through the Corps’ Fiscal Year 2015 $100 million budget, nearly 1,600 non-Corps jobs were added to the regional economy as well as $155 million to the national economy. For more information, see www.mvp.usace.army.mil.
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