Wilbur L. Creech

General Creech was born in Argyle, Missouri, on March 30, 1927. His first experience with the military was when he enlisted as a private in July 1944 after graduating from Emmetsburg High School in Iowa. He was a command pilot, experienced in 40 different military fighter, cargo and reconnaissance aircraft. ==Post-military==

In 1985, after retiring from the Air Force, General Creech moved to Henderson, Nevada and began his own management advisory company, where he consultant for companies like General Electric, General Motors, IBM, ITT, Johnson & Johnson, Litton and Lockheed. He also became a motivational speaker and served on the Chicago-based Centel's corporate board and on the board of directors for several smaller corporations. Creech died on Tuesday, August 26, 2003 at his home in Henderson. He was interred with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery. ==Awards and decorations==

The 1982 Diamond Crash was an accident that involved four Northrop T-38 Talon jets in training on 18 January 1982, killing all four pilots. It is the worst operational accident in the history of the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds Air Demonstration Team. When this accident happened, Wilbur Creech was the commanding general of the USAF Tactical Air Command. On 2 April 1984 all copies of the crash videotape were destroyed, with Creech himself erasing the final crash segment of the master tape. He claimed to have done this to save the families from morbid sensationalism. At the time of the destruction, the families of the pilots and NBC had already demanded access to the tapes as part of a suit against Northrop Corporation and a Freedom of Information Act request, respectively. Creech did not seek JAG guidance prior to destroying the tapes, and asked personnel who had been involved in reviewing the tapes to leave the room prior to his erasure. On June 20, 2005, Indian Springs Air Force Auxiliary Field, where the accident happened, officially changed its name to Creech Air Force Base in honor of General Wilbur L. "Bill" Creech, who was known as the "father of the Thunderbirds" and who was himself a Thunderbird pilot. ==Publications==

The Five Pillars of TQM: How to Make Total Quality Management Work for You (1995) written under the pen name Bill Creech ==See also==