Hawaii-based mobility wing will get third commander in 5 months

The colonel accountable for the 515th Air Mobility Operations Wing at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, was quietly fired in February after almost two years on the job, Air Power Occasions has discovered.

Air Power Expeditionary Middle boss Maj. Gen. Mark Camerer relieved Col. Jason Terry of command on Feb. 25 due to a “lack of confidence in his skill to steer,” service spokesperson 1st Lt. Denise Guiao-Corpuz stated in an e-mail Wednesday.

“Lack of confidence” is the Air Power’s boilerplate time period utilized in lieu of offering specifics about why an airman was relieved. Guiao-Corpuz didn’t instantly reply what Terry is doing now or whether or not he’s beneath investigation.

His departure set off a management shuffle through which the wing noticed three commanders in 5 months.

Col. Dan Cooley, the wing’s vice commander, briefly took over as its interim boss Feb. 25 earlier than turning the reins over to the brand new commander, Col. Kyle Benwitz, on June 28.

Earlier than arriving on the 515th in June 2020, Terry ran the 435th Contingency Response Group out of Ramstein Air Base, Germany; accomplished a nationwide safety fellowship at Stanford College’s Hoover Establishment; commanded the 52nd Airlift Squadron on the former Peterson Air Power Base, Colorado, and served as deputy commander of the 455th Expeditionary Operations Group in Afghanistan.

He graduated from the U.S. Air Power Academy in 1996 and went on to develop into a grasp navigator skilled on the C-130 cargo airplane, EC-130H digital assault airplane and MC-12W particular operations intelligence plane.

Terry’s substitute, Col. Benwitz, beforehand ran the 621st Contingency Response Wing at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey. He’s a C-17 Globemaster III pilot and former digital warfare officer on the B-52H Stratofortress bomber.

The 515th AMOW oversees navy airlift items throughout U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, spanning Hawaii, Alaska, Guam, Japan and South Korea. It falls beneath the Expeditionary Middle, a corporation that trains mobility crews to work quicker and extra flexibly within the discipline.

The wing manages round 1,600 individuals and an annual price range of greater than $50 million.

Rachel Cohen joined Air Power Occasions as senior reporter in March 2021. Her work has appeared in Air Power Journal, Inside Protection, Inside Well being Coverage, the Frederick News-Submit (Md.), the Washington Submit, and others.

Comments

comments