Hometown Heroes - Matt Sermon

LAKE CHARLES, La. (KPLC) - Right out of high school, Matt Sermon went straight into the Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland. He entered the Navy right when the U-S started experiencing increased terrorist attacks.

“The Navy had a bit of a ramp up with the Cole bombing,” said Sermon. “There were threats out there and of course, nationally, it was 9/11. It was this instant transition to this dramatic threat to us.”

After serving five years on multiple vessels including the USS Roosevelt in the Iraq war, Sermon entered the private sector and worked to buy and maintain ships and submarines.

Lake Charles native has a career with the U.S. Navy — Lake Charles native has a career with the U.S. Navy(U.S. Navy)

“We need to build submarines over the next 20 years at the same rate we did 40 years ago in the 80s, as we were transitioning to a 600 ship navy. We’re doing that with a manufacturing industrial base that is not the size of the ones we had in the 80s.”

Sermon recently completed a visit to Lake Charles where he met with elected officials, veterans and the educational community. He’s proud of his hometown.

“It’s a region that’s focused on energy, focused on industry. It has incredibly resilient people who are patriotic, eager to serve, eager to help with national security. I just had an incredible experience over the last 3 days with that.”

Sermon is now involved in a new era of nuclear powered ballistic missile submarines, known as the Columbia-class. He was impressed with the STEM program at Lake Charles Boston Academy and said ideas from that program can be used at other educational institutions across the nation.

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