Air Force Generals to Headline Saturday Theater in the Woods Programming

July 18, 2019 - The annual Salute to the U.S. Air Force at Theater in the Woods on Saturday evening during AirVenture will be headlined by Air Force leadership and a Green Bay-native test pilot to celebrate the Year of the Fighter and the Air Force. Starting at 7 p.m., moderator Steve Buss will lead the discussion.

Gen. David Goldfein, U.S. Air Force chief of staff, will be joining us on stage to discuss our Year of the Fighter celebration and other Air Force items. A combat-veteran fighter pilot himself, Goldfein was shot down over Serbia in 1999 before commanding multiple fighter wings and eventually moving on to multiple roles at the Pentagon, including his role now as the chief of staff.

Gen. Maryanne Miller, the first Air Force Reserve officer to achieve the rank of four-star general, will be back at Theater in the Woods after speaking at the venue last year. Now the commander of the Air Mobility Command, Miller has more than 4,800 hours of flight time in numerous aircraft in the inventory.

Gen. Donald Dunbar, commander of the Wisconsin National Guard, will be present to discuss the role of the Air National Guard. A command pilot with more than 3,000 flight hours, Dunbar has principally flown the B-52 and KC-135 aircraft and has been in his current role since 2007.

Green Bay-native Maj. Rachel Winiecki will join the three generals on stage to discuss her career flying the A-10, F-16, and now the F-35. The first female F-35 developmental test pilot, Winiecki is currently stationed at Edwards Air Force Base in the 461st Flight Test Squadron.

Leading into the Air Force discussion, representatives from GE Aviation, Aerion Supersonic, and NASA will be on stage at 6 p.m. discussing the "Supersonic Renaissance." Moderator Fred George will lead the discussion on all of these entities' efforts to bring civilian supersonic flight back into the aviation world after an almost two-decade hiatus.

In other Saturday Theater in the Woods programming, Burt Rutan will be on stage for the final time during 2019 for his "Lessons Learned Managing Creative People" forum. That presentation is at 11:30 a.m.