Patrice Melançon
M.S., University of Texas at Austin, 1999
B.S., University of Louisiana - Lafayette, 1988
General Patrice Melancon studied civil engineering at the University of Louisiana - Lafayette, although it was the University of Southwestern Louisiana when she attended, on an Air Force ROTC scholarship. She was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant in 1988 and entered the Air Force as a Bioenvironmental Engineer. She spent the next 9 years on active duty.
In the Fall of 1997, she transferred from active duty to the Air Force Reserves as a Civil Engineer. Patrice received a Masters in Water Resources Engineering at the University of Texas in 1999. Gen Melancon spent the next 24 years, juggling a civilian career working as a Water Resources Engineer for CDM Smith and serving as a very active reservist. She also served for 3 years as the Department Manager for the San Antonio River Authority from 2016 to 2019. In February 2017, she was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General. After a 33 year career in the Air Force involving multiple deployments and activations, she retired in February 2021.
Six of her nine years of active duty were spent at base level, managing the base’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) compliance programs. Gen. Melançon spent her last 3 years of active duty managing environmental remediation work. Most of her work supported a Superfund Site in Tucson, Arizona. This project had a large public education and outreach component and included the design and installation of a Soil Vapor Extraction system.
Patrice was recalled to active duty after the events of September 11, 2001 and served for a year on the Air Forces Central Command (AFCENT) staff as the Environmental Program Manager for all forward deployed sites in the Middle East and Central Asian States. In her reserve career, she completed a 6 month deployment in 2012 to Qatar, again supporting AFCENT, as the Director of Installations. She was activated and supported Air Force Space Command from the Fall of 2013 - 2015 leading a team to build the Joint Space Operations Center. And from 2019 – 2021, she was again activated, this time to lead the $4B rebuild of Tyndall Air Force Base following the destruction of Hurricane Michael.
