Published : Feb. 7, 2012 - 14:51
Lt. Gen. Janet Wolfenbarger
U.S. President Barack Obama nominated Air Force Lt. Gen. Janet Wolfenbarger to be the service’s first female four-star general and the military’s second woman to reach the highest rank.
Wolfenbarger, the Air Force’s top uniformed official for weapons development, was also nominated as commander of the Air Force’s Materiel Command, according to a Defense Department statement on Monday. The positions are subject to Senate confirmation.
The first woman with four stars in the U.S. military, Army Gen. Ann Dunwoody, was confirmed in 2008 and is commanding general of that service’s Materiel Command.
Wolfenbarger is military deputy in the office of the assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition at the Pentagon. She previously served as vice commander of the Materiel Command, which conducts research, development and testing and manages acquisition and logistics for war. The command is located at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio.
Wolfenbarger was commissioned in 1980 as a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, according to the service’s website. She has held positions in several command headquarters, the F-22 fighter jet program and the B-2 bomber program.
In addition to her bachelor’s degree from the academy, Wolfenbarger has two master’s degrees, one in aeronautics and astronautics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, and another in national resource strategy from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces at the National Defense University in Washington.
(Bloomberg)