The new Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force has nuclear weapons background
CMSgt. David A. Flosi spent much of his career in the secretive world of nuclear munitions. He'll now serve as the Air Force's senior enlisted advisor.
A senior NCO who spent the first two decades of his Air Force career in the service’s secretive nuclear weapons community was tapped Monday to be the next Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force.
Chief Master Sergeant David A. Flosi was named the service’s 20th senior enlisted member Monday, replacing CMSAF JoAnne Bass, who has been in the role since August 2020. Bass was the first woman to serve as the top enlisted troop of any military branch.
The CMSAF is a the service’s highest ranking enlisted position and serves as the top advisor to the Air Force Chief of Staff and other top Pentagon officials on matters impacting the Air Force’s 261,000 enlisted troops. The role generally turns over every three to four years. Gen. David Allvin was confirmed as the Air Force’s new Chief of Staff in September.
“I’m honored and humbled to represent all Airmen as your 20th Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force,” Flosi said in an Air Force release. “We are serving at a time of great consequence where success hinges on our ability to optimize this team toward the changing character of war.”
Flosi has spent much of the last decade in supervisory and senior advisory roles that oversee wide swaths of the Air Force. But for much of his first 20 years in uniform, Flosi worked in the secretive and highly selective community that stores, guards and maintains the Air Force’s stockpile of nuclear weapons. After enlisting in 1996 as a nuclear weapons specialist, Flosi rose through the ranks in nuclear munitions units at Kirtland, Minot and Malmstrom Air Force Bases in the U.S., Buechel Air Base in Germany and Ghedi Air Base in Italy.
Troops assigned to nuclear-related positions in the Air Force and other services operate under the Nuclear Weapons Personnel Reliability Program, a series of background checks and day-to-day procedures far more rigid than nearly any other jobs across the military.
Flosi was promoted to Chief Master Sergeant in 2015, according to his Air Force biography, at which point he moved out of the nuclear community to broader positions of leadership, a common career path for senior enlisted advisors.
He is currently the command chief master sergeant for the 89,000-troop Air Force Materiel Command at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.
Flosi’s awards include the Legion of Merit with oak leaf cluster, the Bronze Star and the Meritorious Service Medal with five oak leaf clusters. Flosi’s deployments include operations Southern Watch, Iraqi Freedom, Inherent Resolve and Freedom’s Sentinel.
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