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The base had recently lost its mission as an F-16 pilot training site as part of the Base Realignment and Closure process when he was asked to lead it.
The F-16 fighters were gone from Springfield in 2010, and Schnulo took over in 2011 as the base continued to transition to flying the unmanned MQ-1 Predator for surveillance and reconnaissance missions overseas. The Springfield base is critical to the area’s economy, generating about $59 million in payroll from its 1,200 total employees.
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“There were a lot of things I was able to be a part of during my career, but really, having the opportunity to be the wing commander of the 178th, that was kind of the crowning moment,” Schnulo said.
At roughly the same time, the 178th Wing took on a separate intelligence mission in which guard members began working closely with the National Air and Space Intelligence Center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Many of the airmen had little training initially, but have since become leaders in their field, he said.
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“We were sending maintenance guys to intelligence school, which I’m proud to say they did very well both in the school and on the job,” he said.
Schnulo didn’t initially plan on a career in the military. He joined the Air Force Reserves after high school and signed on with the National Guard because they offered money for college at the time. The idea was to move on to a civilian career once he graduated.
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“Luckily for me it didn’t work out that way,” he said.
One of his first roles was working as an avionics mechanic, and he later became a navigator on the KC 135 Stratotanker based at Rickenbacker Air National Guard Base in Columbus. Eventually though, those planes were upgraded with global positioning equipment and he moved into fields that included logistics and security.
“I tell everybody I lost my job to a computer,” Schnulo said.
In 2015, he left the Springfield base to become Ohio assistant adjutant general for the Ohio Air National Guard and then in early 2016, was promoted to brigadier general.
Schnulo is confident the Springfield base will continue to attract new missions going forward, he said, in part because airmen here adapted so well to the stress of taking on brand new missions in recent years.
“The culture there is amazing,” Schnulo said. “I’m not saying I had anything to do with it. I came into it luckily, and after I left they maintained it.’
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