After more than 39 years of loyal and dedicated service to the Canadian Armed Forces and the Canadian Military Engineer Branch, CWO A.J. Allan CD, (00381) will retire on 31 August 2025. There will be a DWD held at Le Régiment de Hull at 1200hrs on 19 June 2025. RSVP, anecdotes and well wishes may be sent to MWO K.F. Deveau at: kristopher.deveau@forces.gc.ca.
After more than 39 years of service within the regular force, Chief Warrant Officer Ash Allan is retiring from the position of RSM of the Mapping and Charting Establishment (MCE) under Canadian Forces Intelligence Command.
Chief Allan joined the CAF regular force in September of 1986 and after completing basic training at CFB Cornwallis proceeded to Chilliwack BC for trades training as a Field Engineer. His first posting was to 1 Combat Engineer Regiment (CER) in Chilliwack in 1987. A year later, he moved to Valcartier on a year-long French course and subsequently was posted to 4 CER in Lahr Germany. Four years, and a tour to the former Yugoslavia later, came a posting to 2 CER Petawawa for his last eight years as a Combat Engineer (this included a three-year stint at leadership Company of the Land Forces Central Area detachment in Pet as an instructor and Ops Sgt and two more tours to Bosnia).
In 2001 Ash saw the light and completed an occupational transfer over to Geomatics Technician. Three years at the School of Military Mapping (SMM) in Ottawa completed trades training, and he was grabbed by the Geo Techs at Dwyer Hill, moving there to become a Geospatial Intelligence analyst with JTF 2. Three years and some fun trips to parts here and there, including 14 months in Afghanistan saw CWO Allan returning to MCE to the mapping school as a geospatial analysis instructor. A year later a new unit within the Special Forces world was being created, the Canadian Joint Incident Response Unit (CJIRU) and he was asked if he would be interested in going to Trenton to help set up the Geospatial Intelligence (Geo Int) capability. Accepting he stayed Three years, was promoted to WO, and posted back to the mother ship MCE as the unit training WO. A short one year later, Ash returned to CJIRU in a newly created Special Operations Intelligence Centre Geo Int WO position, and a quick two and a half years later, Ash was posted back to Ottawa into Canadian Joint Operations Command as the Geospatial Intelligence Support Team Commander.
Sensing that he was enjoying the job too much the trade promoted Ash to MWO and pulled him back to MCE as a Squadron Sergeant Major. Three years passed and he was moved to the School as the Chief Instructor, and another two years after that accepted the position as the RSM of MCE.
Retirement will see Ash living in the Ontario Riviera (Brockville area) on his 80 acres of paradise pursuing varied hobbies and enjoying family time with his incredibly patient and understanding wife Monique, son Dan, and his 5 year old Granddaughter Rosie.
Chimo!
