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Dayton
Business Journal...
Air
Force
to get first female four-star General
by Joe
Cogliano, Senior Reporter
Monday,
February 6, 2012
The first
female four-star General in the U.S. Air Force may soon land at
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
On Monday,
President Barack Obama nominated Lt. Gen. Janet Wolfenbarger for a
promotion to
General — making her the first woman to hold the rank. If confirmed by
the
Senate, it would mark Wolfenbarger’s return to Wright-Patt as commander
of Air
Force Materiel Command.
She would
take over for Gen. Donald Hoffman, who is slated to retire later this
year.
Wolfenbarger,
who attended school in the Dayton region as a teenager, has held more
than half
a dozen assignments at Wright-Patt during her career, most recently as
vice
commander at AFMC under Hoffman, before leaving last September to serve
as
military deputy in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air
Force for
Acquisition at the Pentagon.
Defense
industry insiders say Wolfenbarger is a significant Air Force figure
because
she was a graduate of the 1980 Air Force Academy class, the first to
include
women, and worked her way up the higher ranks at “lightning speed,”
said Dan
Curtis, owner of Beavercreek-based Curtis Consulting.
In less
than six months during 2009, Wolfenbarger was promoted to Major General
and
then Lieutenant General. Currently, she is one of only four active
three-star
Generals in the Air Force.
Wolfenbarger
is known for being well-liked and respected in the Dayton community,
said
Michael Bridges, president of Fairborn-based Peerless Technologies
Corp., which
does work with the Defense Department.
If approved
for the promotion and assignment to Wright-Patt, Wolfenbarger will take
over
AFMC at a critical juncture. The organization — which controls all the
research, acquisitions and maintenance for the entire Air Force and has
an
annual budget approaching $60 billion — will have just finished
restructuring
its 12 centers into five.
Wright-Patt
will house a Life Cycle Management Center focusing on acquisition and
will
continue to be headquarters for Air Force Research Laboratory.
The new
Life Cycle Management Center will replace Aeronautical Systems Center
and
oversee activity at what is now the Electronic Systems Center at
Hanscom Air
Force Base, Mass., and Air Armament Center at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla.
The
restructuring effort, slated to be implemented by Oct. 1, is part of
variety of
efficiency initiatives across the Air Force.
Wolfenbarger,
a 1976 graduate of Beavercreek High School, was director of
intelligence and
requirements at AFMC when she was promoted to vice commander in late
2009.
As vice
commander of AFMC, Wolfenbarger was responsible for providing
acquisition
management and logistics support for a variety of Air Force aircraft
and weapon
systems. The command conducts research, development, test and
evaluation of
warfighter technology.
During her
career, Wolfenbarger has held several positions in the F-22 System
Program
Office at Wright-Patt. She also has served as the F-22 Lead Program
Element
Monitor at the Pentagon, and was the B-2 system program director for
the
Aeronautical Systems Center from April 2000 through December 2002.
It was
unclear when the Senate will vote on the nomination.
Read this
and other articles at the Dayton Business Journal
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