Lieutenant Colonel Michael (Mike) Harding joined the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Transatlantic Afghanistan District as Deputy Commander on September 28, 2018. In this position, he is second in command of the District, which has more than 110 civilian, military, and contract employees who provide engineering solutions and expertise in support of U.S. efforts to help build a stronger Afghanistan.
Before his assignment with the Transatlantic Afghanistan District, Lieutenant Colonel Harding was the Deputy Commander of the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center in Vicksburg, Mississippi, a position he held from July 2017 through August 2018. Prior to joining USACE, he was an Assistant Professor at the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. There Lieutenant Colonel Harding taught in the Department of Tactics, with a focus on Army doctrine, unit training management, and engineer operations.
Lieutenant Colonel Harding was born in Omaha, Nebraska, but grew up primarily in Kansas, completing his secondary education in Haysville, Kansas. In 1993, he entered the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, New York. After graduation and commissioning as an Engineer Officer in 1997, he was stationed in Germany. The majority of his career has been focused at the tactical level, with positions as Platoon Leader, Company and Battalion Executive Officer, Company Commander, Battalion Maintenance Officer, Battalion Operations Officer, and Task Force and Brigade Engineer Officer. From 2007 to 2009, Lieutenant Colonel Harding served as an Instructor in the Department of Mathematics at the U.S. Military Academy. During that time, he served not only as Calculus instructor but also as the Course Director for the 1,000-student Differential Calculus course. From 2013 to 2014, he served as the senior Engineer, forward deployed to U.S. Army Central Command at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait.
Before his current assignment in Afghanistan, Lieutenant Colonel Harding supported Overseas Contingency Operations over the past 15 years to include: Battalion Operations Officer in 10th Engineer Battalion from September 2002 until May 2003 in Kuwait/Iraq (Operation Iraqi Freedom); Company Commander of D Company, 10th Engineer Battalion from May through August of 2003; Brigade Engineer of the 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, Stryker Brigade Combat Team in Baghdad, Iraq from August 2009 to August 2010; and the Deputy Director of Engineers for U.S. Army Central Command in Kuwait from July 2013 to July 2014.
Lieutenant Colonel Harding holds a Bachelor of Science in Applied Mathematics from the U.S. Military Academy, a Master of Science in Operations Research, and a Master of Science in Industrial Engineering, both from the Georgia Institute of Technology.
His awards include the Bronze Star Medal (two awards), the Meritorious Service Medal (five awards), the Army Commendation Medal (four awards), the Army Achievement Medal (two awards), the Presidential Unit Citation, the Meritorious Unit Citation, the Army Superior Unit Award, the Iraqi Campaign Medal, the Parachutist Badge, and the Sapper Tab. He is also the recipient of the Army Engineer Association's Bronze Order of the de Fleury Medal.