If you’re doing something, do it properly. Especially when the lives of other people depend on it
Jakub Matulík was born on 6 July 1942 in the village of Ladná near Břeclav. In 1960 he began a two-year course at the Military School of Flight Mechanics in Košice. After graduating he served as a warrant officer at Mošnov Airport. But he wanted to improve his education, and so he left to the Higher Vocational School of Aviation in Košice for another year. He completed the school in 1966 with the rank of lieutenant. He then spent five years at the Faculty of Aviation of the Military Academy of Antonín Zápotocký in Brno (1968-1973). This high-level qualification enabled him to become chief of the operations department at Mošnov Airport. While stationed there he experienced a tragic event - an air-plane crash in which ten people, his close colleagues, died. Even so he remained in aviation. In 1982 he became an inspector of the military transport air force in Prague. In 1988 he moved on to the Ministry of Defence as the Chief Senior Officer of the Permanent Committee for Flight Safety of the Air Command of the Federal Ministry of National Defence. In 1990 he became a member of the Technical Committee of the Warsaw Pact in Moscow, and he was there when the military pact was dissolved four months later. In 1992 and 1993 he took part in the Yugoslavia mission as a UN military observer. Upon his return he worked at the Department of Foreign Relations of the Ministry of Defence. Thanks to his knowledge of foreign languages he was appointed Chief Senior Officer of the Department for NATO Member State Relations of the Ministry of Defence, which was connected to the Partnership for Peace programme. When his period of service was over, he remained there as a civil employee. Finally, he worked at a detached workplace of the ministry, where he issued certificates of participation in military missions abroad under Czech Law No. 255/1946 Coll. He is married since 1968, he has one daughter and one son.