Russ Pritchard
CEO
Kristine Dipple
Administration
Darin Chung
Aviation
Sabira Rezaie
Special Initiatives
Russ Pritchard
A former Chief Marketing Officer, Russ maintains a private practice writing content for small and medium sized businesses. Russ is a triathlete, marathoner, Spartan competitor, and a lover of endurance events. A former U.S. Army Ranger pulled him into the vortex of Afghanistan during the withdrawal of U.S. forces in the summer of 2021. For weeks, Russ and the Army Ranger wrote a story a day about Afghans in peril. Working on a code team and as a flight medic during college served as the foundation when he organized the Afghan Medical Corps in October 2021, an underground movement that has facilitated more than 1,400 infant deliveries, responded to more than 5,500 emergency medical requests, and delivered food to more than 40,000 impoverished Afghans. Living between two cultures, Pritchard is raising an Afghan son who was separated from his family at the gates of Hamid Karzai International Airport in August 2021. He lives by the mantras NEVER QUIT and ALWAYS HERE.
Kristine Dipple
Kristine met Afghan refugees through Bethany Christian Services as a volunteer teaching English and American Culture in December 2021. This led to a mentoring role with three former PC 12 Afghan Special Mission Wing pilots. With a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry and thirteen years’ experience in business development, Dipple has been a co-lead on a First Robotics team project, a 4H leader, a Science Olympiad coach, and Vice President of a large Michigan equine association. She has a keen interest in aviation as her oldest son is an aerospace engineer (CalPoly) and is with Stratolaunch as Talon 1 Program Manager and Flight Engineer.
Darin "Wang" Chung
An airline pilot and retired Marine Corps officer and F/A-18 Hornet pilot, as well as an entrepreneur whose connection to Afghan refugees comes first via several military friends - many of whom owe their lives to Afghan (and Iraqi) interpreters and colleagues next to whom they fought beside throughout innumerable ground combat deployments. Secondly, Darin’s wife, Nikki, was a supervisor for a local refugee resettlement agency where he first met Afghan refugees and families (including his first Afghan Air Force pilot) through the course of being a volunteer mentor to single Afghan refugees starting in late 2022. As an active airline pilot, Darin has assembled and coordinated both material and employment support across the U.S. airline industry for AAF members. Working in concert with Russ and Kristine, Darin is responsible for connecting a growing number of Afghan Air Force members (pilots and maintainers) with career training opportunities and jobs as commercial pilots and maintenance technicians.
Sabira Rezaie
Lt. Rezaie was on track to become the first female helicopter pilot in the Afghan Air Force for the Republic of Afghanistan. She was training in Slovakia in the Raytheon Technologies program funded by the U.S. Air Force when the American military withdrew, and Afghanistan collapsed to the Taliban. The sixth of ten children of Colonel Khaliqdad Rezaie, a career military officer, Lt. Rezaie dreamed of flying at a young age and fought for women’s rights in the Afghan military services, becoming one of the few females to graduate from the Afghan Air Force Academy. She appeared on billboards in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, standing next to Mrs. Ghani, wife of President Ghani, along with other female officers of the Afghan Air Force. Lt. Rezaie came to the United States as part of Operation Allies Welcome. Her family, like so many Afghan families persecuted by the Taliban, is scattered on multiple continents. Lt. Rezaie works on the medical side of refugee resettlement and is back in college. It is her dream to reunite her family and return to flying.
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