Marc Gonsalves

Marc David Gonsalves is an American Northrop Grumman employee who was abducted by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and was held hostage from February 13, 2003 to July 2, 2008. He was rescued in Operation Jaque, along with the two other American contractors, Ingrid Betancourt, and eleven members of the Colombian security forces. On March 12, 2009, Gonsalves, Keith Stansell and Thomas Howes were each awarded the Secretary of Defense Medal for the Defense of Freedom.

Marc Gonsalves is the son of George Gonsalves and Jo Rosano. He was raised in Bristol, Connecticut and has a brother.

Gonsalves served as an imagery analyst in the United States Air Force for eight years prior to becoming a contractor employed by California Microwave Systems, a subsidiary of Northrop Grumman.

Gonsalves and his ex-wife, Shane, have three children. (One daughter and two stepsons) On July 17, 2008, Marc Gonsalves filed for divorce from his wife in Key West.

Marc Gonsalves was part of a team of a dozen or so pilots and technicians overseen by the U.S. Southern Command. Their operation was dubbed the Southcom Reconnaissance System, and Northrop Grumman held the $8.6 million contract for the work.

As the program became increasingly successful, several former pilots and others familiar with the program said civilian managers pushed flight crews farther over the jungles, often at night and sometimes 300 miles from their base.{{}}

Their mission expanded, too, from locating targets in the illegal drug trade chosen by the American Embassy to keeping a look out for leftist terrorist guerrillas, who also delve in the drug trade, including those of FARC.

By 2002, pilots began to worry about what they perceived to be the lack of power and speed of their planes - the single-engine Cessna Caravan - for a country as big and mountainous as Colombia.

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