Biography

Colonel Richard M. Jakucs

United States Marine Corps, (Ret.)

Colonel Jakucs was born in Linden, NJ.  He joined the Marine Corps Officer Candidate School in two increments in June and July.   He was commissioned and attended The Basic School, and then attended Infantry Officer Course. 

Marine Experience:  He joined 2^nd Battalion, 8^th Marine Regiment and served as a Platoon Commander, Weapons Platoon Commander and Company Executive Officer.  He made two shipboard deployments to the Mediterranean and participated in operations there. 

He was discharged from active duty and joined the Marine Reserve and served in a number of billets from Weapons Instructor at the School of Infantry, Tow Platoon Commander and Patrolling Instructor at the Amphibious Recon School.

Captain Jakucs reported to 2^nd Battalion, 25^th Marine Regiment (2/25), headquartered in Garden City, NY.  There he became the Weapons Platoon Commander in Echo Company, 2/25, in Harrisburg, PA.  and then a Company Commander in 2^nd Battalion, 25th Marines.  The Battalion was activated as part of Operation Desert Storm.  Upon his return to Garden City, Jakucs was promoted to Major and took over as the Assistant Operations Officer (S3A) for the Battalion. 

During a Combined Arms Exercise (CAX), Major Jakucs, was asked to take over as the Battalion Logistics Officer after the logistics element was thrown into disarray through the loss of key personnel.  He successfully completed the exercise and led the Battalion through four more major deployments as the Battalion Logistics Officer. 

Then,  Major Jakucs was selected to take over as the Officer in Charge of the Marine Corps Mobilization Station in Dover, NJ.

After completing this tour, then LtCol Jakucs took over as the Logistics Officer, for II MEF, Marine Augmentation Command Element, in Newburgh, NY.  There he oversaw and completed a number of deployments to include a peacekeeping exercises in Lithuania and Cold Weather Operations in Norway.

LtCol Jakucs was selected to take over as the Officer in Charge of the Marine Corps Environmental Services Detachment, Det D, in Red Bank, NJ.  This unit responded to and worked at the World Trade Center Site during the rescue and recovery effort after 9/11. In addition, LtCol Jakucs wrote the Marine Corps Doctrine for the defense of Weapons of Mass Destruction with Industrial Toxic Chemicals. 

In January of 2002, LtCol Jakucs received orders as part of OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM. LtCol Jakucs served at US CENTRAL COMMAND in Tampa and worked as a Logistics Plans Officer and headed up the Afghanistan and Central Asian Republic Working Group. 

In July 2003, LtCol Jakucs was promoted to the rank of Colonel and was assigned and ran a Counter Terrorism Task Force of various military, Inter-Agency and Law Enforcement personnel at US CENTRAL COMMAND.   During this time Colonel Jakucs did combat tours in both Afghanistan and Iraq.  Colonel Jakucs was awarded the Defense Meritorious Service Medal for his work with this Task Force.  

Afghanistan War Experience: Colonel Jakucs was also part of a Joint Inter Agency Counterterrorism Task Force in Afghanistan and has completed 16  tours in Afghanistan.  His last tour was the end of 2013.  Colonel Jakucs has extensive knowledge of the Afghan region, culture and knowledge of Pashto and Farsi/Dari languages. 

Colonel Jakucs’ Task Force was recognized as the number one Counter Terrorism and Counter Insurgency Program in both Afghanistan and Iraq and this program and its successes was briefed to the White House and the President (POTUS) on a monthly basis. 

While not in Afghanistan, Colonel Jakucs served as the Officer in Charge of a Planning Cell for conflicts on the Korean Peninsula.   The cell was responsible for overseeing all Movement and Supply of Marine units during a conflict on the Korean Peninsula.

Awards and Accomplishments: Colonel Jakucs would have 6  Military Operational Specialties. (MOS).  (This is in a world where most officers only have 1 MOS) These include Infantry as a primary MOS, Logistics, Psychological/Information Operations, Intelligence, Counter-Intelligence, Human Intelligence (HUMINT), Environmental/Chemical, Biological, Nuclear/Radiological (CBNR)

While at Central Command Colonel Jakucs was rated #1 of 43 other Colonel’s and comments were promote immediately to General Officer.  One of Colonel Jakucs’ bosses called him a “savior Colonel”; ‘when things go bad call on Colonel Jakucs, he will deliver a win’

Colonel Jakucs has also been selected to as an Adjunct Scholar for the RAND Corporation.  He serves as the Adjunct Scholar for Military Affairs, Counterterrorism, Counterinsurgency, and Military History.  Jakucs has written papers for RAND that were briefed to Congress. 

Colonel Jakucs was an adjunct professor at the Marine Corps University, Command and Staff College for three years.

Colonel Jakucs currently serves as the Senior Naval Science Instructor Ben Franklin High School, Philadelphia, PA.  He has overseen an award winning unit. 

Navy Junior ROTC (Reserve Officer Training Corps) Experience:  Colonel Jakucs took over a unit with 22 cadets with a school enrollment of 600 that was headed for probation and possible closure.  In the roughly 6 years he has turned this unit into an award winning 100 person unit with six NJROTC competitive teams and recruiting close to 40 cadets new cadets each year. 

Colonel Jakucs increased the units attendance to an average of 82% attendance in a school that had a 37% attendance rate and 75% were habitually truant rate. Colonel Jakucs has a 92% graduation rate, in a school that has a 55% graduation rate.  Colonel Jakucs’ Navy JROTC unit is close to a full grade point higher than the schools average (2.25 of 4 compared to the school’s 4^th grade reading level and a 1.3 of 4).  This NJROTC unit has averaged close to 1/3 or more of both the honor roll and super honor roll.  And we have had one of the school’s Valedictorian and Salutatorian in the last 3 years.  Colonel Jakucs’ did this while half the time being the lone instructor and has been recognized by both the school administration, the Philadelphia JROTC administration, and the Navy’s NJROTC Headquaters.

Prior to this, Colonel Jakucs also completed a tour as a Naval Junior ROTC instructor at Neptune High School.  Jakucs filled in for a retiring Chief half way through the year and earned the plaudits of his Vice Principal, who said, “he made it look easy”. Colonel Jakucs facilitated a Marine Corps ROTC Scholarship for one student to San Diego State University.  This was the first time in over 4 years a student from Neptune got an ROTC Scholarship.  Colonel Jakucs was recognized by both the school administration and the JROTC administration.

Education: Colonel Jakucs is a graduate of Villanova University with a BA in History and holds a Master’s degree jointly in both finance and marketing from the Arizona State University (ASU) Thunderbird School of Global Management/Arizona State University, in Phoenix, Arizona.  He is a graduate of the Marine Corps Command and Staff College, Amphibious Warfare School, and the Army’s Joint Senior Leaders Officer’s Course. 

Colonel Jakucs is the recipient of the Meeker Sharkey Humanitarian Service award for his work aiding children in Russia and is a member of Who’s Who in the Environmental Business.   

Colonel Jakucs served roughly 4 years in combat and was recognized as having the number one counterterror and counter insurgency program in both Afghanistan and Iraq.  Colonel Jakucs is the recipient of numerous awards given in combat for these programs. 

While an adjunct scholar at RAND Corporation and Colonel Jakucs was a contributing author on the seminal work on US Military Psychological and Information Operations in Afghanistan-a review and Best Practices.  This work was briefed to Congress. 

Colonel Jakucs taught for 3 years as an adjunct professor at the Marine Corps University Command and Staff College. 

Colonel Jakucs is married to the former Daryl Beriont of Linden, NJ and they have two children, Sasha, 26, and Laurel, 23.