VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. –
Lt. Col. Scott A. Hill took command of the 203rd RED HORSE Squadron during a change-of-command ceremony on Aug. 11 at Camp Pendleton in Virginia Beach.
The 203rd RHS, a Virginia Air National Guard unit, provides a highly mobile, rapidly deployable, self-sufficient civil engineering response force for mobilization to augment the Air Force and Army in the event of national emergency or war. The unit has also provided assistance to the Commonwealth and other Eastern Seaboard states in the aftermath of hurricanes.
Lt. Col. Hill was commissioned in 1987 into the Mississippi Air National Guard after graduating from Mississippi State University on a four-year Air Force ROTC scholarship. While in the Mississippi ANG, he was assigned to the 255th Air Control Squadron and the 238th Combat Communications Squadron. Since transferring to the Virginia ANG in 1999, he has been assigned to the 192nd Fighter Wing, Sandston; the U.S. Joint Forces Command, Norfolk; and the 203rd RED HORSE Squadron.
In his civilian occupation, Lt. Col. Hill works for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration at the Langley Research Center in Hampton, where he is the assistant branch chief of the Structural & Thermal Analysis Branch. He is also the co-lead of a NASA multi-center team of discipline experts responsible for developing the next generation of Lunar and Mars exploration vehicles.
Prior to working at Langley, he was a senior structural design engineer at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and an aerospace engineer at the Naval Aviation Depot at Pensacola Naval Air Station, Florida.
In addition to his bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from MSU, Lt. Col. Hill also holds a master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from The George Washington University.
Since joining the VaANG, Lt. Col. Hill served as a 192d Civil Engineering Squadron operations officer from January 1999 to March 2001, and a joint staff J-6 C4 (command, control, communications & computer system) plans action officer, from March 2001 to February 2004, at Joint Forces Command. In February 2004 he joined the 203d RHS as a civil engineer.
Lt. Col. Hill becomes the fourth commander of the 203d RHS. He is one of the approximately 125 unit members to recently return from a deployment to Southwest Asia where the unit performed a variety of construction projects in support of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom.
He takes command from Lt. Col. Paul D. Julian, who has served as unit commander since January 2004. Lt. Col. Julian is taking over Air Staff Personnel and Logistics (A-1/4) duties at the Joint Force Headquarters – Virginia, Air Component located at Richmond International Airport.
Lt. Col. Julian holds a bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering Technology from Old Dominion University, Norfolk. He is a licensed Professional Engineer and Land Surveyor for Countryside Service Company, LC, a major land developer in the Shenandoah Valley.
He has participated in or led numerous deployments across the United States and to nine other countries. He took command of the unit shortly after it returned from its first mobilization to Southwest Asia. He oversaw 56 unit members, activated over Labor Day weekend 2004 and sent to Florida to assist in hurricane recovery; then led the 203d as it and its sister unit prepared for and carried out a successful Air Force Operational Readiness Inspection which ended just before preparation began for the October 2006 deployment to Southwest Asia.