Moving out of his childhood home, Alan Ferry found a stack of airplane drawings.
From early doodles to joining the U.S. Air Force to majoring in aerospace engineering at UF, Ferry said he has always been drawn to planes.
Before coming to UF last Spring to study aerospace engineering, Ferry, 27, was a senior airman in the U.S. armed forces, working as an aircraft mechanic on the C-5 Galaxy aircraft in the Middle East and Kyrgyzstan, he said.
“When I first joined, it was a combination of things,” Ferry said. “One of the big things was getting the opportunity to serve my country. Secondary to that was the educational benefits.”
Ferry began serving in January 2009, and during a two-week break in September, he married his wife, Catherine. She pushed him to continue his education after he was discharged in January 2013, and he said there was no doubt about leaving their Northern Virginia home to move south. Born in Jacksonville, Ferry said he is a Gator.
“I was born bleeding orange and blue,” he said. “I went to my first football game at 9 (years old). I had to go here.”
Connecting with people in Gainesville wasn’t as easy as it was in the military.
“The people I really connect with are people who were in the military,” he said. “I don’t know what it is, but it just seems like there’s a special type of person that goes there. I fit that bill, and we all seem to get along.”
Before coming to UF, Ferry attended Santa Fe College. He went to school, worked and came home. During his first week at UF, it looked like it would be the same.
But one day, someone spotted his military backpack as he was leaving physics class and gave him directions to the Collegiate Veterans Society at UF. Now, he can be found in the Collegiate Veterans Success Center in Yon Hall every day.
“It goes back to the people,” he said. “You can have a conversation with anyone about anything. Everyone has done different things — has different stories but similar. We can all relate.”
In between classes and working at the UF Hurricane Research Laboratory on east campus, he goes to Yon Hall to eat lunch, watch TV and study. He and his friends in the society also tailgate for Gator games, play poker and road trip to away games together, he said.
For his first Veterans Day as a member of the society on Tuesday, he volunteered at VETSPACE, a local nonprofit, to help homeless vets.
“It’s a different perspective to meet veterans in a tougher place, suffering post-traumatic stress disorder or sustained injuries — mental or physical from their service.” Ferry said. “Being able to help them means a lot — veteran to veteran.”
On most Veterans Days, he spends a quiet day with his wife. A lot of people don’t know the sacrifices veterans and their families have made, so he said he cherishes the holiday for making people aware.
“I get a lot of thank yous, and it makes me feel proud,” he said.
Collegiate Veterans Society president Marcus Tucker, 29, acknowledged Ferry as a great, well-rounded guy.
“He’s very involved, and he’s in one of the tougher majors,” said Tucker, a UF marketing senior. “The club is better with him in it.”
Ferry said the tough classes will be worth it, as he hopes to join the engineering teams of companies like Lockheed Martin or Boeing and put together planes. He also thinks a lot about going back to the military to become a pilot. He said if the opportunity came up, he couldn’t say no.
“As a veteran, I would like to say thanks,” he said. “Go, Gators.”
[A version of this story ran on page 8 on 11/12/2014]
