Mike Turner is a Democratic candidate for the United States House of Representatives from Virginia’s 10th Congressional District and currently resides with his wife Kathy in Waterford, VA. He retired from the United States Air Force in 1997 after 28 years of service. Since then, he has worked in senior national fundraising positions at the American Red Cross, Junior Achievement, Inc., and the National Foundation for Credit Counseling. He is also a national military commentator who has appeared on most major television networks including CNN, ABC, MSNBC, and Fox, and is a periodic contributor to Newsweek.com, National Public Radio, and both Boston and San Francisco public radio. Since the age of 17, Mike Turner has dedicated his entire professional life to public service.

Colonel Turner retired from the U.S. Air Force as a command pilot having accumulated over 3,500 hours of flight time in numerous fighter aircraft and helicopters during his career. A 1973 graduate of the United States Air Force Academy, Colonel Turner initially qualified in Air Force Air Rescue helicopters flying air-rescue missions in Greenland and Alaska where he and his crews were credited with 14 lives saved. Between 1980 and 1993, Colonel Turner transitioned to fighters and later flew three types of fighter aircraft, the F-4 Phantom, the F-16 Fighting Falcon, and the F-111 fighter-bomber.  In his final flying assignment as the Operations Officer for the 524th Fighter Squadron, Colonel Turner helped lead his squadron on a deployment to Turkey where he and his squadron joined the allied forces of Operation Provide Comfort in enforcing the no-fly zone over northern Iraq.

For his final staff assignment in 1993, Colonel Turner was transferred to the Pentagon and assigned as a policy planner for the Joint Chiefs of Staff serving first as a Middle East planner and then as the Africa Branch Chief. His senior commanders were then Lt. Gen. Barry McCaffery and Lt. Gen. Wesley Clark. In this capacity, Colonel Turner traveled throughout the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa on numerous occasions including a ten-day trip on which Colonel Turner and seven other senior staff members accompanied then Ambassador to the United Nations, later Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright to numerous crisis spots on the continent. Another member of that team, Prudence Bushnell, later became the U.S. Ambassador to Kenya at the time of the Al Quada attack on the U.S. embassy in Nairobi.

In the Fall of 1995, while the Africa Branch Chief, Colonel Turner and Commander Wayne Young, a member of his staff, authored a concept paper proposing the development of an all-African peacekeeping force which was ultimately approved by the President and Congress. The African Crisis Response Initiative, when adopted by Congress, was, at the time, one of the largest U.S. foreign military aid programs for sub-Saharan Africa in U.S. history ($100 million). It has evolved under the Bush Administration into the Africa Contingency Operations Training Assistance program which, as of February, 2005, had trained 17,000 African troops from 10 African countries. In 2004. the ACOTA program was slated to become part of the G-8 Summit’s Global Peace Operations Initiative and receive a three to fourfold increase over its current $15 million per year annual funding. The Brookings Institution recently stated in its assessment of the African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur that troops trained under the ACOTA program were among the best leaders they had encountered in the operation.

Following his retirement in 1997, Colonel Turner became a national fundraiser for several national non-profit organizations including the American Red Cross, with a focus on major disaster relief operations, Junior Achievement, Inc., teaching K-12 students about free enterprise, and the National Foundation for Credit Counseling, the nation’s largest network of nonprofit credit and housing counseling agencies. Until December of 2007, he was the national director of housing counseling for that organization and, as such, was significantly involved in working with HUD and other agencies to assist consumers during one of the worst housing crises in U.S. history.

Colonel Turner is a member of Mensa and a nationally certified ski instructor.  

Academic Credentials:
1973: Bachelor of Science, United States Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs, CO
1979: MBA, Chapman University, Orange County, CA
1999: Partners In Organizational Leadership, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA