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The Arnold Community Council (ACC) held its annual “DC Fly-In” from April 28th to April 30th. The ACC delegation and several TN Congressional Staffers met with United States Air Force leaders at the Pentagon on Monday morning. They also met with Congressional leaders and staff members at the United States Capitol on Monday afternoon through Wednesday.  The ACC delegation presented and discussed issues that are important to the 13-county Arnold Air Force Base (AFB) community that supports the Arnold Engineering Development Complex (AEDC), their 8 geographically separated units located in Maryland, Ohio, New Mexico (2), Colorado, Utah and California (2) and the other 22 DoD test organizations who are member of the Major Range Test Facilities Base (MRTFB).

Lynn Sebourn, ACC President, along with past-ACC President Jim Jolliffe led the delegation in meetings with United States Senators Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty. Three teams also met with several of  Tennessee’s United States Congressional Representatives (and their staff members) who represent the Arnold community, including Scott DesJarlais (TN-04, John Rose (TN-06), Tim Burchett (TN-02), Chuck Fleischmann (TN-03), Mark Green (TN-07), David Kustoff (TN-08) and Steve Cohen  (TN-09).  The delegation also met with other Congress members and/or staffers who have AEDC geographically separated units in their districts or have test customers in their district who test at AEDC facilities including Dale Strong (AL-05), Julia Brownley (CA-26), Mike Turner (OH-10), Blake Moore (UT-01), Steven Hosford (NV-04) and Jamie Raskin (MD-08).

The ACC was pleased to visit the Pentagon for small-group discussions with key Air Force staff, including Gen Allvin, USAF Chief of Staff; Lt Gen White, Military Deputy, Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, SAF/AQ; Maj Gen Maitre, Director, Legislative Liaison, Office of the Secretary of the Air Force, SAF/LL; Col Greszler, Intergovernmental Affairs Chief, SAF/LL; Mr. Wilcox, Director of Test & Evaluation, Headquarter US Air Force, AF/TE; and Mr. Coffey, Air Force Test & Evaluation Resources, AF/TER.  The delegation addressed pertinent issues impacting the AEDC mission including the potential public lease of AEDC property parcels, personnel recruiting, staffing and retention and state-of-the-art technology development with accelerated testing and deployment of fielded weapon systems.

About the Arnold Community Council:

The ACC is a civic organization that supports Arnold AFB and AEDC. The ACC has 240 individual members representing civic, commercial, and industrial entities in the 13-county region around Arnold AFB, Tennessee.

ACC supports awareness of AEDC by holding informational meetings with the Tennessee Legislature and Tennessee Congressional delegation as well as annual advocacy visits to the Pentagon and Capitol Hill; donating to quarterly and annual military award winners; donating to the annual AEDC Veteran’s Picnic and the AEDC Children’s Christmas Party; supporting the Honor Flight of Middle Tennessee, Wreaths Across America; awarding two competitively selected STEM scholarships to high school graduates and sponsoring receptions for visiting dignitaries. ACC is a Tennessee nonprofit corporation and an IRS 501(c) (6) organization.