Col Eric D. Steele is the Commander of the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps Detachment 880 and the Professor of Aerospace Studies at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Virginia. He leads a team of ten active-duty and civilian personnel and is responsible for training, educating, and developing a cadet wing of more than 150 cadets into leaders and future Air Force and Space Force officers.

Col Steele entered active duty in 2001 through the Air Force Reserve Officer Training program at Fresno State University in California. He has served in multiple operational tours and completed several deployments in support of United States geographic combatant commands and named operations to include Operation ENDURING FREEDOM and Operation IRAQI FREEDOM.

Col Steele has served twice on the Headquarters United States Air Forces in Europe-Air Forces Africa staff, and he previously commanded at the squadron level with NATO’s Alliance Ground Surveillance Force in Italy. He is a senior pilot with more than 1,900 flight hours, primarily in the RQ-4 Global Hawk and E-3 Sentry. Prior to his current assignment, Col Steele was the 319th Operations Group Commander at Grand Forks AFB in North Dakota.