After 9/11, former Fruitport athlete Tufts answered the call to the U.S. Air Force

“I think some of it was ingrained in me from a young age,” Tufts said. “What the catalyst was 911. When I saw 911, something in me was ‘Whoa! I need to be the one to make sure that stuff like this doesn’t happen.’



“I don’t know what it was then, because I was in the seventh grade. But I remember something in me moved. It was kind of a calling.”



Tufts, a multi-sport athlete at Fruitport High School until his graduation in 2007, received his Associates Degree at Muskegon Community College and obtained the remainder of his education in the Air Force.



But he finished his career as a commissioned officer in the Navy after a 13-year career. He rose to the rank of first sergeant in the Air Force.



Tufts was an aircraft mechanic, supervising a crew of 30 men charged with keeping the planes in operational order. That job literally took him around the world.



“I got to vist 23 countries,” Tufts said. “I’ve been deployed four times, two of those to combat in the Middle East (Operation Inherent Resolve and Operation Enduring Freedom).



“I’ve been on about 30 other trips as well, and got to see the world ,” he said. “That was really cool. I literally never touched an airplane during the whole time, other than getting on them to fly somewhere.”



During his time with the Department of Defense as a civilian, Tufts was in charge of a maintenance recovery team, which would recover any airplane that was broken then bring it home.



Eventually, he decided to resign from the DOD despite the pension he would be entitled to, and went into the insurance business.



He worked his way up from salesman, to service manager, to office manager before he was selected to run his own agency 18 months later.



At about that time, the Hart office was opened, which Tufts felt was perfect since his father and his siblings all graduated from Hart. Being in that area meant he could hunt and fish. Tufts is a proud sports booster supporter of Hart Pirate athletics.

Now, he’s leading a team of a different kind of professionals.



“I want to be able to talk to and see the faces of the families of the people that I’m actually protecting,” Tufts said. “But definitely the military had a huge change in my life. Sports was it for me first, creating that camaradrie and that work for something bigger than yourself, the dedication to something other than myself. It was for my team, my brothers.



“That’s why I’m a huge proponent of sports,” said Tufts. “I love sports for that reason. Then the military took that and enhanced it. I wasn’t fighting simply for myself, my family. I was fighting for God and country.



“I swore an oath to the Constitution, and I take that very seriously.”



He and his wife, Nicole have two daughters, Allison, 7, and Claire, 4.