“The Navy has largely adopted a ‘sink-or-swim’ model of flight training. There is no hand-holding. The learning curve is steep,” reads a September 2020 piece from the U.S. Naval Institute. Pilots must combat air sickness as well as mental and physical fatigue. Their final examination comes after an exhausting five consecutive days of flying two to three times a day. The goal is to prepare students for the demands of the job: “flying search-and-rescue missions in the middle of the night over frigid Atlantic waters” or “landing a fighter jet on the deck of a pitching aircraft carrier with only enough fuel for one attempt.”
Michael Wojcik (Biblical Studies ’83) knows these realities well. He entered the Navy’s preflight school after graduating from The King’s College and went on to spend a 20-year career in the military as a Navy pilot, information technologist, and flight instructor, earning the Chief of Naval Air Training (CNATRA) Instructor of the Year Award in 1994. On his retirement from the Navy, he switched into cybersecurity, safeguarding United States weapons and information systems. Within the intensity of these positions, the guiding star has been a decision he made as a teenager: to maintain close communion with God. His relationship with God has made all the difference in how he interacts with colleagues and the environment he creates around him.
Michael was born in Beaumont, Texas, where his dad worked as a chemical engineer. From early on, he showed a proclivity for science and mathematics, and his parents believed that he would become a dentist or perhaps an engineer.
The family attended Episcopal churches and Michael started his early education in an Episcopal school, but during his early teen years he went through what he calls “a searching time.” He stopped going to church regularly and drifted from his religious upbringing. He spent his junior year searching for purpose. “I started to read the Gospels, all the red letters. It answered so many things to me about spiritual guidance and perspective, and seeing Jesus’ perspective as He navigated the many situations He was in—riots, horrible leaders, political uprisings.”
Michael’s reading of Scripture impressed upon him humanity’s fallen condition and Jesus’ mission “to be that perfect lamb.” During his senior year of high school, something in his heart changed. He grasped the reality of God’s forgiveness and felt a relationship with God begin to grow as he received that forgiveness, moment by moment.
Now, his deepest desire was to keep studying the Bible and drawing near to God. He enrolled in Atlantic Christian College in 1979, then transferred to The King’s College in 1981 to pursue a B.A. in Biblical Studies. He appreciated the teaching of the Biblical studies faculty at King’s, such as Rev. Russell Fry (Biblical studies chair), Dr. Scott McClelland (who taught the Gospels and Pauline studies), Dr. David Diehl (apologetics), and Prof. Linda Wanaselja (ethics).
He also delighted in studying with other Christians. Even outside of his Bible classes and chapel services, he spent time in Bible studies, fellowships, and outreach through campus ministries. It became clear to him that no matter where he ended up working or how he spent his free time, all of his life could be a form of ministry. He says, “Christ is with me wherever I go. My ministry is about being in communion with God. Being close to Him enables me to connect with other people in relationship.” This commitment to maintaining communion with God became the stabilizing force through the rest of his life.
Michael’s reading of Scripture impressed upon him humanity’s fallen condition and Jesus’ mission “to be that perfect lamb.”
Mike enjoying downtime with his brothers, dad (far right), and niece.
Guiding Star
By Rebecca Au-Mullaney
Within the intensity of flying in the Navy and safeguarding United States defense, Michael Wojcik has kept his focus because of a decision he made as a teenager to maintain close communion with God.
THE KING'S COLLEGE MAGAZINE
After Michael graduated with honors from King’s, he decided to enlist in the Navy to fly planes. While a shift from his college focus on Biblical studies, for Michael this was a logical next step. He was an athlete, and was the number one men’s tennis singles player at The King’s College ’81-’83 and went to the Kansas City NCCAA Nationals in 1983. He was also an analytical thinker, as evidenced by years of excelling in science and math. Flying combined both athleticism and intellect.
What’s more, he had a desire to fly. Michael reflected on the Scripture, “Delight in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.” Based on prayer and counsel from others, he trusted that this desire was a godly one that he could freely pursue. He began serving in the Navy as a pilot in summer 1986. In time, he also began working as a flight instructor for pilots in training.
A close friend, Glenn Kroneberger, recalls a time he saw Michael’s flight instruction in action, when Michael and his wife Andrea were stationed in Pensacola. Michael would accompany student pilots on practice trips, and one of these practice flights brought Michael and a student up to Maryland where Glenn was living at the time.
“I’ll never forget it,” Glenn says. “There is an incredible respect of hierarchy in the military, so the student was saying ‘Yes sir,’ ‘Yes sir,’ ‘No sir,’ but the way Michael interacted back put the student at ease. There wasn’t any arrogance whatsoever. It was, ‘I’m here to help you learn this.’”
He continues, “Michael has a gift of teaching. That’s how he ministers to others: he takes the skills he’s developed over the course of his life and bestows them on others in a very gentle, humble way. I’ve seen it with his three children. He’s a great, very engaging father.”
Glenn wasn’t the only one who noticed how Michael effectively and compassionately trained new pilots. In 1994, Michael was named CNATRA Instructor of the Year out of 1,600 Navy flight instructors.
Michael’s work in the Navy gave him many opportunities to reaffirm his choice to take Jesus’ perspective in approaching relationships, extending forgiveness to others as Jesus had extended forgiveness to him. “Pilots are a pretty competitive group of people. There are egos, and control issues at times, and some people are generous and some people are difficult. Sometimes you still have to forgive them, even if they don’t ask forgiveness.”
“That’s how he ministers to others: he takes the skills he’s developed over the course of his life and bestows them on others in a very gentle, humble way.”
The Wojcik family during Michael’s service in the Navy. L-R: Andrea, Denae, Blake, Mikaela, and Michael.
Alongside his work as a pilot and flight instructor, Michael began exploring an interest in information technology. When opportunities arose to take ground assignments, Michael chose assignments where he could learn and train in this field. His first full-time I.T. placement was in 1998 when his family was stationed in England. By the time Michael retired from the Navy in 2004, he switched into the growing field of cybersecurity, building on his training and experience in I.T.
Working with Booz Allen Hamilton in those first few years post-Navy, he helped his organization switch from a telecom system to internet protocol systems, and his team created a test program to anticipate vulnerabilities. Michael wrote the initial document and test plan. This was so successful it was adopted at the Army’s Tech Integration Center, the Navy’s SPAWAR (now known as NAVWARSYSCOM), the Air Force Information Operations Center, and eventually by the Department of Defense.
Michael’s commitment to walking in close communion with God remained central in his cybersecurity work. During a two-year period he led a team of about a dozen, working alongside another team led by a staff member with an overbearing, narcissistic demeanor. The team opposite Michael’s suffered a 200% employee turnover, where within two years, each member in the team quit, other people were brought in for those roles, and then the new team quit as well. Michael says, “I had to step in and be a shield to protect my side of the team from this caustic person.” The other team leader was eventually removed from the project, but during the years they worked together, Michael drew from his relationship with God to remain patient and professional, protecting his staff and doing his job with integrity.
Michael has worked most recently for the Missile Defense Agency and the United States Department of Defense. He was the cybersecurity lead of a program consisting of 82 cybersecurity professionals. In 2015, he earned a Ph.D. in Information Technology and now teaches online cybersecurity courses as an adjunct at the University of Virginia and the University of Maryland.
“It’s challenging to work through all the personality situations,” Michael says, referring to both his time in the Navy and his more recent work securing United States defense. “I’m just happy I’ve walked in communion with the Lord, and I think He’s continually refining that. It’s been a great life because I’ve lived it with the Lord.”
