Mershon Center welcomes Air Force commander

COLUMBUS -- “Strategy, Military Transformation, and the Role of Air Power” is the topic of a presentation by Major General R. Mike Worden at noon on Thursday, Oct. 4, at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies, 1501 Neil Ave.

Worden is Commander of the U.S. Air Force Warfare Center at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. The Warfare Center is responsible for assuring combat air, space and information operations forces are trained and equipped to conduct integrated combat operations.  It is organized into five wings and two battlelabs with more than 11,000 airmen serving.

General Worden is a 1976 graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy. His early assignments include F-4 and F-16 instructor pilot, and assistant professor of military history at the U.S. Air Force Academy. He later served in combat and hostilities in operations Desert Storm and Provide Comfort in 1991.

The general has been director of the Air Force Chief of Staff Operations Group, director of Operations for U.S. Forces Japan, and executive assistant to the Commander of Pacific Command. He has also served as deputy commander for NATO’s Combined Air Operations Center Six, Allied Air Forces Southern Europe, Turkey. Additionally, he has commanded an operations group in the Pacific, a wing in Europe, and an expeditionary wing during hostilities in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

General Worden is a command pilot with more than 2,500 flying hours. He received a bachelor’s of science from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1976, and master’s and Ph.D. degrees in military history from Duke University in 1986 and 1993.

About the Mershon Center for International Security Studies
The Mershon Center for International Security Studies advances the understanding of national security in a global context by fostering interdisciplinary faculty and student research in three areas of focus: the use of force and diplomacy; the ideas, identities, and decisional processes that affect security; and the institutions that manage violent conflict. The Mershon Center is a unit of the Office of International Affairs at The Ohio State University.

Major General R. Mike Worden
Commander,
U.S. Air Force Warfare Center,
Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada