General Duke Richardson
The Chattanooga Area Veterans Council announced that the Chief Reviewing Officer for this year's Armed Forces Day Parade will be General Duke Z. Richardson, Commander, Air Force Materiel Command, headquartered at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.
The parade will be staged at 10:30 a.m. on Friday, May 5, on Chattanooga’s historic Market Street, followed by the Armed Forces Day Luncheon at the Chattanooga Convention Center at 12 noon.
General Richardson is responsible for installation and mission support, discovery and development, test and evaluation, life cycle management services, and sustainment of virtually every Air Force weapon system. The command employs 89,000 people and manages $72 billion of budget authority annually.
The General enlisted in the Air Force in 1983 as an avionics technician, and later received his commission via Officer Training School. In addition to four Program Executive Officer leadership tours, General Richardson has held a breadth of material-related assignments within Program Offices, the Air Force Research Laboratory, Headquarters Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, Headquarters Air Force Materiel Command, Headquarters Air Force, Special Operations Command, and the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Prior to his current assignment, he was the Military Deputy to the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, at the Pentagon, Arlington, Virginia.
General Richardson holds a B.S. degree in electrical engineering from Arizona State University, a M.S. in electrical engineering from the University of New Mexico and an M.A. in Organizational Management from George Washington University, Washington, D.C.