The Civil Air Patrol Board of Governors has welcomed three new members, including the first three-star commander of Continental U.S. North American Aerospace Defense Command Region-1st Air Force (NORAD) and Air Forces Northern (USNORTHCOM), U.S. Air Force Lt. Gen. Stanley E. Clarke III. Other new members are retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Leon Johnson, the national president of Tuskegee Airmen Inc., and William A. Davidson, the former administrative assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force.
Clarke, Johnson and Davidson are appointees of Secretary of the Air Force Michael B. Donley. All will serve three-year terms on the Board of Governors, CAP’s highest level strategic policy-making body.
Clarke comes to 1st Air Force from the U.S. European Command in Ankara, Turkey, where he was the senior defense official and defense attaché for the Office of Defense Cooperation Turkey. This is Clarke’s first assignment at Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla. He received his third star before assuming command after senior Air Force officials decided – based on the scope of responsibility that falls to the 1st Air Force commander – that the command position needed to be upgraded and filled by a lieutenant general.
First Air Force is made up of four direct reporting units, 10 aligned Air National Guard units and a large number of active aerospace control alert sites – including aircraft, air defense artillery and up to 15,000 active duty, National Guard, Air Force Reserve and civilian personnel, which include members of Civil Air Patrol, the official Air Force auxiliary.
As the Joint Force Air Component Commander for NORAD and USNORTHCOM, Clarke is responsible for developing contingency plans and conducting full-spectrum Air Force air and space operations in the continental United States, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well as over the maritime approaches to the U.S. The organization is also responsible for providing defense support to civil authorities as the air component to USNORTHCOM. Additionally, the 601st Air & Space Operations Center falls under the 1st Air Force commander’s direction, which plans, directs and assesses air and space operations for NORAD and USNORTHCOM.
Johnson, currently in his second year of a two-year term as national president of Tuskegee Airmen Inc., retired from the Air Force in 2004 with the rank of brigadier general after 33 years of service. During his Air Force career, Johnson commanded a fighter squadron and fighter group, was the vice commander of 10th Air Force at the Joint Reserve Base in Fort Worth, Texas, and served as mobilization assistant to the assistant secretary of the Air Force and director of operations at Air Education and Training Command. A command pilot with more than 3,500 hours of military flying time in the T-37 trainer, A-37 and A-10 fighter aircraft, Johnson’s missions included flights over Bosnia in support of Operation Deny.
As a civilian, Johnson worked for Trans World Airlines and United Parcel Service, retiring from UPS with nearly 20 years of service as a management captain and chief pilot as well as a variety of managerial roles. Most recently, he served as a director of the Air Force Crisis Action Team in the Pentagon following the events of Sept. 11, 2001.
As the administrative assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force, Davidson served as a member of the Senior Executive Service at Headquarters U.S. Air Force in Washington, D.C. Prior to his retirement in October 2011, he was the Air Force’s senior career civilian adviser to the secretary, managing and supporting administratively the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force, its 1,650-member Secretariat and supported field operating agencies. These include manpower, people, organization, budget, supply and the secretary’s contingency fund; information, personnel and industrial security; security oversight for U.S. treaty issues; special access programs; and antiterrorism.
Before becoming administrative assistant in 1994, Davidson was the deputy administrative assistant. He served as an active-duty Air Force officer for 22 years, serving as an Air Force Office of Special Investigations agent and chief of the Air Force Polygraph Program. At the time of his retirement from active duty, Davidson was the deputy for security and investigative programs at Headquarters U.S. Air Force. He retired as a colonel and entered the Senior Executive Service in 1990.
Civil Air Patrol’s Board of Governors consists of representatives from CAP and the Air Force and civilians involved in education, aviation and emergency management.
Civil Air Patrol, the official auxiliary of the U.S. Air Force, is a nonprofit organization with more than 61,000 members nationwide. CAP, in its Air Force auxiliary role, performs 90 percent of continental U.S. inland search and rescue missions as tasked by the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center and was credited by the AFRCC with saving 54 lives in fiscal year 2011. Its unpaid professionals also perform homeland security, disaster relief and drug interdiction missions at the request of federal, state and local agencies. The members play a leading role in aerospace education and serve as mentors to nearly 27,000 young people currently participating in CAP cadet programs. CAP has been performing missions for America for 70 years.
