Former Wright-Patterson commander named Air Force Academy vice superintendent

Sherman is set to serve as the interim superintendent after Lt. Gen. Richard Clark retires and until the next superintendent is confirmed by the Senate. Lt. Gen. Tony Bauernfeind, a 1991 academy graduate, has been nominated to be the academy’s 22nd superintendent and is awaiting Senate confirmation.

“It is a true honor and a dream to be assigned and serve our academy as its vice superintendent,” Sherman said in a statement from the academy. “I am tremendously excited and humbled to join a team so deeply devoted to the important mission of this premier military and academic institution. I look forward to working side-by-side with our dedicated professionals to further the environment and climate that develops, fosters and inspires today’s cadets to become tomorrow’s leaders of our airmen and guardians.”

Then a colonel, Sherman served as commander of the 88th Air Base Wing at Wright-Patterson from June 2018 to June 2020.

From June 2020 until May 2022, Sherman served as principal military assistant to the deputy secretary of defense, at the Pentagon in Arlington, Va. He held other roles at the Pentagon until recently.

Now a two-star general, Sherman helmed the Air Base Wing at Wright-Patterson at a crucial time, early in a historic pandemic. Beginning in late March 2020, only about a tenth of the base’s workforce physically worked on the installation, with the rest of the workforce working from other locations. For months, base leadership held to an ever-shifting mix of on-base and remote work as pandemic conditions improved or worsened in the Dayton area and in Ohio.

“The United States Air Force at Wright-Patterson never stopped working,” Sherman said in an interview on social media late in his tenure at Wright-Patt. “We were able to incorporate technology and virtual capabilities, and we were able to really remarkably continue the mission of the U.S. Air Force, just in a very different manner.”

Sherman’s time as base commander also was notable for an August 2018 active shooter scare that brought law enforcement units to the base from across the Dayton area.

The 88th Air Base Wing is the host organization for Wright-Patterson, which has more than 8,000 acres of land and some 38,000 military and civilian employees, the largest concentration of employment in a single site in the state of Ohio.