From The Cliff to Colonel: Tricia Van Den Top’s Journey of Service and Leadership
By Eli Meschko
Media & Communications Coordinator
Only about 15% of officers who commission in the U.S. Air Force ever reach the rank of colonel. For Tricia Van Den Top (‘94), the journey to that achievement began not with a military dream, but with a nursing degree from Briar Cliff University.
In 2016, after two decades of service, Van Den Top was promoted to colonel — a milestone in a career she never expected to pursue.
Finding Her Path at The Cliff
Before considering the Air Force, Van Den Top worked as a nursing assistant in her hometown. She originally planned to enlist, but a high school counselor encouraged her to pursue nursing instead. That advice brought her to Briar Cliff.
She already knew the campus from attending the All-State summer music camps, but what drew her most was the sense of belonging and community.
“Being introduced to the Sisters and the Franciscan way of things made it feel like home to me,” Van Den Top said. “It ended up being a really good decision. Looking back, the personal approach to academic advising with a liberal arts education and the emphasis on critical thinking were very important to my professional life.”
After graduation, she remained connected to the Sisters of St. Francis and learned the story of Sister Mary Hargrafen, a nurse who had carried Franciscan values into the Air Force. Inspired by Sr. Hargrafen’s example, Van Den Top realized she could do the same.
From Nursing to Leadership
Van Den Top’s Air Force career began as a staff nurse at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming. She trained in battlefield nursing, combat casualty care and operating room nursing in Texas and later managed surgical services in Mississippi.
Although she valued her early nursing work, she felt drawn to something different. “Nursing was good, but it wasn’t what really spoke to my soul,” she said. “While working in medical response readiness, I was granted the opportunity to retrain as an Air Force Logistics Readiness Officer.”
That transition proved pivotal. She quickly found her niche, serving in logistics leadership roles at bases in the U.S., Qatar, and the United Kingdom, and deploying to Afghanistan as a logistics commander. Over the next decade, she steadily rose through the ranks, completing advanced training and earning a Masters in Air Transportation Management at Embry-Riddle and a Master’s in logistics at the Air Force Institute of Technology.
Her assignments took her from being a flight commander to an Executive Assistant for the Director of the Defense Logistics Agency, Chief of Logistics Plans for the Combined Forces Special Operations Command-Central, to the Pentagon and then on to Commanding a Supply Chain Management Squadron. She also deployed for Operation Inherent Resolve to reopen a Gulf War-era air base in Kuwait as the Base Operations Support Integrator. There she worked alongside international partners as deputy commander of the 332nd Expeditionary Mission Support Group.
“Being able to interact with foreign militaries and work together on multinational planning helped me realize that we all want the same things in life,” she said. “We may come from different traditions and cultures, but we all share the same hope — a world where our military skills are not needed and our families and friends can live peacefully as part of the global human mosaic.”
On August 1, 2016, while serving as deputy commander of the 28th Mission Support Group at Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota, Van Den Top was promoted to colonel. She later commanded the 90th Mission Support Group at F.E. Warren Air Force Base — returning to the place where her career began.
Throughout her service, Franciscan values guided her approach. Her units regularly volunteered in the communities surrounding their bases, serving in food pantries and supporting local families.
Retirement didn’t slow Van Den Top’s commitment to service. She has helped prepare thousands of meals for schools and meal-on-wheels programs, supported a Cuban family adjusting to life in the U.S., and volunteers with a charity thrift shop that funds scholarships for underprivileged students.
She also serves on her parish Green Team and sits on the advisory board of the nation’s first faith-based inner-city urban farm, which supplies fresh produce to a Catholic grade school and surrounding underserved neighborhoods. In addition, she co-founded Junking for Joy with other Franciscan Way of Life members — a network that supports social service programs by redistributing household goods, clothing, and furniture to those in need, while promoting reuse and keeping materials out of landfills.
In 2022, she was commissioned as a Franciscan Associate with the Sisters of St. Francis and pledged to live the way of life modeled by St. Francis and St. Clare.
Looking back, Van Den Top sees a common thread running from her time at The Cliff through her military career and into her retirement: servant leadership.
“What began as a simple desire to be a nurse grew into a 23-year career in an armed service where it is possible to live out servant leadership by leading, building, and caring for communities wherever planted,” she said.
If she could give her younger self advice, it would be simple: “Don’t be so focused on graduation and moving on to your professional career. Enjoy the college journey. Savor friendships and relationships. Those are the things you’ll look back on fondly later in life.”