From Coast Guard to Campus Leadership

A new administrative hire, Thul was called to serve as the MSU job began

There are two sides to every story in which an employee is called for military service as a guard or reserve. In MSU’s case, those stories came together when President Edward Inch supported Travis Thul’s recall to active duty with the Coast Guard in 2024.

The two took part in a small presentation earlier this year in which members of the U.S. Dept. of Defense group, Employee Support of the Guard and Reserves (ESGR), honored Inch for supporting Thul’s recall to the Coast Guard reserves shortly after being hired for a cabinet position at MSU.
 
While it’s mandatory to let an employee off work for service, it isn’t always done cooperatively. And the ESGR was established in 1972 to “promote cooperation and understanding” between employer and reservist. And in Monday’s case, to honor the employer for exemplary cooperation. 
 
“The president sets the tone,” said Thul, who nominated Inch for the ESGR recognition. “I can say that President Inch first and foremost is a humanitarian. He’s done humanitarian work, and he understands it in his core. It’s inspirational to have leadership that understands putting others above yourself.”  

Thul summarizes his work career thus far as a “unique portfolio.”  
 
He’s been an electrical engineer, worked security for U.S. presidential nominating conventions, aided in resettling refugees from Afghanistan, served in the White House and has been with the U.S. Coast Guard for 17 years, half as active duty and half as a reservist, the latter of which provided him, he said, with a Forrest Gump-like journey through life.
 
Today, he serves as MSU’s Vice President for Student Success and Engagement. After a national search, Thul in June of 2024 accepted the position left by Lynn Akey, who went on to become President of University of Wisconsin-Parkside.  
 
Yet while Thul was training at the Minnesota State university system for the cabinet job, he was called and reactivated by the Coast Guard. His 60-day mission was to be part of emergency management in the wake of Hurricanes Helene and Milton.  
 
With just a few days’ notice, Inch had to do without his new hire for two months.
But in doing so, it reflected the cooperation the military seeks of employers in such situations, and it’s why the ESGR came to campus Monday.
 
In the conference room with several cabinet members present, Inch noted the timing of Thul’s reactivation was challenging not only for the University to fill gaps, but for Thul himself who had been put in charge of a brand new division and attempted to stay in touch remotely.
 
“It’s kind of hard when you’re building a new team and then a have to go away for two months,” Inch said after being presented with ESGR’s “Patriotic Employer” award. “I think he had to balance a lot of stuff to make that work. For us, we have great cabinet colleagues here, and they all pitched in to help.”

Background Check
 
Thul graduated from Forest Lake High School in Minnesota and was a first-generation college student, beginning with an electrical engineering technology degree from Milwaukee School of Engineering, followed by a master’s in engineering from University of Wisconsin-Madison. While pursuing his degrees, he remained interested in military service, something he credits as essentially in his DNA as his father, uncles and grandfathers served in the military during Vietnam, Korea and WWII. 
 
“It almost seemed like the thing you did. And when you grow up poor ... your visibility into what the opportunities are is very narrow. So, you couple that lack of knowing what’s out there with this known quantity of ‘This is what we all do,’ it becomes a foregone conclusion.” 
 
In 2020 he was selected to work in the White House with the Export-Import Bank of the United States, which is U.S.’s largest bank for industrial policy for investing in U.S. exports. He also traveled to the Middle East to work with the Abraham Accords that normalized relations among Israel and two Arab nations: The UAE and Bahrain. 
 
“I’ll tell anybody who’ll listen that it’s really easy to be cynical about government and elected officials. I get it,” he said. “My experience was the people I worked with were some of the most competent, passionate and capable humans I’ve ever known. Whether you agree with the politics, the people I served with were good humans doing everything they possibly could for the benefit of our nation. And getting to see that and be part of it up front is something I wish every American had the opportunity to see and do.” 
 
Highlights of his time in the Coast Guard include serving as Deputy Incident Commander at the 2024 Republican National Convention, which began the day following an assassination attempt on then-candidate Donald Trump. 
 
“When you have a big, national special security event – which is what something like that is called – it’s a joint initiative with local, state and federal law enforcement basically ensuring that things are as secure as they possibly could be,” Thul said. “My capacity was to be the number two guy for all the maritime security. And because Milwaukee is all lake and river, there’s an immense amount of maritime consideration to securing that.” 
 
The event was essentially incident-free, he said.
 
In all, he said, he’s glad Inch was recognized for taking part in a larger goal of public service.
 
“It’s something a lot of folks miss out on, that understanding that sometimes you get called to do things that you may not have had on your bingo card for the day, but at the end of the day, the mission is in support of something greater than your own self.” 
 
“The thing is,” Inch said, “we’re a public university and this is the kind of service that’s core to our mission. It’s what we do. It wasn’t really a hard choice to say ‘Go do it.’”