When our Managing Partner, Dale Duncan, joined McLennan Design in 2014, it had been almost 3 years since he and his wife, Megan, had lost their oldest son, Spencer, in the shoot down of a CH47D Chinook helicopter on a special operations mission over Afghanistan. The family, including Spencer’s two younger brothers, established the Spencer C Duncan Make It Count Foundation to honor the memory of their loved one and through the foundation have been working to assist military veterans and their families in a variety of ways.
The U.S. Army Reserve is honoring the men lost on this specific mission and are planning to display a Chinook helicopter and create a new fallen hero memorial near the military facility housing the 7th / 158th Aviation Regiment at New Century Air Center near Olathe, Kansas.
Dale was asked to share some concept ideas for the memorial and brought the request to the new charitable arm of our firm, the Green Warrior Society. The GWS adopted the project and Jason F. McLennan personally developed a moving concept for the placement of the Chinook helicopter in a protected plaza with encircling rammed earth walls representing the cradling of the aircraft in open hands.
Jason and his team continued to refine the initial memorial concept as well as the site master plan and just recently concept renderings were presented to the Johnson County Airport Commission and the USAR unit with resounding approval.
We’re honored to be working with a very special group of stakeholders to encourage donors and other service-providers to bring this concept to reality. When this project is completed, it will become a wonderful place of reflection and remembrance for many, and it will be a beautiful monument to the sacrifice of these brave Americans.
