MEMORY LANE: Remarkable road: Esper’s path went from LH athlete to Secretary of Defense
Uniontown native Mark Esper honed his life skills on the playing fields and courts of Western Pennsylvania. The life lessons prepared the former Laurel Highlands athlete for the military and a life of public service.
Esper was born on April 26,1964 in Uniontown as the son of Pauline “Polly” Reagan and Thomas Joseph Esper. His paternal grandfather was an immigrant from Lebanon.
He started in sports at an early age.
“I started playing football in the Midget League at Laurel Highlands,” Esper recalled. “I played basketball for the school and for the church, I was a member of Saint Therese Church so we played in church league, and then played little league baseball down at Bailey Park. In my teen years I took tennis lessons and played tennis down at Bailey Park.
“I spent my summers on the playground, again in South Union Township where I lived, but I often would ride my bike down to Bailey Park and play basketball with Greg Beckwith and a lot of other athletes that eventually played for Uniontown. That’s where I got to know a lot of the kids who played ball opposite us at Laurel Highlands.”
Esper was a three-sport athlete at Laurel Highlands playing football, basketball and running track.
“I liked basketball the best of the three sports that I played,” Esper said.
The Mustangs were 8-2 in section play and 14-8 overall on the hardwood in 1980-81 and lost a section tiebreaker to Belle Verno,n 64-56. In 1981-82, LH went 12-4 in the section and 15-7 overall. Esper tallied 35 points as a junior and 121 points as a senior with two games where he scored 15 points.
“We had a number of good athletes that typically played multiple sports,” Esper offered. “It was a good era for athletics in Uniontown and at Laurel Highlands.
“I benefited from playing multiple sports. I even wrestled for a few years in sixth, seventh and eighth grade.”
The 5-foot-11, 180-pound Esper played on LH football teams that went 4-7 in 1979, 2-8-1 in 1980 and 3-6 in 1981. He scored a touchdown as a senior, hauling in a 67-yard scoring toss from Lou Jesso in a 24-23 loss to Greensburg Salem.
“We went through three coaches during that era,” Esper stated. “We had Mike Lemansky, Jim Cunningham and Bill Elias. That was a challenge for the program. We had a lot of good athletes, a good line and Chris Peccon was a good running back, but we suffered through a series of coaching changes and then senior year we had a teachers strike and that cost us two games.”
Esper was on the track team at LH.
“I ran the quarter mile and the mile,” Esper said. “I liked track, I was a pretty good runner.”
He did well in the classroom.
“I tried balancing those things and it prepared me for West Point,” Esper stated. “The school requires you to be a scholar athlete, so you have to be able to handle sports along with the classroom load.”
He got an appointment to West Point when he graduated from Laurel Highlands in 1982.
“My family had no military background,” Esper explained. “There isn’t much of a military presence in Uniontown and I was going through my high school counselors office and that was John Trivonovich. I knew what I was looking for and I came across a West Point catalog. My early junior year or late sophomore year and I read it and was fascinated. I knew that was the place where I wanted to go and I worked toward that.
“I was nominated by a member of congress and passed all the tests and was evaluated by admissions and was invited to attend West Point. They wanted me to try out for football, but I kind of had my fill of team sports at that point and wanted to do something different. I participated at West Point, but not in the sports I played in high school. I was on the Army judo team and the Army karate team. I wanted to do something that interested me and that I thought would be helpful to my military career.”
Graduating from West Point leads to military service. He received his Bachelor of Science in engineering from the United States Military Academy in 1986. Esper was a dean’s list student at West Point and received the Douglas MacArthur Award for Leadership
Esper served as an infantry officer with the 101st Airborne Division and deployed with the “Screaming Eagles” for the Gulf War. His battalion was part of the famous “Hail Mary” deep into southern Iraq that helped lead to the defeat of the Iraqi Army.
He later commanded an airborne rifle company in Europe and served as an Army fellow at the Pentagon. Esper served on active duty for more than 10 years before moving to the Army National Guard and later the Army Reserve, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel.
Esper is a two-time recipient of the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service. Among his military awards and decorations are the Legion of Merit, Bronze Star Medal, Kuwait Liberation Medal, and the Combat Infantryman Badge.
“Soldiers who played on sports teams in high school are more likely to have the traits needed to succeed as leaders in the Army,” according to Esper, who said a sports background “just jumps out for me.People who play sports, who are on sports teams, I think are valuable. hat background served me well.”
Esper was chief of staff at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, from 1996 to 1998. From 1998 to 2002, Esper served as a senior professional staffer for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee. He was also a senior policy advisor and legislative director for U.S. Senator Chuck Hagel. He was policy director for the House Armed Services Committee from 2001 to 2002. From 2002 to 2004, Esper served in George W. Bush’s administration as deputy assistant secretary of defense for negotiations policy, He was director for national security affairs for the U.S. Senate under Majority Leader Bill Frist from 2004 to 2006.
He was executive vice president at the Aerospace Industries Association in 2006 and 2007. Esper was a Senate-appointed commissioner on the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. From 2008 to 2010, Esper served as executive vice president of the Global Intellectual Property Center and vice president for Europe and Eurasia at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He was hired as vice president of government relations at defense contractor Raytheon in July 2010. Esper was nominated as Secretary of the Army on June 19, 2017 and confirmed in November. He was named the 27th United States Secretary of Defense and held that position from 2019 to 2020.
Esper now is part of a venture capital firm and serves on several boards and does consulting work and is a contributor on CNN.
“In some ways it was like playing multiple sports. When you play those sports you are in different disciplines, different skills,” Esper offered. “I found my career worked that same way.”
Esper, 60, married his wife, Leah Lacy, in 1989 and they have three children.
Uniontown has had two native sons serve as Secretary of the Army and Secretary of Defense: George C. Marshall and Esper.
“It’s something that our small town has that distinction,” Esper stated. “Uniontown was such a great town to grow up in and people were hard working and patriotic. I’m proud of that history.”
George Von Benko’s “Memory Lane” column appears in the Sunday editions of the Herald-Standard. He also hosts a sports talk show on WMBS-AM radio from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturdays.