USAF AIR FORCE MATERIEL COMMAND PATCH

Although Air Force Materiel Command was formally established on 1 July 1992, the “wing and star” design used as the basis for its shield and unit patches points back to World War II and the Air Force’s predecessor service, the United States Army Air Forces.

Air Force Materiel Command was formed through the consolidation of two commands, Air Force Logistics Command and Air Force Systems Command. The earliest iteration Air Force Logistics Command was the Army Air Forces Materiel and Services Command, which was organized a major command on 17 July 1944. Before the end of World War II, it would be given two new designations, Army Air Force Technical Service Command (August 1944) and Air Technical Service Command (July 1945), and on 9 March 1946 was redesignated as Air Materiel Command. It would retain that designation until 1961, when it became Air Forces Logistics Command and was active until the 1992 consolidation.

On 23 January 1950, the Air Forced its Research and Development Command and organized it as a major command on 1 February 1950. It was redesignated Air Research and Development Command just seven months later, and then in 1961 was named Air Force Systems Command, a designation it retained until it was merged with Logistics Command in 1992.

Currently headquartered at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, Air Force Materiel Command has nine other host bases and a workforce with roughly 80,000 military and civilian personnel. The Command’s emphasis on high-end technology R&D accounts for its large operating budget—nearly a third of the total funding allocated for the USAF—as well as its significant portion of civilian employees (over 40 percent of the total number of civilians employed by the Air Force).

In 5 June 2012, Air Force Materiel Command became home of the first female to achieve four-star rank when Janet Wolfenbarger was chosen as its Commander.