In the Spotlight | McCort grad leading Air Force intelligence center in Ohio
The U.S. Department of Defense has four service intelligence centers reporting directly to the Pentagon that represent each branch of military service.
Col. Kenneth A. Stremmel, who grew up in Johnstown, is at the helm of one of those centers – the National Air and Space Intelligence Center, headquartered at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio.
The 1996 Bishop McCort Catholic High School graduate leads NASIC's 3,800 personnel working to characterize U.S. adversaries' use of aircraft and weaponry in the air domain so that the Department of Defense can defend against it and defeat it.
"We are focused on threats that travel through the air domain in order to inform our war fighters, influence policy decisions, and to also influence the acquisition community," he said. "For example, if we discover a new threat in aircraft, we will inform our acquisition community so we can defend against that threat with new platforms that can defeat that threat."
Stremmel took command of the center during a change-of-command ceremony in July, at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Dayton, Ohio.
As the NASIC commander, Stremmel is responsible for operating the $1.8 billion center with its four groups, five directorates and 17 squadrons and managing an annual budget of more than $747 million.
He most recently served as the director of intelligence, Ninth Air Force, Shaw Air Force Base, South Carolina. Prior to that, he spent two years as a group commander at NASIC.
He's worked as an intelligence officer for the past 24 years since graduating from the Air Force Academy in 2000. Stremmel entered the academy as a primary appointee of the late U.S. Rep John Murtha, after graduating from Bishop McCort.
Stremmel has earned many medals through his Air Force career, including the Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary Medal and Global War on Terrorism Service Medal for his deployment to the Middle East in the aftermath of 9/11.
He was also awarded a Humanitarian Service Medal for service during the COVID-19 pandemic. He was deployed to Texas, where he worked as part of a national team of military leaders setting up vaccination sites and aiding local hospitals that were overwhelmed by the pandemic.
As commander of NASIC, he reports to Pentagon official Lt. Gen. Leah Lauderback, deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and cyber effects operations.
During Stremmel's installment as NASIC commander, Lauderback addressed the organization's members, saying Stremmel "is going to lead you to greater heights."
"We are truly in an era of great power competition, and the need for NASIC's scientific and technical expertise has never been more urgent than it is right now," Stremmel said.
"You'll hear a lot from the U.S. national security strategy and defense strategy on great power competition. We are in competition with adversary nations that have increased their military technology and capabilities."
The center's job is to use as much information as it can to predict the capabilities of competitors including China, Russia, Iran, North Korea and what the Air Force calls violent extremist organizations.
"We are doing whatever we can to discover new capabilities of adversaries," he said. "Here at NASIC, we apply scientific and technical expertise to do that work. And so it's trying to model how an enemy aircraft will perform in the air, how high it can fly, how fast, what kind of weapons it has and how far those shoot. It's really the scientific and technical work so that we can give lots of specific information to folks that are designing our next-generation aircraft or defense capabilities."
The command position at NASIC carries a two-year term.
Stremmel, 46, said he plans on continuing to serve the Air Force after his term as NASIC commander is complete.
"My family is incredibly supportive and are enjoying the service along with me," he said. "I'm not sure what the future will hold, but I do intend to continue to serve."
Stremmel's mother, Mary Borkow, lives in Johnstown.
"The town means a lot to me," he said. "The values I learned growing up in Johnstown through Bishop McCort High School and through my family there – I've really been able to carry those through to the Air Force. It's really contributed to my success."
Stremmel delivered a commencement speech to the graduating class of Bishop McCort in 2020.
"I really appreciated that," he said. "I really want to give back to the town that has given me so much and has been so good to my family, to my mother. It's just a neat town, and I think growing up there with those people and those teachers really set me up for success later in life."
