Meet the Commissioner: One Spartan’s Life of Service

By Janet Siroto

Illustrations by Dan Williams

Patricia “Trish” Ross ’89, who now serves the uniquely challenging and rewarding needs of 700,000 veterans in Georgia’s Department of Veterans Service, says she has never forgotten the lessons learned at UT, academically and personally.

Patricia “Trish” Ross ’89 has had a high-flying career — quite literally. She’s a retired U.S. Air Force colonel who has recently been named commissioner of Georgia’s Department of Veterans Service. The launching pad for her success? She gives UT a round of applause.

“I was a military brat who grew up all over the place, from New Jersey to Panama,” she says. “After high school, I was an Air Force ROTC cadet and was offered free room and board at University of Tampa while the Air Force paid for my tuition and books. It was amazing to be able to attend at no cost to myself or my parents.”

CULTIVATING THE SPARTAN SPIRIT

Once on campus, Ross realized that the University offered so much more than a no-cost education. She had attended a large high school and found that the manageable scale of UT offered her so much more personal attention than a huge state school would.

“UT was small enough that the professors took attendance — a great motivator to get out of bed in the morning! — and cultivated a relationship with students,” she says.

Ross majored in math, like her father who also served in the Air Force, and took accounting “for fun”. When you get into upper-level math with imaginary numbers, the concrete aspect of accounting was a very good thing, she explains.

The fact that she was one of the few women in a male-dominated major helped prepare her well for military life. It built her leadership skills, as did being a UT Diplomat. This involved serving as an ambassador and speaking about the school’s merits to families and foundation members. “I still have my Diplomat polo 33 years later, and it fits!” she says.

She had company while on campus: her brother Steve Mauldin ’90 attended as well, and she spent free time watching him play for the baseball team.

TAKING FLIGHT

Right after graduation, things really took off for Ross. She became an operations research analyst in the Air Force, the lone female pursuing that path. For 25 years, she served her country, and counts her time deployed in Vicenza, Italy, as most memorable. Stationed there during the air and ground war in the Balkans, Ross worked with 19 NATO nations, seven days a week, with just four or five hours of sleep a night.

“This was during the air and ground war in the Balkans, and every day we were working to stop genocide, which was so challenging and fulfilling,” she says. “Everyone was pulling together to protect a people."

Retiring from duty in 2014, she left her role as the vice commander of the 78th Air Base Wing, Robins Air Force Base, in Georgia. There, Ross had managed $3.5 billion worth of facilities and equipment and a $161 million budget, essentially running a city of 23,000 residents. She was well-prepared for the challenges of civilian life ahead.

ELEVATING VETERANS

Her post-Air Force work has been squarely focused on improving the lives of those transitioning after their military service. She serves on two national boards of the Department of Veterans Affairs and became the CEO of Georgia’s Veterans Education Career Transition Resource — or VECTR Center — from 2016 to 2021, which assists veterans and their families in training for high-demand careers and civilian life.

During her time there, the COVID-19 crisis hit, but Ross wouldn’t let it deter her from helping her clients pivot to new positions.

“My passion is helping other vets move on from the military to education, entrepreneurship or new careers; whatever they want to do next,” she says. During the pandemic, Ross and her team secured a state-wide waiver to help her students at the VECTR Center finish their courses and place them in high-paying jobs in HVAC, construction and other in-demand fields. Trained at UT and in the military to meet any challenge head on, Ross was just the person to manage well during a crisis. She and her tightly bonded team even figured out how to improvise their own face shields to keep everyone safe as they hit their marks.

After this exemplary service, Ross was tapped in 2021 to be the new commissioner of Veterans Service for Georgia, the state that has been home for her, her husband, Scott (who’s also retired from the Air Force), and their four children for the past 13 years.

Now serving the uniquely challenging and rewarding needs of 700,000 veterans, she says she has never forgotten the lessons learned at UT, academically and personally.

“I had such a great experience at the school and realize the value of the camaraderie on campus; I knew every last person in my major. It was not a place to get lost in a sea of people,” she says. “UT knows that social connections and support have a huge bearing on success. Research proves it pays dividends,” she says. And that’s a principle she’s put into action at every step along her outstanding career.