From combat pilot to commandant, from the Joint Staff to state leadership: Retired U.S. Air Force Col. Terrance J. “Marco” McCaffrey has built a career around mission-focused leadership and strategic impact.
While it’s rare for mission-driven organizations like Civil Air Patrol to find someone who can lead in the air and on the ground, in crisis and in the classroom, it’s a reality with McCaffrey — CAP’s new director of operations.
“As interim director, Terry demonstrated the strongest overall alignment with the role, combining a mission-driven mindset with proven operational leadership across all evaluation areas — from cross-functional collaboration and performance accountability to fiscal stewardship and strategic partnerships — making him the clear choice to lead Civil Air Patrol operations forward,” said Michael Nunemaker, CAP’s chief strategy officer and chief programs and missions officer.
With four advanced degrees, command pilot wings, and decades of experience leading teams across military, government, and education, McCaffrey brings the kind of leadership that strengthens organizations from the inside out.
McCaffrey, a resident of Tallahassee, Florida, served as CAP’s interim operations director the past four months. His operational scope as interim director and now as director includes nearly 70,000 volunteer members, 545 aircraft, 3,500 small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (drones), and 1,100 ground vehicles in 52 wings — making CAP one of the most agile and impactful response forces in the nation.
“Happy to still be here and support,” said McCaffrey, calling his experience with CAP “a good fit.”
“When I was looking for a position a couple of years ago, the deputy director of operations came up and I read the advertisement for that, I said, ‘Well, they’re reading my resume.’ I had a lot of the experience they were looking for.”
McCaffrey applied for the deputy director position in 2023 after working in emergency services following his Air Force career.
“I did spend a couple of years in the state of Florida running our emergency management program for what’s called emergency support functions, ES15, which is volunteer management for emergencies,” he said.
“So I understood how you engage volunteer organizations to support disaster response. That was one of my roles. And then obviously my aviation background. I’ve worked in the military and as a civilian flight instructor in single-engine aircraft too. I think it all came together to a large extent and just made sense.”
Before he joined National Headquarters in 2023, McCaffrey served as vice president of Military and Defense Programs at Enterprise Florida Inc. and performed duties with the state of Florida with Volunteer Florida, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.
He transitioned to state government after more than 30 years in the Air Force.
After graduating from the U.S. Air Force Academy with a bachelor’s degree in human factors engineering in 1988, he and his family completed 18 assignments across the nation and around the world.
“I’ve learned a lot of different things in a lot of different areas,” McCaffrey said.
“When you look back at it over the totality of a career, all of these different things gave me a lot of different perspectives and a lot of experiences that have been really useful to where I am now.”
McCaffrey is a command pilot with more than 2,500 flight hours in more than 18 military and civilian aircraft types — primarily the F-111 Aardvark E, AT-38B Talon, F-15C Eagle, T-6A Texan, Piper PA-28, and Beech Baron. He commanded at the squadron, group, and wing levels and completed four Air and Joint Staff tours in Japan, Colorado, Hawaii, and Virginia.
He also led three large education programs, including service as director of the Doctrine and Education Group on the Department of Defense Joint Staff, commandant of Squadron Officer College at Air University, and chair, Department of Aerospace Studies, and commander, Air Force ROTC Detachment 145, at Florida State University.
McCaffrey holds master’s degrees in national resource strategy, airpower strategy, military art and science, and public administration.
In addition to his work at CAP, he’s a certificated flight instructor, helping students pursue single- and multi-engine ratings as future private, instrument, commercial, and/or instructor pilots.
In his free time, McCaffrey has written two books and several journal articles. “Fighting Aardvarks and Eagles: Building a Multi-Role Fighter Pilot One Mission at a Time” is a memoir of his Air Force experiences.
He also volunteers as a member at large on the Florida Veterans Foundation Board of Directors. In July 2023 he was appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis as Florida’s commissioner and state representative to the national Military Interstate Children’s Compact Commission.
Does he have any immediate plans for CAP operations?
McCaffrey said his vision as director is “to adjust some things along the way as we move forward to hopefully make CAP operate better.”
Part of that effort is the establishment of an emergency officer position inside CAP operations.
“We’d didn’t have that before, even though that’s the main role of the operations side – emergency services,” he said. “We didn’t have an ES position, so we created that, and that’s just getting started.”
He added, “I’m trying to do a few other things to adjust inside the structure of operations to support CAP better and coordinate with Logistics better because we’ve had some changes there too.
“We have to figure out how to engage across the corporation better so they can support us better.”
McCaffrey and his wife, Lisa, a first-grade teacher at Killearn Lakes Elementary School in Tallahassee, have three children: Garrett, a senior software developer; Trevor, an assistant vice president of operations; and Mallory, a senior pursuing degrees in criminology and psychology at Florida State University.
