Welcome!!

Welcome to the internet home of the Air Force Association in Washington State.  Through these web pages, you'll have an opportunity to learn more about the state organization's programs as well as specific information about each of our chapters.

Washington State AFA Chapters

The State of Washington has three active Chapters.

The Greater Seattle Chapter serves the needs of AFA members throughout northwestern Washington.  In addition to many other activities, the Chapter directly supports the activities of the Air Force ROTC Detachment at the University of Washington.

The Inland Empire Chapter serves the needs of AFA members from the crest of the Cascades to the Idaho border.  Most of the Chapter's activities center around Fairchild AFB. The Chapter also supports the activities of the Air Force ROTC Detachment at Washington State University in Pullman and the Air Force ROTC Detachment at Central Washington State University in Ellensburg.

The McChord AFB Chapter serves the needs of members in the South Puget Sound and Southwestern portion of Western Washington.  Centered around activities at McChord AFB, the Chapter meets monthly on the second Tuesday of the month at the Northwest Connection Club on base.  The meetings begin at noon.

The Air Force Association

The nearly 150,000-member Air Force Association, formed in 1946, is an independent, nonprofit, civilian aerospace organization that promotes public understanding of aerospace power and national defense. AFA is led by volunteer leaders at the national, state, and local levels. The association has chapters in all fifty states, Europe and the Pacific.

Membership in the Association has a number of benefits and possibilities for further service.  One of these is the opportunity to voice your opinions on issues that affect the Air Force and our military.  The AFA has a comprehensive and helpful link on their central website that will assist you in contacting your Congressional representatives.

AFA also publishes the monthly Air Force Magazine, a highly regarded aerospace journal that reaches the desks of those in the highest levels of government, industry, defense, business, academia, and the media. AFA also conducts educational outreach programs and distributes educational materials that focus on aerospace, technology, and national defense, to schools, educators, and the American public.

Regional Meeting Held in Seattle

The Seattle Chapter hosted a regional AFA conference on March 17, 2007.  Representatives from AFA chapters in Washington, Oregon and Alaska discussed the organization and their plans for the future.

Dr. Bonnie Dunbar, former NASA astronaut and current President and CEO of the Museum of Flight, delivered the keynote address at the luncheon.  Among other things, Dr Dunbar discussed the continuing need for aerospace education -- a vision she shares with the AFA.

Also briefing the group was Tom Hansen, McChord AFB Chapter Member and currently the AFA's Regional Director for our area.

The conference attendees thank Fred Rosenfelder, Seattle Chapter president, for all of his hard work making the event run smoothly.

Free Website Available to Military Families

Staying in touch with deployed family members just got easier, thanks to a new Internet service sponsored by the Washington State organization of the Air Force Association.

Thanks to a generous donation of technology and on-line hosting by Seattle-based NetExec, Inc., service families from all branches may publish their own personal websites easily and at no cost.

By going to a special Internet website, www.nxmili.com, service families from around the world can register and signup for this free service.  Once registered, the family can publish a complete, professionally designed website using nothing more than a web browser.  Some of the features of the website include easy-to-set-up photo galleries, web logs (i.e. “blogs”), diaries, and other ways to communicate with family members deployed around the world.  In order to access the sites, deployed members must have normal “www” internet access.

“There are a couple of very important things to consider about this project,” said Ken St. John, Washington State AFA President, “The first is that there is absolutely no cost for this service at all.  Secondly, we have worked closely with NetExec to ensure that the absolute highest level of security is applied to this system.  Finally, families can rest assured that their personal information used for registration will not be subject to any sort of marketing campaigns or any other exploitation.  Their privacy is assured.”

One of the ways security is enhanced for these family websites is that they are maintained behind specialized firewalls to restrict the content’s availability to generalized web search engines such as Google or Yahoo.  This feature provides significantly more privacy that most commercial web hosts or “groups” offered by various companies.  However, families are cautioned not to include easily identifiable personal information on their websites as a personal security precaution.

Once the website is completed by the family members, deployed service persons simply go to the nxmili.com website and enter their family’s personal website ID.  This ID will take them directly to their family’s website.

Families interested in using this service may sign up now by visiting www.nxmili.com.

Contact Information

For More Information on AFA activities in Washington State, please contact:

Laird Hansen, President, Washington State Air Force Association

    Laird Hansen: hansenl@gte.net

    General Information & webmaster: webmaster@WashingtonStateAFA.org