“We’re winner’s and we associate with winners to win. You’re world champions, and there is no better place in the world to be right now than here in Alaska. With what we’re seeing, with proliferation, especially of North Korea, you have held the Homeland safe for 20 years. We look back to when we first put those GBI’s in those silos, I was there in August of 2004, and you’ve gone through everything with these GBIs, three different generations of those. The resilience of that, the politics of that, the SLEP of that, the resilience of that, the new movement to get the NGI’s. You have won every single year, you have won, they can’t beat us.”
“We will present the first ever Don Young Memorial Award. Don Young was with us in this room eight years ago for the first Missile Defenders of the Year Awards in Alaska, so was Senator Murkowski, Senator Stevens wife Catherine Stevens, and so was Lieutenant Governor Treadwell. “Don Young was the authorizer and Ted Stevens was the appropriator, as they built Alaska together.”
“We were built to support and advocate for the deployment of missile defense because we believe that it’s the truth to the truth that it is making our world a safer place, and not having it is not making our world a safer place.”
“Remarkably in 3 years our country turned, and we put silos and GBIs in 2006 in Fort Greely Alaska. We put a sea of NASAM systems 360 around our Capital, full guard, we knocked that out. Now, we’ve succeeded in 20 years of beating and winning that battle against boutique threats, North Korea and Iran, but now the world’s shifted, and you’re in the midst of it.”
Riki Ellison at the 2022 Missile Defender of the Year Ceremony in Anchorage, Alaska, on November 5th, 2022
The Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance hosted the 2022 Missile Defenders of the Year Award Ceremony in Anchorage, Alaska, on Saturday November 5, 2022. It marks the 68th Missile Defender of the Year awarding 850 recipients in total, including the 23 recipients recognized this year for the 8th Alaska Missile Defenders of the Year.
We are honored to have the Don Young Memorial Award go to the MVP of the sensors in Alaska annually. This will be in compliment with our annual Ted Stevens Memorial Award which goes to the MVP of the best interceptor operators in Alaska. The Don Young award is represented by an Alaskan Bear and the Ted Stevens award is represented by a Silver Salmon.
This is the first year that we included our Alaska air defense missile defenders for our awards, including USAF AWACS and the F-22s. We honored our Cobra Dane as well as our Clear Space Station missile defenders. Our event honored and unified Air and Missile Defenders from the U.S. Army, Alaska’s Army National Guard, U..S. Air Force, U.S. Air Force Reserve Command, Alaska’s Air National Guard, and U.S. Space Force.
Presenting at our ceremony to recognize the World Champions of Alaska were World Champions in their own merit and service: Maj Gen Duke Pirak, Deputy Director, Air National Guard; Brig Gen Tracy Smith, Commander, Alaska Air National Guard; Col Joseph Paladino, Commander, 100th Missile Defense Brigade; Col Kevin Jamieson, Commander, 3rd Wing; Lt Col Eric Vantrease, Commander, 213th Space Warning Squadron; Lt Col Jared Lemmons, Director of Operations, 962nd Airborne Air Control Squadron; Lt Col Michael Odgers, Commander, 268th Security Forces Squadron; LTC Christopher Stutz, Commander, 49th Missile Defense Battalion; Maj Jeffrey “JB” Brown, Director of Operations, 13th Space Warning Squadron; Mr. Nick Capozzi, Military and Veteran Advisor to U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan; Greg Kaplan, Military and Veteran Advisor to U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski.
The 2022 Missile Defender of the Year Awardees
Don Young Memorial Awardee
Captain Lee Dockery
213th Space Warning Squadron
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F-22 Awardees
Captain Mitchell “Shift” Willis
525th Fighter Squadron
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Major Christopher A. Boyer
302nd Fighter Squadron
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AWACS Awardees
Captain Zachary M. Hollopeter
962nd Airborne Air Control Squadron
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Major Christian J. Shipp
962nd Airborne Air Control Squadron
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Clear SFS Site Defender Awardees
Senior Airman Keeana Fielder
268th Security Forces Squadron
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Technical Sergeant Gabriel Ramirez
268th Security Forces Squadron
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Cobra Dane Awardee
Technical Sergeant Wesley S. Jordan
13th Space Warning Squadron
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13th SWS Awardee
Lieutenant Jeffrey Dunagin
13th Space Warning Squadron
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213th SWS Awardee
Technical Sergeant Aaron Trujillo
213th Space Warning Squadron
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Fort Greely Site Defender Awardee
Sergeant Domingo Cortes
MP GBI Security Company
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Sergeant Sarah Brice
MP GBI Security Company
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Sergeant Giovanny Flores
MP GBI Security Company
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Sergeant Mackay Kim
MP GBI Security Company
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49th Missile Defense Battalion Top Crews
Sergeant First Class Angel Perez
2021 Delta Crew
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First Lieutenant Robert Hughes
2021 Delta Crew
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Major Jorge Lorenzana
2021 Delta Crew
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Sergeant Zachary Hladik
2022 Delta Crew
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Staff Sergeant Michael Santiago
2021/2022 Delta Crew
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First Lieutenant Kenneth McCoy
2022 Delta Crew
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First Lieutenant Taylor Parsons
2021/2022 Delta Crew
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Captain Justus Neumann
2022 Delta Crew
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Ted Stevens Memorial Awardee
Captain Ryan Hairston
49th Missile Defense Battalion
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“It is time to dream big, and be big. What you see tonight is a unification of this team. The diversity of this team. We have to have that unity across our services for U.S. Homeland defense. There’s no question about it. We talk about it, but we don’t have it. And the reason we have to have it is because we are playing against the best now. We can’t do it alone; just like one service can’t do U.S. Homeland missile defense alone, we have to have our allies.”
“We’re going to have to move on this for U.S. Homeland defense; to move together, with unity, with our allies and partners to beat this threat. The threat is coming.”
Riki Ellison at the 2022 Missile Defender of the Year Ceremony in Anchorage, Alaska, on November 5th, 2022
We salute to the service of our men and women of our joint services on this vital and honorable mission of Missile Defense of our Homeland.
Click here to view photos from the 8th Alaska Missile Defenders of the Year event.
