Master sergeant holds key post in Northern Command

Dick Benoit

Thursday, April 1, 2004 | 8:42 a.m.

An Eldorado High School graduate serves in a key position with the U.S. Northern Command at Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado Springs, Colo.

Air Force Master Sgt. Gary W. Sorensen II, a 1981 graduate of Eldorado, is the strategy and plans division superintendent to the nation's newest unified military command.

Northern Command's mission is homeland defense and civil support. The command conducts operations to deter, prevent, and defeat threats and aggression aimed at the United States, its territories, and interests within its assigned area of responsibility. It also provides military assistance and support to civil authorities when directed by the president or secretary of defense.

Sorensen, a 22-year Air Force veteran and son of Gary and Grace Sorensen of Las Vegas, oversees the budgeting and execution of funds associated with vital communications-computer systems purchases in support of the air defense component of Northern Command.

"I am also responsible for evaluating operational planning documents to determine their impact on command and control, communications and intelligence gathering programs," said Sorensen, a Desert Storm veteran.

While in the Air Force, Sorensen has earned his bachelor's degree in industrial technology from Southern Illinois University-Carbondale and is currently working toward a master's degree in business administration.

Coast Guard officer

Daniel Buress, Chaparral High School class of 1992 and son of Dan Buress and Michele Auer, both of Las Vegas, has graduated from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy Officer Candidate School in New London, Conn. The new ensign will be stationed at Coast Guard Station Atlantic City.

Buress served for 10 years as an enlisted aviation electronics specialist with the Coast Guard prior to being accepted to the officer school program and completing 17 weeks of training at the New London training center.

The new officer earned an associate degree from the University of Alaska-Anchorage, while assigned to the Coast Guard air station in that city.

In Brief

The sergeant, an information systems operator and analyst with 10 years of military service, earned an associate degree in 2002 from Kansas City Community College, Leavenworth, Kan.