David J. Campanale

Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force David J. Campanale (born October 7, 1952) was the eleventh person appointed to the highest noncommissioned officer position in the United States Air Force.

Chief Campanale was born in Worcester, Massachusetts. He graduated from North High School and entered the Air Force in October 1970. He completed technical training as an aircraft maintenance specialist at Sheppard Air Force Base, Texas. In February 1971, he was assigned as a B-52 Stratofortress crew chief in the 2nd Organization Maintenance Squadron, Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana. While there, he completed three successive tours at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, in support of B-52 Operation Arc Light missions in Southeast Asia. His career includes tours at bases in Indiana, Hawaii, New Hampshire, and Nebraska. He served as Senior Enlisted Advisor to the 93rd Bomb Wing, Castle Air Force Base, California; and Air Mobility Command, Scott Air Force Base, Illinois.

CMSAF Campanale served as the Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force from October 1994 to November 1996. He retired from active duty effective January 1, 1997. He now resides in southern Arizona, and frequently speaks at USAF gatherings.

His most notable contributions during his time on active duty in the CMSAF slot include a major push for single dorm occupancy (which led to the current dorm single occupancy policy,) and a reduction of DUI incidents at Castle AFB in 1 year from over 190, to less than 5.

Chief Campanale also fought a USAF uniform change, which removed name tapes and rank insignia from the battle dress uniform. The USAF swapped for a short time to a single black label worn over the left breast pocket which contained text including the rank, name, and position of the invidiual. Disagreeing with this change, Chief Campanale said, "To prove my point, I had the secretary of a 3-star General remove the stars (rank insignia) from the Generals' BDU collar, then affixed the black label over his nametape as would be worn by everyone else. I then challenged that if he were to walk with me around the base, nobody would salute or render courtesies, since they couldn't read it. He accepted my challenge, and after about an hour of walking, someone finally recognized the General and said, "Hey.. aren't you General so and so?"" Within a few weeks, the black patch was being phased out, and the rank insignia/name tapes were on the way back in.