West Rowan grad retires from Air Force to join aerospace company

HILTON HEAD, S.C. — Colonel Justin Chandler, who hails from Salisbury, and graduated from West Rowan High School recently retired from his post with the U.S. Air Force for a job at an aerospace company called ThinkOrbital. “I will be transitioning to become the vice president of government relations and strategic partnerships,” Chandler said in an email. A retirement ceremony for Chandler was held last month on Hilton Head Island in South Carolina. Chandler is married to his wife Margo and they have two daughters, Emma and Charlotte. He is the son of Randy and Cathy Chandler.

A storied and decorated military career

Chandler was commissioned into the Air Force upon graduating from the United States Air Force Academy in 2003. While stationed at Dyess Air Force Base he won the Gen. George Trophy for best C-130/C-160 crew and the Gen. Allen Trophy for best Airdrop Team at the 2007 Air Mobility Command Rodeo. The Lockheed C-130 Hercules is an American four-engine turboprop military transport aircraft designed and built by Lockheed. Capable of using unprepared runways for takeoffs and landings, the C-130 was originally designed as a troop, medevac and cargo transport aircraft. At Pope Field he was named the 2011 Pope Field CGO of the Year. He has deployed multiple times in the C-130E, C-130H and KC-10. Chandler has participated in numerous tours and operations including: Enduring Freedom, Iraqi Freedom, Unified Response and the Horn of Africa. In 2012, he was selected for the prestigious Phoenix Reach program transitioning to the KC-10. He was an architect of the Pilot Training Next initiative reimagining pilot training utilizing virtual reality, data analytics, biometrics and human performance data. Seven years later, Chandler was one of three officers selected to attend USAF Space Officer Training to develop multi-domain leaders for the service. Following Squadron Command, he served at SpaceX as a space operations engineer helping to launch astronauts from the United States for the first time since 2011. He served most recently on the Space Force headquarters staff as the director of the Strategic Initiatives Group, where he was instrumental in the standup and growth of the new service. Chandler is a senior pilot with more than 1,900 flying hours in the C-130 and KC-10, including over 650 combat hours. He has commanded at the squadron level and served in multiple positions at the USAF and USSF headquarters, MAJCOM, wing, group and squadron levels. The past year, Chandler was the deputy division chief/secretary of the Air Force Legislative Liaison in Washington, D.C., where he led a 13-person office as the focal point between the Department of the Air Force and Congress across the spectrum of air, space and cyber weapon systems, enabling department senior leaders to develop and maintain relationships with House and Senate members and staff to ensure authorization of $253 billion annual budget. Before that he was the director of the U.S. Space Force Strategic Initiatives Group at the Pentagon, where he led a group that advised top Department of Defense leadership on strategic issues for the president, defense secretary and chairman of the joint chiefs. Chandler’s work has put him across from some high-profile names in the aerospace industry, including SpaceX owner Elon Musk. From May 2019 to June 2020, he served as a space operations engineer, working with Starship, Starling and rapid space launch. He was the lead engineer for Dragon Astronaut flight tablets and flew in space during the first U.S. crewed launch in nearly a decade.

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