Memorial Day Parade Marshal – Kristine Westland
US Navy veteran, Kristine Westland, is this year’s parade marshal. She served six years as an electronics engineer for the Navy’s primary submarine hunter aircraft – the Orion P3 in the Pacific theater of operations.
Although some of her ancestors served in WWII and Vietnam, Kristine did not have her sights set on military service when she graduated from high school. After one year of college, she found the USN was a better fit for her. She enlisted and began her military and electronics training.
Her enlistment took her to Hawaii, the Philippines, and Adak Naval Air Station on the very tip of the Aleutian Islands. Westland reported that an Orion mission could last up to 16 hours. In the late 1990’s during her service, the P3 mission was to fly over the Pacific to search for Russian radar sites along its eastern coast.
She served as the Quality Assurance representative whose role was to ensure that all the electronics in the aircraft performed correctly to collect and store surveillance data, and that the aircraft were safe to fly.
Following her discharge, she returned to college and earned an EECS degree from the University of California at Berkley. Kristine continues to work in the high-tech engineering field. She attributes her success in the Navy and her chosen profession to her upbringing that taught her how to solve problems and fix things. In fact, she had to repair an old Volvo in order to get her first car running.
Back to the Philippines. While stationed Philippines, Kristine met her husband, Pete. Pete went on to serve 27 years in the US Naval Reserves. Kristine and Pete have two successful daughters: one who is a Massport Firefighter and the other who is pursuing a PhD degree in meteorology. Both daughters are continuing the family tradition of public service.
Westland volunteered with the Holliston PTO by leading the ski program and served as chair of the Community Farm Advisory Board. She also volunteers through her company, which gave her a connection to Marlboro’s Food Pantry.
Kristine has been a long-time member of American Legion Post 47. She is involved in educating members of the community in the Columbia Protocol for suicide prevention, developed in partnership by the American Legion and Columbia University. In her spare time, she and Pete are busy with their three grandchildren.
Marshal Westland plans to deliver brief remarks that thank her fellow veterans and citizens for their many years of military and community service.
