Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin J. Thomas

Lt Col Benjamin J. Thomas is the Commander, 105th Civil Engineer Squadron, 105th Mission Support Group, 105th Airlift Wing, Stewart Air National Guard Base, New York. He leads 106 Airmen Engineers and 38 New York State Employees who maintain and sustain 620,000 square feet of facilities worth $430M—the largest Air National Guard Base in the Northeast.

Prior to that, as a Foreign Area Officer, he was the Foreign Military Sales (FMS) Program Manager, Office of Security Cooperation, Embassy of the United States, Rabat, Morocco. There, he managed a $6B portfolio of FMS cases (USAFRICOM’s largest), including the signing and implementation of a $2.9B case for 24 x F-16 fighter aircraft.

Lt Col Thomas is a 2006 graduate of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) where he earned his commission in the Air Force through the Reserve Officer Training Corps. He has held various staff and leadership positions as MAJCOM Branch Chief, flight commander, group executive officer, section chief, and branch head in both RED HORSE and PRIME BEEF assignments. Additionally, he has served two deployments in support of Operation ENDURING FREEDOM as Chief of Design at Bagram AB, Afghanistan, and Officer in Charge of Construction at an undisclosed location in southwest Asia.