Col. Dave Turenne begins as Wing Commander at CFB Cold Lake

4 Wing Cold Lake has a new head boss.

Colonel Dave Turenne formally accepted command of 4 Wing Cold Lake from Brigadier-General Dave Moar during a ceremony held at the air base on Friday afternoon.

Col. Turenne has served in a variety of command, flying, and staff roles throughout his career, most recently serving as the J7 Deputy Director at NORAD and USNORTHCOM Headquarters in Colorado Springs.

He had previously been posted to Cold Lake and is familiar with the area. It is his first Wing Command position and becomes the 31st in 4 Wing’s history.

“I was excited to come back to Cold Lake. There’s only really three wing options that we have for fighter types. So Cold Lake was by far my number one choice. I spent probably nine years of my career here. And I’m from Alberta, so it’s nice to be close to home. I just really enjoy being here,” he said.

“The top of my agenda, I am familiar with operations here, and while I know some of the people in the community side, those are some relationships that I’m going to have to build. And start to get out and meet those folks, now that we can and it’s a little bit more easy to get to see people in person, so that’s community side.

“The base side, where we have all of our family support organizations, and those types of things are things that I’ve been connected to in the past as a Squadron Commander, mostly as a user of those services. So it’s just getting on the other side of that role, getting to know those people.”

Brigadier-General Moar served three years as Wing Commander since starting in 2019. He is being deployed under Operation FOUNDATION as the Director of the Combined Aerospace Operations Centre (CAOC) Qatar.

“It has been the greatest honour of my life to have led 4 Wing during the last three years,” said Moar. “Despite being Canada’s busiest operational Wing with a number of challenging mandates, our outstanding team has never failed to succeed. We have a Wing of exceptional people, all of whom I will miss dearly.”

The Wing Change of Command ceremony was presided over by the Commander of 1 Canadian Air Division in Winnipeg, Major-General Eric Kenny. MLA David Hanson was also on hand, along with members of Cold Lake city council and Cold Lake First Nations, as well as hundreds of military members.

When asked about the tumultuous times globally he’s stepping into with the Ukraine-Russia conflict and coming out of COVID, Col. Turenne said it’s something he’s familiar with from his work at Colorado Springs.

“Now I’m just closer to those operations as opposed to watching them, and in planning for those from the headquarters perspective. I think what’s on our mind right now is how do we manage our capability and the people that we have so that we can continue to provide our operational capability without burning people out? We need to train people, newly qualified people, that are coming onto the Wing and we need to be able to do both and manage those,” he said.

Col. Turenne and his wife have three children. His wife has worked at the Cold Lake Health Services clinic and for the Department of National Defence.

He says he is happy to be back in Cold Lake and into his new role.