LtCol Art Tomassetti was born in Port Chester, New York on March 13, 1964. He attended elementary schools in New York and Florida where he graduated from St. Thomas Aquinas High School in 1982. Lt. Col. Tomassetti was commissioned as a 2nd Lt in from the NROTC program in June of 1986. After completing The Basic School in Quantico , VA he began flight training in Pensacola, FL and continued on to Jet Training in Beeville, TX. Upon receiving his wings, he began flight training in the AV-8B Harrier in Cherry Pt, NC in 1988. He served with two Fleet Harrier Squadrons VMA-542 and VMA-513 and held a variety of billets including Standardization Officer, Weapons and Tactics Instructor, and Operations Officer. He made two 6-month deployments to the Western Pacific and spent 9 months in the Persian Gulf for Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. During Desert Storm, he flew 39 combat missions in the AV-8B Harrier throughout the Kuwait Theater of operations.
In 1997, he attended the United States Naval Test Pilot School in Patuxent River, MD in class 112. He was assigned to the Strike Aircraft Test Squadron where he conducted flight test in the both the F/A-18 and AV-8B aircraft. Lt. Col. Tomassetti served as a member of the Joint Strike Fighter Test Force and became the lead government pilot for the X-35 Test Team. He was the only U.S. government pilot to fly all three variants of the X-35 aircraft and flew the first ever Short Take-Off, level supersonic dash and vertical landing accomplished on a single flight. LtCol Tomassetti also served as the USMC JSF Program Integrator at the Lockheed Martin Facility in Ft. Worth TX. He has over 2900 hours of flight time in more than 30 different types of aircraft and is currently qualified in the F/A-18 and EA-6B.
LtCol Tomassetti reported back to Pax River in 2004 and is currently serving as the Commanding Officer for Air Test and Evaluation Squadron 23. He is a member of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots and on the Board of Directors for the John Glenn Squadron of the Marine Corps Aviation Association. He has a BS degree in Mechanical Engineering from Northwestern University and a MS in Aviation System from the University of Tennessee. LtCol Tomassetti is a graduate of the USMC Expeditionary Warfare School and Command and Staff College in Quantico, VA. His awards include two Defense Meritorious Service Medals, Air Medal with "V" device for Valor and numeral three, two Navy Commendation Medals, and the Navy Achievement Medal.
