Star Power

Clark is the only UW–Madison alum who’s also a currently serving general officer in the U.S. Air Force. Courtesy of Andrew Clark

For most people, a one-star review is no cause for excitement, but then the cadets in the UW’s Air Force ROTC program aren’t most people. They loved their one-star review, because that star belonged to Brigadier General Andrew Clark ’95, the only UW–Madison alum who’s also a currently serving general officer in the U.S. Air Force. When Clark returned to campus to review the program, and to offer mentoring and insight to its students, they were thrilled to turn out.

Clark came back to campus in October 2024 as part of the Air Force’s Mentorship Matters program, in which general officers visit ROTC programs to connect with young officers-to-be. “[The Air Force] pays you to come back twice a year, meet with the cadets, talk to them, share experiences,” Clark says. And he had a great deal to share, in addition to the prestige of his rank. He is one of the few pilots ever to fly a U2 spy plane — one of the most difficult aircraft in the U.S. fleet. It flies at about 70,000 feet, capturing photos of foreign countries.

“More people have Super Bowl rings than have flown a U2,” he says.

After his U2 days were over, Clark continued in a role in aerial reconnaissance and intelligence. In 2024, he was serving as the commanding officer of a NATO air base in Sicily, one that was responsible for keeping an eye on NATO’s eastern borders, including Russia.

“We started receiving aircraft in 2019, went to initial operating capacity in 2021, and then with the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, we started operating at a much higher level,” he says.

The 2024 campus visit was Clark’s first involvement with Mentorship Matters, and he found interacting with the students sharpened his focus as they looked to learn what a cadet needs to do to earn a pilot’s wings or a general’s stars.

“They asked good questions,” he says. “The first was, ‘What’s your why?’ For me, the service is the reward — serving a cause higher than myself. And at the higher level, as a brigadier general, it’s the ability to take care of people and effect changes that will make their lives and quality of service better. Taking care of people is intensely rewarding.”

Published in the Summer 2025 issue