ARNOLD AIR FORCE BASE, Tenn. -- The Arnold Community Council held its annual “DC Fly-In” April 28-30.
The ACC delegation and several Tennessee Congressional staffers met with U.S. Air Force leaders at the Pentagon. They also met with Congressional leaders and staff members at the U.S. Capitol.
The ACC delegation presented and discussed issues that are important to the 13-county Arnold Air Force Base community that supports the Arnold Engineering Development Complex and its eight geographically separated units located in Maryland, Ohio, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and California, and the other 22 Department of Defense test organizations.
ACC President Lynn Sebourn, along with past-ACC President Jim Jolliffe, led the delegation in meetings with U.S. Sens. Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty. Three teams also met with several of Tennessee’s U.S. Congressional representatives and their staff members who represent the Arnold community, including Scott DesJarlais (TN-04), John Rose (TN-06), Tim Burchett (TN-02), Chuck Fleischmann (TN-03), Mark Green (TN-07), David Kustoff (TN-08) and Steve Cohen (TN-09).
The delegation also met with other Congress members and staffers who have AEDC geographically separated units in their districts or have test customers in their districts who test at AEDC facilities including Dale Strong (AL-05), Julia Brownley (CA-26), Mike Turner (OH-10), Blake Moore (UT-01), Steven Hosford (NV-04) and Jamie Raskin (MD-08).
The ACC was pleased to visit the Pentagon for small-group discussions with key Air Force staff, including Gen. David Allvin, U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff; Lt. Gen. Dale White, Military Deputy, Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics; Maj. Gen. Benjamin Maitre, Director, Legislative Liaison, Office of the Secretary of the Air Force; Col. Richard Greszler, Intergovernmental Affairs Chief; Christopher Wilcox, Director of Test & Evaluation, Headquarter U.S. Air Force; and Ben Coffey, Air Force Test & Evaluation Resources. The delegation addressed pertinent issues impacting the AEDC mission, including the potential public lease of AEDC property parcels, personnel recruiting, staffing and retention, and state-of-the-art technology development with accelerated testing and deployment of fielded weapon systems.
The ACC is a civic organization that supports Arnold AFB and AEDC. The ACC has 240 individual members representing civic, commercial and industrial entities in the 13-county region around Arnold AFB, headquarters of AEDC.
ACC supports awareness of AEDC by holding informational meetings with the Tennessee Legislature and Tennessee Congressional delegation as well as annual advocacy visits to the Pentagon and Capitol Hill; donating to quarterly and annual military award winners; donating to the annual AEDC Veteran’s Picnic and the AEDC Children’s Christmas Party; supporting the Honor Flight of Middle Tennessee and Wreaths Across America; awarding two competitively selected STEM scholarships to high school graduates; and sponsoring receptions for visiting dignitaries. ACC is a Tennessee nonprofit corporation and an IRS 501(c)(6) organization.