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Brigadier General
Mark K. Wells
Permanent Professor 2000–2016
B.S., United States Air Force Academy
M.A., Texas Tech University
Ph.D., King’s College, University of London
Mark Wells, the Academy’s 68th Permanent Professor, was born in 1953 to an Air Force family at Reese AFB, Texas. He graduated from the Air Force Academy in 1975 with a major in History and went on to pilot training at Craig AFB, AL. After receiving his wings and attending KC-135 Combat Crew Training School, Castle AFB, CA, he was assigned to an Air Refueling Squadron at Fairchild AFB, WA, 1977–1979. From 1980 to 1983 he was a T-37 Instructor Pilot and Chief, Learning Center Branch at Reese AFB, during which tour he earned his Master’s degree in History from Texas Tech, Lubbock. Mark returned to the Academy from 1983 to 1986 as Instructor of History and T-41 Instructor Pilot. After a year at Air Command and Staff College, he returned to Air Training Command as a Flight Commander at Randolph AFB, TX, 1987–1988. Next followed four years in Europe, where he was for one year a student at King’s College, then two years as Military Assistant to the Commander, Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers, Europe, Casteau, Belgium, and finally another year at King’s College, where his PhD in War Studies was awarded in 1992. His firsthand experiences with NATO’s evolving strategy and changes in conventional force structure served him well during his year as a student at the Army War College, 1992–1993. Mark returned to the Academy and served as Associate Professor and Deputy Head, Department of History, from 1993 until his appointment as Department Head in 1999. In 2000 he was appointed a Permanent Professor. Mark’s deep personal interest in military history, airpower, and the personal dimension of combat drove him to write Courage and Air Warfare: The Allied Aircrew Experience in the Second World War (1995), which won the Society for Military History’s 1997 Distinguished Book Award and was twice selected for the Air Force Chief of Staff’s recommended reading list. He was editor of a second book, Airpower: Promise and Reality (2002), and author of numerous journal articles. From 2005 to 2007 he took a sabbatical assignment to Headquarters US European Command, Stuttgart, Germany, where he worked military/political policy and planning issues. In 2013 he was a Visiting Professor of Strategy for a semester at the Army War College. He is a Command Pilot with over 3,200 flying hours in the KC-135, T-37, T-41, T-3, T-52, and T-53 aircraft and for over two decades taught cadets to fly. Mark was Officer Representative for the Academy football team and the Faculty Athletics Representative to the National Collegiate Athletic Association. He was promoted to brigadier general and retired in 2016.
After retiring, Mark accepted a position with a subsidiary of a United Arab Emirates investment group to lead an American team evaluating the UAE’s Air Force Academy and make recommendations for improvement. After returning home, Mark has been busy publishing articles, serving on the Heritage and Traditions Committee of the Association of Graduates, and being a docent at the National Museum of World War II Aviation in Colorado Springs.