Change of Command Ceremony will install Colonel Adam Carlson as new 185th Wing Commander

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Tylon Chapman
  • 185th Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs
SIOUX CITY, Iowa --  

Iowa Air National Guard Col. Adam ‘Ace’ Carlson will be installed as the 185th Air Refueling Wing Commander at a formal Change of Command ceremony during the unit’s June training weekend.   

At the ceremony Carlson will officially take over as the Wing Commander from Col. Sonya Morrison.  

Media are invited to the ceremony on June 8, 2025, at 12 p.m. at the main hangar at the Sioux City, Iowa, Air National Guard facility. Ceremony will begin at 1 p.m.

Carlson has been a long-time member of the 185th. He enlisted with the unit while it was still the 185th Fighter Wing in 1999 as an aircraft fuel systems technician.  

After earning his Bachelor of Science in Management Information Systems from Buena Vista University, he was selected for KC-135 Stratotanker pilot training, which he completed in 2005 for the 185th ARW. 

At the unit, he then led as a tactics officer until he became the Chief of Weapons and Tactics. Carlson would then go to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland to serve as the Executive Officer of the Air National Guard Readiness Training Center. 

He would then be an aide-de-camp at the Pentagon until he returned to the 185th to lead as the Maintenance Squadron commander. Carlson then became the deputy Operations Group commander. He then returned to maintenance as its group commander. 

Carlson then served as a team member evaluating the Russia-Ukraine war under the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Strategy and Force Development.  

He returns to the 185th to assume command after having been the Director of the National Guard Bureau’s Joint Action Control Office at the Pentagon.

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