Colonel Laurel “Buff” Burkel, Wounded Warrior, author, mentor and motivation speaker, will keynote the 11th Annual Veterans Trust Fund Dinner on November 7th. A senior navigator with more than 2,100 flight hours (including 285 combat and combat support hours) in training, F-4, C-141, and C-130 aircraft. She also commanded an operational C-130 squadron.
Colonel Burkel retired from the US Air Force in December 2018 after over 27 years of service.
Both at home and deployed, she served in a variety of leadership positions at the group, wing, major command, Headquarters Air Force, joint, and international levels, including tours in the Republic of Korea, Canada, and Afghanistan.
She is a distinguished graduate of the University of Michigan’s Air Force Reserve Officer Training Program and holds a bachelor’s degree in Biology from the University of Michigan and a master’s degrees in Human Resource Management (MS) from Chapman University, National Security Affairs (MS with Distinction) from US Naval Postgraduate School, and Strategic Studies (MA) from the US Air Force Air War College.
On her last deployment in 2015, Colonel Burkel served as the advisor to the Afghan Air Force’s Director of Training in Kabul, Afghanistan. Her deployed tour was cut short due to the injuries she sustained from the October 2015 NATO helicopter crash in Kabul that took the lives of two of her subordinates.
She now serves as an inspirational/motivational speaker, sharing the story of her survival and recovery from the crash to highlight the power and positivity of our support to and for each other and its fundamental connection to our personal resilience.
Colonel Burkel is a contributing author to the 2023 #1 International Best Seller, “Tenacity – Deconstructing G.R.I.T. Collection.” An Air Force Wounded Warrior, she serves as an AFW2 Program Ambassador and Mentor.
A member of the St Louis Blues Warriors hockey team, a USA Hockey-affiliated disabled veterans hockey program, she is one of Team Gold’s alternate captains and Secretary on the team’s Board of Directors. She also serves as an assistant coach with the Southern Illinois Lady Hawks girl’s hockey team and is a member of the Girls Scouts of Eastern Missouri Board of Directors and of multiple professional and service organizations.