East Quogue Student Earns Prestigious Civil Air Patrol Cadet of the Year Award
Southampton, NY - June 27, 2016 - Civil Air Patrol (CAP) Cadet Chief Master Sergeant Brian C. S. Poerio, of East Quogue, has been recently presented the CAP Veterans of Foreign Wars Cadet Non-Commissioned Officer of the Year, by Southampton Village Mayor Mark Epley and retired New York Air National Guard Col. Robert E. Grisnik.
Over the course of his four years in CAP, Cadet Poerio had demonstrated excellence while holding various leadership positions and serving an emergency services role as a qualified ground team member. He currently serves as cadet commander of the 9th Suffolk Cadet Squadron CAP, based in Westhampton Beach.
Outside of Civil Air Patrol, Cadet Poerio is a student at Bishop McGann-Mercy High School in Riverhead and is a player on the school’s varsity football team, a passion that he also furthers as an assistant coach to younger athletes. He plans on majoring in aerospace engineering at Suffolk County Community College in the near future.
Civil Air Patrol, the longtime all-volunteer U.S. Air Force auxiliary, is the newest member of the Air Force’s Total Force, which consists of regular Air Force, Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve, along with Air Force retired military and civilian employees. CAP, in its Total Force role, operates a fleet of 550 aircraft and performs about 90 percent of continental U.S. inland search and rescue missions as tasked by the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center and is credited by the AFRCC with saving an average of 78 lives annually.
Civil Air Patrol’s 56,000 members nationwide also perform homeland security, disaster relief and drug interdiction missions at the request of federal, state and local agencies. Its members additionally play a leading role in aerospace education and serve as mentors to more than 24,000 young people currently participating in the CAP cadet program.