When Shannon Vaughn showed up at the University of North Georgia (UNG) Dahlonega Campus in August 2001, the 17-year-old did not know what he wanted to do.
"I wanted to play basketball and that's about as far as I had thought it through," he said.
One month later, that changed. On Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists attacked the World Trade Center in New York and Vaughn found his purpose. He wanted to serve his country, and he joined UNG's Corps of Cadets.
During his time as a cadet, UNG signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Department of Defense's Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center (DLIFLC) in Monterey, California.
"I enlisted in the military after my junior year — not the most typical path to commissioning," said Vaughn, who graduated and commissioned in 2007. "I was the first student to graduate from DLI, and the first person to earn a minor in Chinese from UNG."
Armed with a bachelor's degree in Spanish with minors in physics and Mandarin, Vaughn bounced around trying to find the right fit. First, he worked as a government linguist in Washington, D.C., then at a local hospital in Beijing, China. Vaughn then returned to the nation's capital to work in cybersecurity using his foreign languages. He was a sought-after commodity based on his military service, security clearance, and linguistic skills.
"What frustrated me was one analyst can only do so much to make an impact — that’s when I pivoted to technology. It's truly an enabler," he said.
After a few years Vaughn quickly moved up the ladder, becoming the chief product owner at 42Six Solutions, a government contractor technology startup with a Silicon Valley look and feel. Today, he serves as the chief innovation officer at Aveshka Inc., near Washington, D.C., where he develops high-end big data and artificial intelligence solutions for the government.
Every job has increased Vaughn's knowledge and skills, but he has not forgotten to serve his country and community. His Army Reserve duty is to support the Defense Attaché Service, working out of embassies across Asia and Oceania. He also served as the volunteer editor-in-chief of his 50-year-old community newspaper, The Southwester, in Washington, D.C., from 2013-18.
His accomplishments and community-minded heart garnered notice from UNG. Vaughn was presented with the Young Alumnus Award two years ago, and he acknowledged the role UNG played.
"The only reason I am on the path I am today is because of UNG," he said. "The opportunities I received there would not have been given to me anywhere else. I would have had to go and find them."
He credits UNG faculty members and staff with introducing him to linguistics, which steered him toward his career. One was Dr. Kristi Hislope, professor of Spanish at UNG who earned a bachelor's degree in robotics, master's degree in Spanish literature and doctorate in Spanish Applied Linguistics.
Vaughn, who admitted he would not have met her without UNG's language requirement, questioned her career path.
"I wanted to know how she went from robotics to Spanish," he said. "She said, 'I think of language like the equation A + B = C. In languages, it is subject + verb + object = sentence.'"
For the then-physics major, the key to decipher languages revealed itself.
"It became a math equation, and for me that was mind-opening," he said. "All you need to learn are variables!"
With that knowledge and determination, Vaughn became the earliest "trial child" for the strategic languages and a relationship with DLIFLC, said Dr. Billy Wells, senior vice president for leadership and global engagement. It led the way to UNG's articulation agreement for academic credit with the California institute.
"Shannon Vaughn inspired not just cadets, but all students to develop proficiency in these really challenging languages of exceptional strategic importance," Wells said. "Now we have our own programs in critical languages, but without successful students like Shannon, who demonstrated that someone with determination can succeed, we would not be where we are today. Shannon was a trailblazer for this university."
