Air Force officer retires with 23 years of service
Senior Master Sergeant Nathan T. Kilcollins, formerly of Mars Hill, was honored recently during a ceremony marking his retirement from the U.S. Air Force after 23 years of service.
The son of John and Mary Lou Kilcollins of Mars Hill, Kilcollins graduated from Central Aroostook High School. His father served as chaplain for the retirement ceremony and gave the invocation. Also during the ceremony, his 7-year-old son, Rowan, was able to present him with a Meritorious Service Medal for outstanding service.
John Kilcollins noted his son, among many honors, has received commendation letters for meritorious service from four U.S. presidents: George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and current President Barack Obama. He served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and one of his last assignments was in Liberia, his father said, where he spent six months as an air traffic controller directing flights of supplies for people dealing with the Ebola outbreak.
As a civilian in Browns Mills, N.J., the newly retired Kilcollins will be the chief air traffic controller at the Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey, where he has been serving.
He completed his basic training in 1992 at Lackland AFB, Texas, and went on to assignments as a communication and navigation equipment systems specialist at Keesler AFB, Miss., and Edwards AFB, Calif. He became a journeyman and quality assurance inspector in navigation and communications at Kadena AFB, Okinawa, Japan, in 1994.
He served as an air traffic control apprentice in 1998 with the 334th Technical Training Squadron at Keesler, and from 1998-2005 served as a radar approach control watch supervisor at Laughlin AFB, Texas, Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia and Osan Air Base, Republic of Korea. From 2005-10 he served in radar and tower control in both Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as McGuire AFB in New Jersey.
Kilcollins was tower chief controller at Grand Forks AFB, North Dakota until 2011 and was assistant chief controller at Osan Air Base for a year. In 2012 he returned to McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, and in June 2014 became tower chief controller for the 305th Operations Support Squadron there.
He completed education in airman leadership, air traffic control and military airspace management, earned degrees in airway science and avionic systems technology from the Community College of the Air Force, and graduated from various noncommissioned officer and senior noncommissioned officer programs.
Among Kilcollins’ numerous awards and achievements are the Meritorious Service Medal with two oak leaf clusters, the Air Force Commendation Medal with three oak leaf clusters and the Air Force Achievement Medal with four oak leaf clusters.
