CONTACT: Mr. Eric Durr, 518-786-4581 or (cell) 518-429-5186

FOR RELEASE: Thursday, Aug 13, 2009

HANCOCK FIELD AIR NATIONAL GUARD BASE, NY (08/13/2009)-- Col. Thomas Owens II, the vice commander of the New York Air National Guard's 174th Fighter Wing has been selected as the new commander of the 106th Rescue Wing, based at Gabreski Airport Air National Guard Base on Long Island. He will replace Col. Michael Canders, who has commanded the wing since 2002. Col. Owens will take over in October. The wing traces its history back to a balloon observation company formed by the New York National Guard in 1908, making it 100 years old. In 1915 the unit acquired airplanes and became the 1st Aero Company and conducted the first long-distance mass flight in U.S. military history in 1916. Colonel Owens, an Iraq War veteran and Cazenovia resident, has served as second in command of the 174th Fighter Wing since 2007 and is a command pilot with more than 3,800 hours of flight time. He was chosen to command the 1000 men and women of the 106th Rescue Wing by the Adjutant General, Major General Joseph Taluto, based on a selection board conducted by senior New York Air National Guard officers. Colonel Owens is married to Karen Hays Owens. They have two sons, Thomas III, and Riley. He and his wife will be relocating to Long Island for his new job as full-time commander of the 106th Rescue Wing. "I am honored and humbled to have been chosen by Major General Taluto and the New York Air National Guard leadership to command the premier 106th Rescue Wing" Col. Owens said. "My family and I are excited to meet the outstanding Airmen, families and friends of the 106th. We look forward to joining this remarkable team in service to our great nation." Colonel Owens graduated from Cornell University in 1983 and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Air Force in 1985 after graduating from the Air National Guard Academy of Military Science. He returned to Syracuse to fly A-10 ground attack aircraft in the 138th Fighter Squadron and flew F-16s in the Persian Gulf War and in support of the Iraqi no-fly zones in the years following Operation Desert Storm. He has also flown in support of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Prior to becoming vice commander of the 174th Fighter Wing, he served as the Operations Group Commander of the 332 Air Expeditionary Wing at Joint Base Balad in Iraq. He has been the commander and operations officer of the 138th Fighter Squadron and 174th Operations Group Commander. Colonel Owens is a graduate of the Air War College, the Weapons Instructor Course, U.S. Air Force Weapons School, Nellis AFB, the Air Force Squadron Officers School, and he was a National Security Fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. He holds masters of engineering and masters of business degrees from Cornell University. His awards include the Bronze Star, the Meritorious Service Medal, the Southwest Asia Service Medal, the Iraq Campaign Medal, the Afghanistan Campaign Medal, the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, and Air Medal with seven devices. Colonel Canders, a former naval aviator before leaving the Navy for service in the Air Force Reserve and New York Air National Guard, has served in the Persian Gulf and Turkey during the 1990s and took part in combat search and rescue missions in Iraq in 2003. He left his civilian career in 2002 to become a full-time Guardsman and commander of the 106th. In 2005 he led the 106th Rescue Wing to New Orleans where its crews rescued 161 stranded citizens following Hurricane Katrina. His decorations include the Meritorious Service Medal, the Air Medal, the Aerial Achievement Medal with Oak Leaf cluster, the Humanitarian Service Medal, the Air Force Commendation Medal with 5 Oak Leaf Clusters, the Southwest Asia Service Medal and the Kuwait Liberation Medal. Colonel Canders is a graduate of Hofstra University where he earned an MBA and from Walden University in Minnesota where he earned a PhD in management. He will be assuming command of an Air Expeditionary Group in the Central Command area of operations after turning over command of the 106th. The 106th Rescue Wing operates HH-60 Pavehawk rescue helicopters and HC-130 Hercules search and rescue aircraft from its base in Westhampton Beach on eastern Long Island. The wing's wartime mission is to rescue American and Allied personnel lost behind enemy lines, and members of the wing have been deploying regularly to Afghanistan to support military operations there. The wing's pararescue jumpers are trained to drop behind enemy lines to secure friendly troops, or into the ocean to rescue crewmen from a sinking ship. The wing has a peacetime mission of providing search and rescue in the North Atlantic when requested by the United States Coast Guard. The wing's efforts to rescue a yacht crew in a storm at sea are portrayed in the movie "A Perfect Storm" and in 1998 the wing made the longest over-water rescue in history.

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