On June 10, the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, Major General Gerhard Christiner, presented Brigadier Arnold Staudacher with the “Grand Decoration of Honor for Services to the Republic of Austria”.
Brigadier Staudacher has been with the Austrian Armed Forces since 1986. After training at the Theresian Military Academy, he began his career as an officer in airspace surveillance at the operations center/base area in St. Johann im Pongau as a radar control officer and supported pilots in their daily missions for seven years. After completing the general staff course, he held a wide variety of management positions in the air force, including
- as head of the airspace surveillance staff (LRÜ),
- as commander of the LRÜ operations center,
- as Head of Department in the Air Staff of the Armed Forces and
- was most recently Deputy Commander of the Air Force.
In his current role as Joint 6, he makes every effort, within the framework of the legal possibilities, to ensure the operational capability of information and communication systems and ICT operations in the area of responsibility of the armed forces and, as a result of these activities, has provided valuable services to the Austrian Armed Forces and the Republic of Austria, especially during the Covid-19 assistance mission.
He always passed on his specialist knowledge in his range of tasks. His commitment to the creation and revision of regulations, leaflets, training aids, brochures and information material for the Air Force made him particularly deserving of recognition.
In his almost 30-year career with the Austrian Armed Forces, Brigadier Staudacher has also had numerous experiences abroad, including
- several months of training as an Air Weapons Controller with the US Air Force,
- several weeks of air combat exercises in France and Great Britain and
- the General Staff and Admiral Staff Service course with specialization in air warfare in Germany.
He spent a total of three and a half years of his service abroad (two of them in Germany, one year in Kosovo and six months in the USA). He was also involved in Airpower 11, 13 and 16. In 2018, he took over the project management for Airpower 2019.
