MARINE CORPS AIR STATION YUMA, Ariz. -- A lot can be told about someone by their office. The amount of decorations, awards or pictures can give an idea about how long someone has been there and how successful they have been. Walking into Thomas Manfredi’s office, his plaques, photos and impressive military coin collection stand as a testament to his long career at the air station.
After having worked on station for roughly 30 years, Community Planning and Liaison officer Manfredi retired July 31, 2009.
“I’ve worked with Tom for 22 years now, and I can say we’ve had our ups and downs, but because our personalities are a little different, we’ve worked well together,” said Paula Backs, station community planning technician. “I’ve learned a lot from him, and he’s taught me a lot and brought me up through the years.”
Manfredi joined the Corps in 1970 and served as an artillery officer until 1979.
“As a captain, I was making about $250 every paycheck back then,” said Manfredi. “We moved to Yuma because it was the first time in my life I could afford to buy a house, and Yuma seemed like a good place to raise my kids.”
Manfredi, a native New Yorker and father of three, started his civilian career on station in 1981 as a program analyst, eventually taking his position as the CP&L officer in 1983.
“I was stationed in Hawaii when I came back stateside for a funeral. While I was here I called my monitor to find out where I was going next. He told me I could go anywhere in the world, but I requested to be stationed in Yuma,” said Manfredi. “When I got my orders, all the guys back in my unit asked me what I did wrong, because no ground officer wanted to go to Yuma.”
When Manfredi got to Yuma, the population of the town was just 50,000 people. In 2006, almost 200,000 residents lived in Yuma County, according to a government census.
However, the growth of the town has not equally affected the growth of the air station, said Manfredi.
In 1985, the station saw 196,000 airfield operations, and that number has only increased by 27,000 since.
Manfredi was also part of the group that established the Marine Fighter Training Squadron 401 in 1986.
VMFT-401 was originally run by Israeli KFIR F-21A pilots, who were replaced by F-5N Tiger II Marine reservist pilots more than two years later.
In 1987, Manfredi witnessed the transition to the AV-8B Harrier with the arrival of Marine Aircraft Group 13 and its four Harrier squadrons, replacing the Marine Corps Crew Readiness Training Group 10. He also participated in some of the opening chapters of the air station’s future transition to the F-35B Joint Strike Fighter.
While the growth of the air station has not matched the growth of Yuma, the relationship with the community has only strengthened.
“The only real reward in this job is to be able to go out to the community and ask them, ‘hey, can we train in your city?’ and have them answer ‘yes’ without hesitation,” said Manfredi. “Yuma is a great community. It’s one of the few I’ve seen that actually considers the Marines here ‘their own.’”
While working as a liaison between the air station and the community, Manfredi helped coordinate out-in-town exercises for Desert Talon and the Weapons and Tactics Instructor’s course.
Yuma is the busiest air station in the Corps, and exercise Desert Talon and WTI bring roughly 10,000 Marines from around the world here annually.
“One of the busiest times for the air station I can remember was in ’90 and ’91,” said Manfredi. “We had an influx of Marines coming here for training because of Operation Desert Storm. Everybody wanted to get their Marines trained for deployment. After that, once everyone had deployed, this place was a ghost town.”
After a long career with the Marine Corps both as a commissioned officer and a civilian, Manfredi plans to retire and beat the Yuma heat by taking a trip to the East Coast to see his children and grandchildren before heading to England for a month.
“I can’t believe I’ve spent so much time (in this office). I came to work here in September of ’83 and here it is July of ’09, and I’ve only just moved down the hall from where I started,” said Manfredi.
“This is a sad day for me, I’ve worked with Tom for a long time,” said Backs. “This is a sad day for everyone who has worked with him.”