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Three picked to fill top GSC slots

Three top leadership slots at the new Global Strike Command at Barksdale Air Force Base have been filled, according to a news release from the Air Force chief of staff.

Maj. Gen. James "Jim" Kowalski, who is forming the unit provisionally at Bolling Air Force Base in Washington, D.C., soon will return to Barksdale as the active unit's vice commander.

Kowalski is a command pilot with more than 4,500 flight hours, including 127 combat hours, in combat aircraft, including the E-3 reconnaissance platform and the B-1 bomber, as well as the D, G and H models of the B-52. His previous assignment at Barksdale was as commander of the 2nd Operations Group from May 1999 to December 2000.

Additionally, Brig. Gen. Jeffry F. Smith, special assistant to the assistant chief of staff in the office of strategic deterrence and nuclear integration at the Pentagon, will come here as director of the new command's plans, programs and requirements section.

Smith is a command pilot with more than 3,600 hours in the B-52 and B-1 bombers and an assortment of trainers. He also has prior service at Barksdale as aide-de-camp and executive officer to the 8th Air Force commander from June 1992 to August 1993, as commander of the 608th Combat Operations Squadron and the 608th Air Operations Group and as director of operations, all under 8th Air Force, from June 2002 through May 2005.

And Col. Timothy M. Ray, who has been selected for elevation to brigadier general, will come here to be operations director at the new command. He now serves as deputy director for air and space operations at Air Combat Command headquarters at Langley Air Force Base, Va.

Ray, a former commander of the 5th Bomb Wing at Minot Air Force Base, N.D., and the 7th Bomb Wing at Dyess Air Force Base, Texas, also has spent time at Barksdale. The 1985 graduate of the Air Force Academy was an instructor pilot and executive officer here from 1994-97, operations officer for the 11th Bomb Squadron from 2000-01 and commander of the 96th Bomb Squadron from 2001-03.

Global Strike will activate here Aug. 7 with Lt. Gen. Frank G. Klotz in charge. The new command will have 748 military personnel and 145 civilian personnel in fiscal year 2010, according to the latest Air Force figures.