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            BRIGADIER GENERAL ALBERT J. KAEHN JR.Brigadier General Albert J. Kaehn Jr. is commander of the Air Weather Service with headquarters at Scott Air Force Base, Ill. He manages a worldwide system of military weather and space environmental facilities. The organization, with status equal to a numbered air force, is assigned to the Military Airlift Command and provides staff and operational environmental services to the Air Force, Army and designated Department of Defense agencies. 

General Kaehn was born in 1929, in Queens County, N.Y., and graduated from John Adams High School, Ozone Park, N.Y., in 1947. He received his bachelor of arts degree in 1951 and a master of arts degree in 1952 from the State University of New York at Albany. He has completed the Squadron Officer School and the Industrial College of the Armed Forces. He holds a degree in meteorology from Pennsylvania State University. 

General Kaehn began his military career in 1952 via a direct commission in the Air Force Reserve and studied undergraduate meteorology at Pennsylvania State University through the Air Force Institute of Technology program. 

In 1954 General Kaehn began his long meteorology career as a detachment forecaster in Korea supporting fighter-bomber and fighter-interceptor operations. Later he served at Roslyn, N.Y., in Air Defense Control Center operations. From April 1956 to March 1959, he flew tactical aerial weather reconnaissance in WB-26, T-33 and WB-66D aircraft with the 42nd Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron in Europe. In 1958 he was integrated into the Air Force as a Regular officer. 

He was an assistant professor of air science and commandant of cadets in the Air Force Reserve Officers' Training Corps at New York University from April 1959 to August 1962. This was followed by graduate work in meteorology at New York University. 

General Kaehn returned to the Air Weather Service in September 1964. He served at its headquarters as a division chief in the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Aerospace Sciences, where he was instrumental in the emergence and subsequent development of the service's Space Environmental Support System. From February 1968 until July 1970, he served as a division chief and director in the Special Projects Directorate, responsible for weather support to special strategic programs. He then went to Thailand where he commanded the 10th Weather Squadron until July 1971. 

Following oceanography training at the U.S. Naval postgraduate school at Monterey, Calif., General Kaehn served outside Air Weather Service from May 1972 until June 1975 as the military assistant for environmental sciences, Office of the Director, Defense Research and Engineering, Office of the Secretary of Defense. 

In July 1975 General Kaehn was assigned as commander, 3rd Weather Wing, with concurrent duty as director of weather, Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations, Headquarters Strategic Air Command, Offutt Air Force Base, Neb. He was responsible for weather and space environmental support to the Strategic Air Command, North American Air Defense Command, Aerospace Defense Command and Alaskan Air Command. He assumed his current position in August 1978. 

General Kaehn is a member of the American Meteorological Society and served a three year term as a councilor in the society from 1976 to 1979. 

His military decorations and awards include the Legion of Merit with oak leaf cluster, Bronze Star Medal, Meritorious Service Medal and Air Force Commendation Medal. He holds campaign ribbons from Pacific Theater actions in Korea and Southeast Asia. 

He was promoted to the grade of brigadier general May 1, 1979, with date of rank April 28, 1979. 

(Current as of July 1979)