Last week saw a changeover in Station Commander for RAF Boulmer, with Group Captain Kevin ‘Chesh’ Cowieson departing and Group Captain David Keighley taking over.
Group Captain K S ‘Chesh’ Cowieson joined the RAF in 1989 and commissioned in 1992. He assumed Command of RAF Boulmer in August 2018, prior to this he was a Programme Director for the UK Ballistic Missile Defence Programme, the RAF Space Programme and the Defence-wide Link 16 Sustainment Programme. Group Captain Cowieson has served at RAF Boulmer on five previous occasions and has been deployed to RAF Stations within the UK as well as Afghanistan, Italy, USA, Malaysia, Canada, Crete, Cyprus and France.
During his time at RAF Boulmer, Gp Capt Cowieson has promoted the importance of looking after your mental health and developing resilience, encouraging staff and personnel to do so with dedicated mindfulness days. He has overseen the standing up of Engineering and Logistics Wing, and the first stage of Operation Guardian which will see a major restructure of how RAF Boulmer contributes to and delivers 24/7 UK Air Defence during Group Captain Keighley’s tenure.
Following his handover of Command, Group Captain Cowieson will be attending the Royal College of Defence Studies in London.
Group Captain David Keighley joins RAF Boulmer as Station Commander and Director of Battlespace Management Operations after a stint with the European Union’s Liaison and Planning Cell in Tunisia, where he worked alongside the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (based in Tunis). He has spent the last three years as the Branch Head for Information Management and Resilience within NATO’s Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe in Belgium.
Commissioned in 1990 as an Air Operations (Surveillance) Officer, Group Captain Keighley spent the first four years of his career undertaking tours at RAF Neatishead, 303 Signals Unit in the Falkland Islands, and RAF Benbecula in the Outer Hebrides. He has also previously been deployed with NATO in Afghanistan.
