SMSgt. Mark Farmer, the operations superintendent with the 114th Space Control Squadron at Patrick AFB, Fla., is one of the Air Force’s 12 Outstanding Airmen of the Year for 2016. As the noncommissioned officer in charge of a command and control space cell deployed to Al Udeid AB, Qatar, Farmer led his team in three intelligence collection missions, identifying two high-value individuals and guaranteeing battlespace awareness. He led three crews through more than 30 rehearsal of concept drills that exercised space effects and elevated the crews’ ability to carry out combatant command missions. He modified four mission-critical documents and created a C2 real-time tracker to organize events during multiple missions. This increased situational awareness during periods of high operational tempo. He guided the transition from classroom-based training to high-fidelity performance-based scenarios that developed ready warriors. Air Force Magazine is shining the spotlight on each OAY in the days leading up to AFA’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference, which starts Sept. 19 in National Harbor, Md.
U.S. Air Force F-35s and F-22s regularly deploy deep into the Pacific region from Alaska, Utah, and Hawaii. In the future, though, the head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command would like to see the Air Force permanently station fifth-generation aircraft west of the international date line—closer to China.