Randall Wakelam

Dr. Randall Wakelam is Associate Professor Emeritus, and is now self employed as a researcher, teacher, facilitator and writing coach. From 2009-2019 he taught a range of undergraduate and graduate history courses covering Canadian, military and air power topics at the Royal Military College of Canada. 

Retiring from the Canadian Forces in 2009 as a colonel, Dr. Wakelam had an extensive military career which began in 1969 as a Reserve musician in Ottawa. After graduating from the Royal Military College in 1975 he flew helicopters for the army, serving in three different squadrons before commanding 408 Squadron in Edmonton from 1991 to 1993. Subsequently he was a member of faculty at the Canadian Forces College in Toronto, the military's professional graduate school, and Director of Professional Development at the Canadian Defence Academy in Kingston, the military's 'ministry of education'. As Director of Curriculum at CFC he led the development for the current suite of executive level professional development courses conducted in Toronto. 

Dr. Wakelam is a Faculty Associate at the Laurier Centre for Military Strategic and Disarmament Studies, a Fellow at the Queen's Centre for International and Defence Policy and serves on a number of editorial boards. In 2009 he published The Science of Bombing: Operational Research in RAF Bomber Command and in 2010 co-edited The Report of the Officer Development Board: Maj-Gen Roger Rowley and the Education of the Canadian Forces. In 2011 he is published Cold War Fighters: Canadian Aircraft Procurement 1945-1954 which examines fighter aircraft procurement in the decade before the AVRO Arrow saga. In 2020 he was lead editor for Educating Air Forces a collection of essays examining the educational philosophies and programmes of major western nations over the past century.  He is currently the lead editor for The Halcyon Years, a study of the RCAF in the 1950s and 60s; it is due to be published by UT Press in 2023. 

• B.A. Comm Royal Military College of Canada
• M.A. War Studies, Royal Military College of Canada 
• Ph.D. Wilfrid Laurier University

Current Interests/Research:

• Air warfare; 
• Canadian military history;
• Higher education including military education and professional development;
• Leadership and decision making.

Online:

• Randall Wakelam on Linkedin 
• Air War Books 
• Laurier Centre for Military Strategic and Disarmament Studies