As it blends new aircraft with old, a top U.S. Air Force leader says the growing global importance of McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita will make it a continued economic powerhouse in south-central Kansas.
Maj. Gen. Sam Barrett, commander of the 18th Air Force, which is the parent command of the 22nd Air Refueling Wing at McConnell, was in Wichita last week, marking a return to the base where he enjoyed his first command in the USAF by leading the 350th Air Refueling Squadron in the early 2000s.
Barrett, who oversees McConnell and the service’s four other stateside aerial refueling wings, says that while Wichita has noticeably grown and changed since that time, the connection between the base and the community has changed in that it has only grown even stronger.
And that will be crucial, he says, in providing the base the support it will need to meet that growing mission.
(Read more: Wichita Business Journal)