Lockport native to lead Army Corps of Engineers North Atlantic Division

Jacob Fries, Lockport Union-Sun & Journal, N.Y.
·2 min read
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Jun. 18—After 36 years in the U.S. Army, Colonel John Lloyd of Lockport will be somewhat closer to home for his new assignment. He is to become the commander of the U.S. Army North Atlantic Division (NAD) on Friday, June 24, and will be stationed at Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn.

Lloyd said he is excited for the new assignment, where he will be operating out of New York City. The North Atlantic Division aids in civil works and military construction for the U.S. and its allies on the East Coast, as well as in Europe and Africa.

"The exciting thing about taking command of the division is the mission that the Corps of Engineers performs along the East Coast," he said. "The unique missions that it supports like civil works and military construction for other countries and other agencies. It's all really exciting to me."

Lloyd joined the Army out of high school in 1986, after seeing an army recruitment ad in the Lockport Journal. He would be put on defensive deployment in West Germany in the final years of the Cold War, and he was also deployed to Kuwait during operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm during the Gulf War.

In 1995 he entered the Reserve Officers Training Corps in Oklahoma, where he received his officer commission. He was a captain at Fort Bragg in North Carolina at the time of the 9/11 attacks in 2001, after which he was stationed in Kuwait to help coordinate operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. In 2016 he became the Corps of Engineers district commander of Pittsburgh, and helped with restoring the power grids in the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico after hurricanes Irma and Maria. Over the past three years, he's been the chief of staff of the Corps of Engineers in Washington DC.

With the new assignment, he said he's happy that he will be a bit closer to his roots, as he fondly remembers Lockport, particularly his involvement with the YMCA, fishing in the Erie Canal, and being taught by his second grade teacher at Dewitt Clinton Elementary, Molly Case.