Lieutenant-General E.J. Kenny, CMM, MSC, MSM, CD, Commander RCAF
Lieutenant-General Eric Kenny joined the Canadian Armed Forces in 1989 and graduated from the Royal Military College of Canada (RMC) Kingston with a degree in Computer Engineering. He completed pilot training at 15 Wing Moose Jaw in 1995 and was selected to fly the CF-188 Hornet.
Following CF-188 pilot training, he served as a CF-188 line and instructor pilot, and flight supervisor at 433 and 410 Tactical Fighter Squadrons (TFS) in 3 Wing Bagotville and 4 Wing Cold Lake.
Lieutenant-General Kenny has held a number of command positions, including Commanding Officer of 409 TFS in Cold Lake, Commander of 4 Wing Cold Lake, and Commander of 1 Canadian Air Division (CAD)/Canadian NORAD Region in Winnipeg.
His staff tours consist of Deputy Wing Operations Officer at 4 Wing, A3 Fighter at 1 CAD Headquarters in Winnipeg, Director Air Force Readiness at RCAF HQ in Ottawa, and Deputy Director J7 at NORAD-United States Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) Headquarters in Colorado.
As a Brigadier-General, he held the positions of Deputy Commander Force Generation at 1 CAD in Winnipeg, and subsequently as Director General Air Readiness at RCAF Headquarters in Ottawa.
Lieutenant-General Kenny has deployed numerous times and participated in multiple operations. He deployed twice to Aviano, Italy, to participate in Operation ECHO (Bosnia) and Operation ALLIED FORCE (Kosovo) where he took part in combat missions, and he was the Deputy Director of the Air Operations Control Centre at the International Security Assistance Force HQ in Afghanistan. His deployed command tours include: Task Force Commander for Operation IGNITION in Iceland; Detachment Commander of the CF-188s, CC-130H Hercules and CC-150 Polaris in Trapani, Italy, where he took part in combat missions for Operation MOBILE (Libya); Commander Air Component Coordination Element in Poggio Renatico, Italy, also for Operation MOBILE; and Commander of ROTO 0 Air Task Force – Iraq for Operation IMPACT.
Throughout his career, Lieutenant-General Kenny has accumulated 2,900 flying hours, 2,200 of them in the CF-188. He is a graduate of the NATO Tactical Leadership Program, Fighter Weapons Instructor Course, Canadian Forces College Joint Command and Staff Program, United States Air Force (USAF) Air War College, USAF Combined Force Air Component Commander course, US CAPSTONE course, and has a Master of Defence Studies from RMC.
He was promoted to Lieutenant-General in August 2022 and appointed Commander of the RCAF on August 12, 2022.