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Lt. Col. Joe Ferrero (right) accepts guidon at the 117th.

Lt. Col. Richard Austin prepares to accept command at the 224th JCSS

Air Guard Units Get New Commanders

Two new commanders have taken charge at Brunswick’s 224th Joint Communications Support Squadron and Savannah’s 117th Air Control Squadron.

Lieutenant Col. Richard Austin, former commander of the 117th ACS, assumed command of the 224th, with Lt. Col. Joe Ferrero replacing Austin as head of the 117th. Ferrero had been the air control squadron’s director of operations.

Austin, a 21-year Air Guard veteran, praised the key role continually played by the 224th in providing, what he called “superior communications capabilities” for field commanders and task forces engaged in The Global War on Terror around the world.  Brunswick’s joint communications support squadron is one of two Air Force communications units the report directly to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Austin recently returned from a six-month deployment to Iraq with the 117th. The squadron is the only Air Guard unit to have had sole responsibility for the control of all air operations inside the more than 200,000 miles of airspace that covers northern and central Iraq.

Commissioned through Officer Training School in 1980, Austin served on active duty as a missile launch officer with the 44th Strategic Missile Wing at Ellsworth, Air Base, S.D.  Leaving active duty in 1985, he joined the Tennessee Air National Guard, and later joined Savannah’s 117th ACS in 1991.  In 2002, Austin was named unit commander.  

When not in uniform, he is employed by Chenega Technology Service as an analyst supporting Air Combat Command at Langley Air Force Base, Va.
 

Ferrero, who’s spent 17 years with the Air Guard, takes command of the 117th following the unit’s deployment to Iraq.  He received a regular commission in 1983 as an Air Force officer after graduation from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. Ferrero served on active duty from 1983-1989 as a missile launch officer and wing staff officer. He then transferred to the Georgia Air Guard in 1989, serving in several air battle manager roles from weapons controller to director of operations.  Ferrero has been recalled to active duty for Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq and for several homeland defense missions in the U.S.

In his civilian job, he is general counsel for the Georgia Office of Homeland Security providing legal counsel to the directors of homeland security and Georgia Emergency Management Agency.

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