Home Index
Brigadier General
Ruben A. Cubero
Permanent Professor 1984–1998
Dean of the Faculty 1991–1998
B.S., United States Air Force Academy
M.A., University of New Mexico
Ph.D., University of Denver
Randy Cubero, the Academy’s 47th Permanent Professor, was born in the Bronx, New York, in 1939. He graduated from the United States Air Force Academy in 1961 with a Bachelor of Science degree. His first assignment was to undergraduate pilot training at Williams AFB, AZ, which he completed in late 1962. In early 1963 he finished transition training to the C-118 at Tinker AFB, OK, and moved to the 38th Air Transport Squadron, McGuire AFB, NJ. Early in 1966 he became a C-135 pilot at McGuire. Randy then piloted the C-141 in the 76th Military Airlift Squadron, Charleston AFB, SC, from 1966 to 1969. He completed 243 combat missions in the Republic of Vietnam from 1969 to 1970 as an OV-10 Pilot and Forward Air Controller at Tay Ninh West with the 25th Infantry Division, 19th Tactical Air Support Squadron. He also served as Pilot and Forward Air Controller Standardization and Evaluation with the 19th at Bien Hoa Air Base. Randy entered graduate school in 1970 and earned a Master’s degree in Latin American Studies from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, in 1972. From 1972 to 1974 he served as Spanish Instructor and then Division Chief of Spanish in the Department of Foreign Languages at the USAF Academy. During 1975 Randy was a student in the School of the Americas, Fort Gulick, Panama Canal Zone. In late 1975 he became an Instructor and Director of Joint Operations at the school and was the Senior USAF Representative the year prior to his assignment in early 1978 to the Air University, Maxwell AFB, AL, as a Faculty Instructor. He returned to the Academy in mid-1978 as the Acting Department Head of the Department of Foreign Languages. From mid-1981 until late 1982, he was a doctoral student in higher education and administration at the University of Denver. He then returned to the Academy and served as Assistant to the Dean of the Faculty for eight months. He earned his PhD in Higher Education and Administration from the University of Denver in 1983 and became Professor and Head of the Department of Foreign Languages. In 1984 Randy was appointed a Permanent Professor. One of his lasting contributions was the development of a state-of-the-art computer-based education laboratory for interactive language instruction. He also facilitated the improvement of language training within the US government by serving as Executive Director of the Defense Exchange Committee on Language Efforts for five years. From 1985 to 1991, he was the Academy’s Faculty Representative to the NCAA. During Academic Year 1990–1991, he took an “internal sabbatical” to develop, using authorization recently granted the Academy, a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement to jointly produce with a private enterprise a videodisc for foreign language learning. Under the agreement, the product was to be used at the Academy and sold commercially with the Academy sharing in the profits. He was an Instructor Pilot in the cadet flying program from 1984 until 1991. Randy was selected to be the Dean of the Faculty in 1991 and promoted to brigadier general. As Dean, Randy guided the formulation of the Academy’s core values and Character Development Program. Randy retired from the USAF in 1998.
Upon retirement Randy became the Athletic Director at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. In October 2000 he was selected as the President of the Falcon Foundation, a non-profit organization that supports the Academy’s admissions process by providing preparatory school scholarships to deserving young men and women seeking to gain admittance to the USAFA. Randy served the foundation for 10 years as President. From 2012 to 2014 Randy served as President/CEO of Parents Challenge Foundation, another non-profit that provides low-income families with funds so their children can attend a better performing K–12 school in the Colorado Springs area. He was selected for the USAFA Association of Graduates’ Distinguished Graduate Award in 2011 and for the Colorado Springs (2001) and the USAFA’s (2015) Sports Halls of Fame as a member of the 1958 Cotton Bowl Football Team. In May 2014 he was awarded the National Ellis Island Medal of Honor by the National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations that celebrated both his military career accomplishments and Puerto Rican heritage.