Air Warfare Center at Nellis gets new leader

Stephen Curran

Monday, Oct. 4, 2004 | 9:34 a.m.

The Air Warfare Center, the high-profile training complex that calls Nellis Air Force Base its home, is getting a new boss today.

Lt. Gen.-select Steve Wood was expected to transfer command of the center this morning to Maj. Gen.-select Stephen Goldfein, who previously served as director of operations and capability requirements under the department of the Air Force's chief of staff.

Both men were to be promoted after the change of command ceremony on the base this morning, Wood said.

Wood was assigned to Nellis in June 2002 and will be promoted to director of plan and programs at the Pentagon, where he will report directly to the Air Force's chief of staff and Secretary James Roche.

The appointment was confirmed in the Senate late Thursday, and Wood was called with the news about 5:30 Friday morning, he said. The confirmation was followed with a ritual flight in an F-16, in which the pilot circled the base and taxied under a stream of water sprayed by a firehose.

"That was possibly my last flight in a fighter," he said, adding that he may not get another chance to fly in his new position.

The Gig Harbor, Wash., native and 29-year Air Force veteran said he does not know exactly when he will begin his new job.

He will also advise military leaders reviewing the Base Relocation and Closure Committee and will help perform the Quadrennial Defense Review, which assesses military readiness nationwide, Wood said.

"I think we have some significant things to look at," Wood said.

Under Wood's watch, the Nellis center has added a fifth wing to the training facility, which at the beginning of his tenure was used to prepare for military operations in Afghanistan following the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

He also saw the development of the remote-piloted Predator aircraft, part of a line of pilotless planes Wood called "the future" of military air operations.

"We are reacting to events," Wood said. "We are taking those events and rolling them into our exercise."

The training wings are now divided between Nevada and Elgin AFB in Florida and employ 12,000 airmen, 7,500 of whom are stationed at Nellis, Wood said.

The center's mission has also evolved since the U.S.-led war in Iraq, when Wood saw the building of a new urban mock-up designed to simulate the environs soldiers face in Fallujah and Najaf.

Nellis, which at the beginning of the Iraq war saw more than 2,000 active duty personnel deployed, now has roughly 400 fighting overseas, Wood said.