Walker, 51, became the 27th commander of the local Canadian Forces base on Friday afternoon during the official Change of Command ceremony, taking over from outgoing commander Col. Denis O’Reilly.
It was under windy conditions and warm and cloudy skies that Walker joined O’Reilly and Brig.-Gen. Mario Leblanc – commander of 2 Canadian Air Division – for the official hand-over, which included a wide variety of local dignitaries along with new Saskatchewan Lt. Gov. Russ Mirasty.
“I left in 1996 after I was a flying instructor here and I haven’t been back very often since, but one of my daughters was born here in 1994 and for us it’s like a home away from home almost,” Walker said during a post-ceremony reception. “To come back here and be in charge of the Wing and flying training and nurturing these new students is great and it’s an opportunity I’m really looking forward too.”
Born in Windsor, N.S. in 1958, Walker joined the military in 1989 and received his pilot wings in 1993, after which he was posted to 2 Canadian Forces Flying Training School at CFB Moose Jaw as an instructor on the CT-114 Tutor jet.
A long and distinguished career followed, including his most recent posting at 2 Canadian Air Division as the director of air force training.
That makes him uniquely qualified for the job of 15 Wing commander in the assessment of Brig.-Gen. Leblanc.
“He’s very familiar with all the aspects and many of the challenges he’ll face here,” Leblanc said. “There are many ideas, and I’m sure over the next few weeks he’ll look at which ones he can chew on and work from there… Every time you take command, it’s a great day and kind of an achievement in a military career. It’s very gratifying, and he’s coming in now with two or three years ahead of him, that time will fly by pretty quickly so if he has big ideas he has to start on them right away.
“But he’s coming in energized and that’s why we change people every two or three years. We need to have fresh ideas and have people energized to be able to deal with different aspect of command.”
On that note, the day was also bittersweet as the Wing said farewell to O’Reilly, a Moose Jaw native and commander of 15 Wing since 2016. In addition to leading his final march-past during the ceremony, O’Reilly was also presented with a memorial collage by CWO Marlene Shillingford and was named an honorary member of the Snowbirds for life by Snowbirds commander Mike French.
O’Reilly even concluded the event by joining his wife of 22 years Doris and some of their seven children in a humerous mock Snowbirds fly-past using the wooden models seen in local parades in recent years.
“I’ve worked with Col O’Reilly for the last year and he’s very devoted to the mission and everything that was said on parade is very accurate, both him and his family are very involved in the community and have been extremely important to the growth and development of 15 Wing in their time here," Leblanc said.
Walker looks forward to officially beginning in his new role and the work ahead.
“I think the most exciting thing for me is change,” he said. “We have a lot things coming forward, we’re really good at what we do here in applying change and we’ve been short people here for so long that it’s going to be nice to see the future and what that program will become… we’ll be looking at any positive changes that can be made, where we can increase our flying here and increase our productivity.”
