Dr. Ryan S. Calhoun, a clinical psychologist, runs a behavioral health clinic for the Defense Health Agency on Fort Drum where he helps evaluate soldiers that are separated from the army and when commanders have concerns about their soldiers.
Dr. Calhoun, a Watertown native, left the area for around 10 years when he went away to college in the Boston area before getting his masters and doctorate in clinical psychology in Virginia Beach. He said he went to do his internship and residency at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.
While in uniform, Dr. Calhoun requested to come back home to Fort Drum and spent a few years at Fort Drum before getting out of the military in 2017 and coming back to the military base as a civilian employee in 2018.
Someone who has played a major role in Dr. Calhoun’s is Dr. Todd Benham, who Dr. Calhoun described as being his “primary mentor.” He also says that Dr. Dan West has also played a major role in his life.
“I have several other mentors in other areas of my life,” he said.
In order to keep young leaders like himself in the north country, Dr. Calhoun believes that the north country should start with recruiting the right organizations to be here.
“I think economic development in our area has been and continues to be a priority and concern,” he said. “Having the right diversity of opportunities, I think, is important.”
He went on to say that he thinks it’s important to not just keep people here, but also bring people in from other areas.
“I do think a lot of our salaries are competitive,” he said. “I think our salaries on Fort Drum are very competitive when you compare it to our local area. But when you start comparing those to large cities, anything from Rochester, Boston, DC, New York, I think it becomes hard to recruit people at a similar salary to those cities, when obviously those cities have a lot to offer.”
Being in the military is something Dr. Calhoun credits to honing his leadership abilities.
“I don’t think there’s a better organization in the world to learn leadership than the U.S. Army,” he said. “But there’s also a level of responsibility earlier in your career than you’d receive in a lot of other organizations.”
He said that the responsibility that he had and the number of hours he had put in early on in his career was way more than what he was seeing from his peers.
The diversity of the job is something Dr. Calhoun said that excites him about his job.
“The ability not just to provide therapy or conducting evaluations, but to be continuously consulting on a wide array of issues and not knowing what type of concern might present next for the next challenge that you might be facing or have the ability to solve,” he said.
As for what he likes to do in spare time, Dr. Calhoun said he really enjoys shooting.
“I think some people might be surprised to find that I really enjoy shooting,” he said. “There probably aren’t a lot of psychologists that you’ll find that are avid shooters.”
Dr. Calhoun said he really enjoys serving the population that he does. He said he really enjoys being around the soldiers. He said he was recently in charge of the Combat Aviation Brigade Clinic where he got to know aviators and see their culture, something he really enjoyed.
Being from the area, and being able to be a leader in the area is something that he doesn’t take lightly.
“Watching other people develop and seeing what other people are doing, I would have to say is more meaningful,” he said. “I think it means more to me than if I was an outsider and didn’t have those personal relationships as well.
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