Brigadier General Chris McKenna OMM, MSC, MSM, CD

Director General Air and Space Force Development Royal Canadian Air Force

Brigadier General Chris McKenna was born in Montreal, Quebec and joined the Canadian Armed Forces in 1994 as an infantry reservist, transferring to the Regular Force under the ROTP plan in 1995. He received a degree in Chemical and Materials Engineering from the Royal Military College of Canada in 1999. Brigadier-General McKenna earned his RCAF pilot wings in 2002 and has commanded at the Flight, Squadron, Wing and Task Force level, serving with Tactical Helicopter and Special Operations Aviation Squadrons. His deployments include Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kandahar, and Mali. He has over 2600 flying hours in the CH146 Griffon and CH147D/ CH147F Chinook helicopters. He served as the Director of Air Plans in RCAF HQ from 2017 to 2020. Brigadier-General McKenna took Command of 1 Wing, Canada’s Tactical Aviation Wing, on 29 July 2020 and was appointed as the RCAF’s Director General of Air and Space Force Development the following year.