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Col. Dignan proud of community partnerships made during time in Valley
VIENNA
An increased presence in Mahoning Valley communities through partnership projects with those communities is the highlight of Col. James D. Dignan’s three-year stay as commander of the 910th Air Wing and the Youngstown Air Reserve Station.
Dignan, who arrived at the 910th on Feb. 24, 2013, and assumed command on March 2, 2013, will leave Oct. 14 for a part-time staff position at the Pentagon.
Col. Darryl Markowski, vice commander of the 910th and YARS, will be interim commander until a full-time replacement is named.
“I’ll be forever proud of the community partnerships established or expanded during my time here,” Dignan said.
For example, he said mutual aid agreements between the YARS fire department and community fire departments have increased from two to 24, ranging as far south as Boardman and Beaver townships.
“We have the third-largest fire department in Trumbull County and have the capacity to respond to hazardous waste fires,” Dignan said.
“Working and training with our community fire departments partners gives us the benefit of day-to-day knowledge of how each other works,” he said.
Another partnership is the blight remediation project with Youngstown, which has resulted in 88 houses in the city torn down between July 2015 and October 2016.
Youngstown supplies the equipment and “our guys get real-world experience operating the equipment,” Dignan said.
“Peacetime practice makes perfect in wartime,” he said.
Dignan said the Air Reserve Station’s new $9.4 million firing range provides another way to interact with area communities.
Between 15 and 20 civilian law-enforcement agencies, including the Youngstown and Warren police departments and the FBI, use it for weapons training.
“We primarily use the firing range in the summer and on weekends when reservists train, and civilian police departments primarily need it during the week,” Dignan said.
In recent years, YARS’s complement of aging C-130H Hercules cargo/troop planes, built in 1989-1990, has been reduced by the Air Force from 12 to eight, giving rise to concern about the 910th’s survival. The planes need to be electronically updated with an “avoidance warning system” to continue to fly in congested air space, such as the East Coast and Europe.
The ideal answer would be replacing the C-130H with the new C-130J cargo planes, but when – or if – that will happen is unknown.
However, Dignan said there is good news from the federal level, and the 910th and YARS have some assets that he believes are attractive to the decision-makers and important to the defense of the nation.
He said the Air Force has funded the compliance portion of updating the electronics of the C-130H, beginning in 2017, that will allow the plane to operate in congested air space.
Also, at present, the 910th has the Department of Defense’s only large area – 5,000 acres or more – fixed-wing aerial spray capability to control disease-carrying insects, pest insects and undesirable vegetation, and to disperse oil spills in large bodies of water.
Equipment and personnel can be moved, Dignan said, but noted that YARS has other important assets.
The facility has uncongested air space, which is ideal for training; an assault air strip; the only night-vision goggle training capability within 500 miles, and a state-of-the-art firing range.
Also, he said YARS facilities are top-notch.
“Visitors have described it as being as beautiful as a college campus,” he said.
Previously Dignan said: “My job is to explain why this little base in a cornfield in Northeast Ohio is militarily important to the defense of the United States. To survive, we [YARS and the 910th] have to stay viable and prepared to fly the next mission wherever it takes us.”
To accomplish that, Dignan and the YARS community have to wage a campaign to demonstrate the air base’s military value and the 910th to the Air Force, the federal government, the YARS community and taxpayers.
“It is ultimately about the taxpayers. The more efficient we are, the more likely we are to survive,” he said.
Moving from the operational to the planning side of the military will be a big change for Dignan.
As commander of the 910th, he is responsible for the combat readiness of 16 units with more than 1,300 personnel; and as YARS commander, he leads the day-to-day operations and maintenance of the facilities that provide support for nearly 2,000 Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps reservists.
He is also the leader of nearly 400 Air Reserve technicians and Civil Service employees.
Dignan has more than 7,000 hours in trainer, patrol, reconnaissance and airlift aircraft, including combat and combat-support missions in the Balkans, the Horn of Africa and Southwest Asia.
“I’ve spent nearly a year of my life in the air,” he said with a laugh.
Dignan received his commission through the Naval Aviation Cadet program at the Aviation Officer Candidate School at Naval Air Station, Pensacola, Fla., and received his “Wings of Gold” at NAS Corpus Christi, Texas. He has served as an officer and pilot in the Navy, the Air National Guard, and the Air Force Reserve during his lengthy military career.
“I’ve landed on every continent, including Antarctica, and flown some 150 hurricane penetrations. The Air Force and Navy afforded me some unique opportunities to see the world,” he said.
Among his numerous awards and decorations are the Legion of Merit, the Defense Meritorious Service medal with three oak leaf clusters, and the Aerial Achievement Medal with one silver and two bronze leaf clusters.
Oak leaf clusters designate multiple awards.
While Dignan is changing jobs, he said he and his family plan to continue living in the Mahoning Valley.