Read the Fall 2009 issue of Upper Echelon!
To better serve UNO, its students and its alumni, ROTC graduates in 2007 formed the Detachment 470 Air Force ROTC Alumni Chapter as an affiliate group of the UNO Alumni Association.
UNO's Air Force ROTC program was established in 1951. The university was one of 62 institutions chosen from a field of up to 600 schools seeking the program.
ROTC Alumni Chapter membership also includes past coeds who were members of Angel Flight, a support association of the OU Arnold Society, the fraternal organization for the Air Force ROTC. The alumni association currently has addressable records on nearly 600 ROTC graduates and more than 300 Angel Flight members.
Funds for the ROTC chapter will be generated through the association’s UNO Annual Fund. Donors to the UNO Annual Fund can designate 50 percent of their contribution to the ROTC chapter while still receiving full benefits accorded all UNO Annual Fund contributors.
Designations will defray the ROTC chapter’s expenses and fund the establishment of scholarships for Detachment 470 cadets. The group also will host reunions and activities, including, for example, a reunion during UNO’s centennial celebration kickoff in October 2008.
Michael Kudlacz, a 1971 UNO graduate, will serve two years as the chapter’s inaugural president. Kudlacz served 31 years in the U.S. Air Force, including a stint as the 55th wing commander at Offutt Air Force Base. He retired as a major general in 2002. In 2006 he was the UNO Alumni Association’s chairman of the board. Other UNO graduate officers include Harold Sage (1954), vice president; Syntha Judd Essex (1953; 1973), secretary; and Maynard Tatelman (1954), treasurer.
Additional chapter information will be provided on this site, in future issues of the UNO Magazine and in the Detachment 470 newsletter Upper Echelon.
ROTC alumni can register with the 470 Detachment and find additional information on its chapter affiliate at the 470 website at http://www.unomaha.edu/afrotc/