For the Love of Flying and Selfless Service

A record-breaking 127.7 million viewers tuned into Super Bowl LIX this year at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans. As millions watched Jon Batiste sing a soulful rendition of the national anthem, they also witnessed a unique flyover.

To kick off a yearlong 250th birthday celebration, the U.S. Marine Corps conducted the flyover for Super Bowl LIX for the first time in more than 10 years, displaying the capabilities of its Osprey tiltrotor aircraft.

Flying in a nonstandard formation with two F-35 supersonic stealth fighters and four Ospreys were Justin Pitcock '05 and Ivan Morin '07, of the Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron "Moonlight.”

For Morin and Pitcock, this was a full-circle moment from their earliest aspirations of becoming pilots, to their days at Texas A&M, to their careers serving in the Marine Corps and beyond.

Full-Circle Dreams and The Call to Serve

Morin can still remember the day he decided he wanted to be a pilot. It was March 2000 at the opening day of the Astros Stadium in Houston. From his parents' home, Morin recalls that he could see the planes about to perform the flyover for the first regulation game of the season circling the airspace - and he thought to himself how cool it would be to have that job. It was then and there he decided he wanted to be a pilot.

Pitcock has also loved aviation since a young age, attempting to build his very own plane at 10. It was the events of Sept. 11, 2001 while he was living on campus in Aston Hall at Texas A&M, that motivated him to want to serve his country as a pilot.

For Morin and Pitcock, joining the Marines became a reality during their time as undergraduates at Texas A&M. Neither were a part of the Corps of Cadets, but spent their last few summers as Aggies in the Platoon Leaders Course and Officer Candidate School, ready to be commissioned into the Marine Corps shortly following their graduation.

Both were involved in other activities across campus that unwittingly helped to shape them and prepare them for future military life and leadership. Fast forward two decades later, Morin and Pitcock reflect on how their involvement through programs offered by the Division of Student affairs influenced their career paths, which led up to this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to represent the U.S. Marine Corps at Super Bowl LIX.

Q&A With Ivan and Justin

Q: What was it like to fly over Super Bowl LIX?

Ivan: "For me, it was quite the full-circle moment and very rewarding. It was one of the best days of my life and an exciting week. We got to the stadium just in time for the halftime show and we also got to go onto the field and they introduced us to the whole stadium."

Justin: "It was an incredible experience and I felt so fortunate that the Marine Corps has provided me with some pretty amazing experiences over the years. It was a lot of fun to execute a non-standard formation with the F-35s. I had never flown that before."

Q: What was your major at Texas A&M and where did you grow up?

Ivan: "I majored in Aerospace Engineering, minor caveat, I thankfully found out for myself it was a lot cooler for me to fly airplanes than design them. I stuck with my major because I enjoyed the work, but I knew early on a 9-to-5 was not for me. I grew up in Houston, Texas."

Justin: "I was a Finance major, hailing from Graham, Texas."

Q: Why did you choose to come to Texas A&M?

Ivan: "The biggest thing for me was the Century Scholar program. My dad went to University of Texas at Austin and I grew up a UT fan but when I got that scholarship to Texas A&M, UT wasn't really striking a chord for me as much when it came time to pick a school. So from the moment I stepped onto campus, I noticed everyone was saying 'Howdy' and asking me and my family if we needed help. It was so welcoming and inviting. I loved the traditions and it felt like home."

Justin: "I grew up a bit closer to Lubbock, so I had both Red Raiders and Aggies in the family, but when it came time to choose a college I didn't know enough about [Texas] A&M yet. But when I came to College Station for a football game, I got sold on the whole thing. It was apparent to me that the values of Texas A&M and selfless service were something you could really shape your life around. Like when I saw the Big Event it felt like a church mission trip growing up, everyone is having fun and doing good for the world and that attitude was really apparent to me."

Q: How did you get involved on campus?

Ivan: "When I was a freshman, I went to a conference the week before school put on by ExCEL and I got to meet new people and had a lot of fun. Next year as a sophomore, I had the opportunity to apply to be on staff at ExCEL with some of my friends and become the director of team leaders. The Department of Multicultural Services staff who supported the ExCEL program were so nice and welcoming and I just bought into the mission of helping students find their way their first year at [Texas] A&M because of my experiences. Junior year I was on staff again, and at this point Tonya Driver, who was the program adviser for ExCEL, helped me get nominated to be the next executive director of ExCEL. I ended up being the executive director for the next two years. I didn't really have this on my radar at the time but looking back, Tonya and others had really seen something in me in terms of leadership, which became a turning point in my life and a time when I had to learn to balance this leadership responsibility with Officer Candidate School."

Note: Excellence uniting Culture, Education, and Leadership (ExCEL) is a student organization and student success program designed to help new students find academic, social, and personal balance at Texas A&M. ExCEL assists students in making a smooth transition during their first year as an Aggie by providing opportunities for meaningful and authentic connections to campus.

Justin: "I was involved with a few different things on campus. I got elected to the Student Senate my sophomore year and just really loved that experience and loved to campaign. I was also involved in Greek life in the Phi Delta Theta organization and was in executive roles in my fraternity. From there I got to roll my sleeves up to do some things around philanthropy and especially loved volunteering at the Big Event. For me all of these things were a great outlet for the Aggie Spirit and values like selfless service that really resonated with me when I made the choice to come to [Texas] A&M. Another opportunity which had the biggest impact on me was doing a study abroad program in the business school. I went to France for a summer with about 15 other students who I can still catch up with in life until this day. All of that was made possible by the ecosystem of student experience here at Texas A&M."

Q: Tell us more about your service in the Marine Corps and your career path since graduation.

Ivan: "When I graduated from Texas A&M in 2007, I got commissioned at the same time. I was active duty in the Marine Corps for 12 years then joined the reserves and am still doing that now. For my civilian job, I fly for United Airlines. What I didn't know at the time in college, was that there are tons of different ways to join the Marine Corps and move around, so I told myself I'd give it a try and if I didn't like it I would leave, and here I am 19 years later."

Justin: "I was active duty for 12 years starting as soon as I graduated and went right into naval aviation. I got deployed to places like Pakistan and Afghanistan and got to do some rewarding things during my deployments like help flood victims in Pakistan. I was also selected for the President's helicopter squadron and got to fly with the President of the United States all around the world. At the end of active duty, I moved back to Texas, got my MBA and was in investment banking for a while until I bought a business. Now I live in Nacogdoches and run an aviation flight school training students from Stephen F. Austin University on track to get their degrees in aviation science. We're working to build an aviation community out here which is just exploding."

Q: How would you say your experience at Texas A&M helped prepare you for the future?

Ivan: "The people and connections I made through ExCEL, especially Tonya Driver in the Department of Multicultural Services, helped guide me to step into and develop the leadership abilities they saw in me. This really helped me on my path in life well beyond my four years."

Justin: "The servant leader mentality has served me very well in the Marine Corps and in business. It's part of the Aggie ethos and who I am which really got emboldened in me in college."

Q: What's your advice for current students?

Ivan: "Everyone has an idea in their head of what their goals are, and you want to make every effort to achieve those goals, but at the same time opportunities will come up that will have effects you might not see right now. Don't turn away opportunities like this when possible because you don't know how it will play out. My path went all over the map, and if you can choose your own path you would just go directly to your goal. But the winding and weaving along the way is where you learn who you really are and what you're capable of and the life lessons that are more valuable than simply achieving."

Justin: "Throw out the cookie-cutter ways you think you need to get somewhere. There's a prescribed path, which, there's nothing wrong with that, but be sure that's what you want to do. And if you don't, there are hundreds of paths out there you can't see yet - all you have to do is ask and be inquisitive and ask others with a humble heart how they got where they are. It can spark ideas. The Aggie Network is so strong, you can find someone who flew over the Super Bowl and went to the moon, etc. Step one is to go to your network and ask and if you don't know what to do, do the next right thing."