Last Week's Meeting
Eight aircraft have been assigned to the Youngstown Air Reserve Station in Vienna, but visitors shouldn’t expect to see many of them on the ground at once. “We are somewhere around the globe taking care of business,” Col. Jeffrey Van Dootingh, commander of the 910th Airlift Wing at YARS, told Rotarians during the April 13 meeting.
YARS is a major employer, with 1,300 airmen and 400 civilians working there. The station is part of the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport, which is owned by Western Reserve Port Authority. Van Dootingh has been the 910th’s commander since June.
Van Dootingh said 90 percent of the airmen are traditional part-time reservists who hold other jobs as teachers, mail carriers and more. Most of the 910th airmen live locally, but others travel here from 32 states for military exercises. They train to the same standards and meet the same skill levels as active-duty airmen, he observed.
Members of the 910th volunteered for medical missions in hard-hit areas of the country soon after the COVID-19 pandemic began, Van Dootingh said. He spoke at length about the station’s ongoing aerial spray mission to control mosquitos and other disease-carrying insects, which included spraying 2.9 million acres of land in Louisiana and Texas after Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005. The spray program saves more lives than have been lost in combat, he noted.
When Congress approved a $1.5 billion omnibus spending bill earlier this year, it included $8.7 million for YARS to lengthen and widen a runway and obtain four new C-130 J military transport aircraft. In its current condition, the runway can’t be used by aircraft that are larger than C-130s, Van Dootingh said. Once improved, the runway will be comparable to those that personnel use during combat and will accommodate newer, bigger C-17 aircraft, he added.
In other news, President Josh Prest announced that a joint meeting of the Youngstown Rotary, Lions and Kiwanis clubs will be at noon Thursday, May 12, at the YMCA. Bob DiBiasio, senior vice president of Public Affairs at Cleveland Guardians baseball, will be the featured speaker.
