The 482nd Maintenance Group

This is the next in the News Leader’s continuing series of articles on Military Units at Homestead Air Reserve Base (HARB). On the 16th of August, we sat down with Lieutenant Colonel Michael Maise, the new Commander of the 482nd Maintenance Group, to discuss the Group and its mission to both develop and train maintainers and to support the combat readiness of the aircraft and equipment assigned to the 482nd Fighter Wing, particularly the 28 F-16’s of the 93rd Fighter Squadron.

The Group and its two Maintenance Squadrons has over 500 Airmen assigned. These personnel are a mix of Active Duty and Dual Status Technicians who work full time, and Traditional Reservist who drill one weekend a month and for two weeks during active training. LTC Maise told us he has served in all of these statuses. A native of Venice, Louisiana, he enlisted in the Air Force in 1995. He served on the enlisted side as a Precision Measurement Equipment Laboratory Technician and as an instructor in that field.

Maise was commissioned in 2001 through Officer Training School. We asked him about his decision to serve, he said, “I was the youngest of 10 kids and the first to take that path. I always wanted to be in uniform. There was a Reserve unit, the 926th near us pre-Katrina and we visited it when I was in grade school. I saw myself doing that.”

He transitioned to the Air Force Reserve and pursued his passion for educating and training in the civilian sector as well, serving as a college campus president for 15 years. In what LTC Maise called “A full circle,” he would command the 926th Aircraft Maintenance Squadron, now located at Nellis AFB from April 2020 to July 2022.

Prior to coming to the 482nd LTC, Maise was selected in a unique opportunity for an Air Force Reserve Officer, to command an Active Air Force Maintenance Squadron. From August 2022 through April 2024, he commanded the 41st Rescue Generation Squadron (RGS) located at Moody AFB, Georgia. The 41st RGS maintains the Air Forces most modern rescue helicopter, the HH-60W.

During Maise’s tenure in command, the unit was chosen as the Air Force’s Best Maintenance Unit. As in our interview with Colonel Kelly, which ran as a two-part article in the July 12th and 19th editions, and is available on our website, we asked about coming changes to the Fighter Wing and to the Base. LTC Maise told us that a big first step in the transition to a Deployable Fighter Wing is the upgrading of the Wings assigned F-16s.

He said, “We have done a ton of work just in the last 3 weeks to make sure we meet those depot inputs.” He explained that aircraft need to be ready to be flown to the depot maintenance location on schedule and in a condition to minimize the time required to complete the upgrades to avionics and other aircraft systems. He told us, “We are going to have the oldest but most modernized F-16s in the entire Air Force.” Continuing, LTC Maise said, “Another game changer for us is getting our large hanger back in October or November. It’s been undergoing remodel for the last 3 years. With the monsoon season here, we have to shut down maintenance on the flightline almost every afternoon.”

In the next part of this article, we will cover the training focus of the Maintenance Group, structural changes to the Fighter Wing and go into why LTC Maise asked us to emphasize his comment that, “We’re Hiring.”