Coming Home: Colonel Deane Konowicz, USAF (Retired) Named 2026 Commencement Speaker 

There is a moment, according to this year’s Commencement speaker, that no one can prepare you for.

It comes after the handshakes and the photographs, after the diplomas have been tucked away and the crowds have begun to thin. It's the drive away from campus—down Spring Street or Front Street, it doesn't matter—when the full weight of leaving settles in. "You can never go back to being part of Tabor as a student again," he says, and the pause that follows his words is just as impactful as his words. 

Deane Konowicz ’95, P’24, ’26 knows this feeling twice over. Once as a member of the Class of 1995, when the feeling blindsided him the way it blindsides everyone who loves this place. And again, more recently, as a father watching his daughter Natalie ’24 find her own way to that same reckoning. "I just wanted to give her a hug," he says of Natalie's graduation, "and tell her it's going to be okay." His youngest, Izzie ’26, will experience that feeling soon. 

It is this—the rare capacity to hold both the gravity of service and the tenderness of belonging—that makes Colonel Deane Konowicz the perfect person to stand before the Class of 2026. 

A Career Built on the Edge of History 

Konowicz graduated from Tabor and went on to the United States Air Force Academy, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in history in 1999—a path he traces directly to Steve Downes' history classroom. He would spend the next two and a half decades at the forefront of America's most consequential defense work. 

He is currently a senior analyst at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and the lab’s Utah field office site lead. Prior to retiring from the Air Force in July of last year, he served as the Commander of the Air Force Inspection Agency at Kirtland Air Force Base, New Mexico, where he led a team responsible for independent oversight, evaluation, and continuous improvement across all levels of Air Force operations—serving as the action arm for the Secretary of the Air Force. His career spans nuclear deterrence operations, international arms control treaty inspections under the New START Treaty in both the United States and Russia, and command of the 625th Strategic Operations Squadron. He deployed to Southwest Asia in support of Operations Inherent Resolve and Spartan Shield, and served as Vice Commander of the 20th Air Force, overseeing the nation's intercontinental ballistic missile force. 

His decorations include the Legion of Merit with two oak leaf clusters, the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, and the Meritorious Service Medal with five oak leaf clusters, among others. He holds master's degrees from the University of Wyoming, Air Command and Staff College, and the Naval War College, where he graduated as a distinguished scholar in National Security and Strategic Studies. 

And yet, when asked what shaped him as a leader, he returns again and again to Tabor. 

"It Sets Those Core Values" 

Konowicz arrived at Tabor as a student who had never played lacrosse; he quit baseball and decided to try something new. He says he learned to play lacrosse alongside Math Department Chair and Coach Will Becker, who was learning to coach the sport at the same time. Konowicz left Tabor having served as captain of both the cross-country and wrestling teams—and as a lacrosse player skilled enough that the sport ultimately carried him to the Air Force Academy.

Sports weren’t his only pursuits at Tabor, either. He took stained glass in Braitmayer. He sang in chorus, tone-deaf he admits, and was grateful for it. He walked the long path through the woods from Daggett to the dining hall each morning and learned, without quite realizing it, what it felt like to find stillness in the middle of a demanding life. 

A cherished Tabor tradition also brought him a sense of stillness. "I often looked at Chapel as a place to stare out the stained-glass windows and let my mind wander," Konowicz remembers. "And I think in a chaotic world—certainly as a military commander—finding those small places throughout the day to reflect is something I carried with me." 

He credits Tabor's insistence on a full liberal arts education—arts alongside sciences, humanities alongside athletics—as foundational to everything that followed. "All of the technology and innovation in the world, when it comes to leadership, it all comes back to inspiring people," he says. "And you don't get that through STEM alone." 

A Full Circle 

When Konowicz's oldest daughter Natalie enrolled at Tabor, it was her seventh school. His family had moved with the military, and he knew—with the certainty of someone who had lived it—that a life at Tabor would give her what constant relocation couldn't: continuity, community, a place to plant roots. 

He was right. Both Natalie and Izzie found their own place at Tabor, independently of each other and, in many ways, independently of their father's experience. "What tickled me," he says with unmistakable warmth, "is how much they each found their own Tabor." Izzie found her place on the Tabor Boy crew—currently serving in her second year as XO—while Natalie engaged with the arts and creative writing.  

Yet, they all shared similar experiences despite their different paths. All three of them have had Mr. Becker as a math teacher. For Konowicz, that kind of connection across generations isn't just sentimental—it's the whole point. "If faculty spanning 35 years doesn't help connections across time more than the physical institution itself," he says, "I don't know what does." 

This spring, as his younger daughter Izzie walks across the stage with the Class of 2026, Konowicz will be watching with the particular knowledge of someone who has stood in this moment from every angle: as a student, as a parent, and now as the person asked to find words for what it all means. 

He isn't worried about being remembered for what he says. He is thinking about something smaller and more lasting—about helping the graduates build one more core memory before they go, so that when the road gets hard, they know exactly where to return. 

"This idea that you're not alone," he says quietly. "That's important."

Join us for the 2026 Commencement Exercises. Information about the livestreamed event and other end of year activities can be found online at taboracademy.org/celebration-of-seniors or on the End of Year tile in myTA.