When Genevieve Flatgard started at NC State University, she didn’t know she would end up dedicating her career to military engineering.
Originally born in Raleigh and raised in Wilson, North Carolina, Flatgard went to the North Carolina School of Science and Math in Durham for two years before coming to NC State to study engineering.
“Honestly, engineering wasn’t even the plan from the get go,” said Flatgard, who is a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy.
Flatgard recently won the 2024 Military Engineer of the Year Award, which is given by the Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command (NAVFAC) in Washington, D.C. It’s an award the Navy recognizes as a “testament to Flatgard’s dedication, leadership and innovative approach to engineering.”
“My dad was an electrical engineer and he was also a Marine, so he encouraged me to go into engineering in general,” she said. “With my love of chemistry, I chose chemical engineering and got connected with paper science, which is what I ended up doing, the dual major for undergrad.”
Flatgard graduated soon after the Great Recession of 2008. When she worried about finding a job, her father suggested that with her engineering skills, she might be interested in serving in the military for a few years.
“After I graduated, I went through officer training and moved to Charleston, South Carolina, where I was an instructor at the Navy’s nuclear power school for three-and-a-half years,” she said. “That was my first job in the Navy.”
NAVFAC Washington acknowledges one military engineer and one civilian engineer each year. Flatgard was nominated by her supervisor.
NAVFAC Washington handles all the infrastructure for the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps around the capital region. Flatgard is responsible for Naval Support Activity Washington, including the Washington Navy Yard, the U.S. Naval Observatory, the Naval Research Laboratory and Marine Barracks Washington.
“I’m the facilities engineering and acquisition division director, so I’m responsible for the design, construction and the acquisition of the construction and design services for all of our facilities and utilities, as well as the facility services to support them and maintain them once we build them,” she said.
Among other things, some of what Flatgard loves about the Navy are the challenges, the structure and, she said with a laugh, not having to pick out what to wear every day. When she finished with her first position, she looked into other opportunities with the Navy and found the Civil Engineer Corps.
She joined that community in 2015, serving in Gulfport, Mississippi, as an officer-in-charge and assistant operations officer with Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 133. After that, she moved on to be an assistant public works officer and construction manager across multiple bases in the Norfolk, Virginia, area.
Flatgard has now been in Washington, D.C., since 2020. She served one year as an aide to the commander of Naval facilities engineering systems command, two years as the production officer and oversaw utilities and maintenance. Last summer, she started her current job as a civil engineer doing facility construction, shifting further away from chemical engineering and paper science.
“The only thing [in my job] that overlaps with my degrees is engineering, but that foundation still provided me with what I need to be successful now,” Flatgard said. “It taught me how to solve problems, ask the tough questions and ask for help to solve any problem.
“I will always remember my time at NC State and call North Carolina home,” she added. “Hopefully someday I’ll end up back there again, but it’s a great place and I’ll always be grateful for the quality education I received there. I definitely wouldn’t be where I am today without that.”
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