8 Wing welcomes new Honourary Colonel

Col Sean Friday with outgoing Honourary Colonel Glenn Rainbird, and new Honourary Colonel Armin Quickert signing the official Change of Appointment Certificates. Cpl Rod Doucet photo

By Lt Christopher Daniel, 8 Wing Public Affairs Officer
Members of 8 Wing warmly welcomed new Honourary Colonel Armin Quickert during a Change of Appointment ceremony at CFB Trenton on Wednesday, Dec. 14.
Quickert succeeds Honourary Colonel Glenn Rainbird who had been 8 Wing’s ambassador of goodwill to the Quinte region since April 2007.
The responsibilities of honourary appointments include fostering esprit de corps, developing, promoting and sustaining strong community support for the unit, establishing and maintaining liaison with unit charities and associations, establishing and maintaining a liaison with the Commander as well as with other persons with honourary appointments, participating in parades and official functions in which the unit takes part, and advising the unit’s commander.
“We’re happy to have Honourary Colonel Quickert as a part of the 8 Wing family,” said Colonel Sean Friday, 8 Wing Commander. “His appointment will help foster and further enhance our strong links with the communities in the region.”
During the ceremony, Col. Friday thanked Rainbird for his years of valued service. “We’re grateful for his support and being a rock during a most difficult period in the history of this base.”
Rainbird said he takes pride in the men and women in uniform and he wished the best for his successor.
“I know you will do well and enjoy every minute of it as much as I did,” Rainbird told Quickert.
“I’m looking forward to every adventure this new appointment will bring,” said Quickert. “I’m confident that it will be an exciting and rewarding experience.”
Quickert is retired from being president and general manager of Reid’s Dairy which is now run by his son Stephen.
He is active in the Quinte area as a long-time Kiwanis member, having served as President of the Belleville club and then Lieutenant Governor of Division 11, for which he received the Kiwanis Mel Osborne Fellowship Award. He is a past Chairman of the Canadian Cancer Society Belleville Unit and was a founding member of the Quinte International Air Show. He is a former chairman of the Ontario Dairy Council.
Quickert has held his private pilot licence for more than 35 years and operated an ultra-light aircraft for many of those. He is an avid cyclist and scuba-diver. Also a boating enthusiast, he exercised his boating skills most aptly with a trip that took the family from Trenton, through the Great Lakes to Chicago, down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico. He and his wife Marilyn returned to Belleville along the East Coast to the Hudson River into Lake Ontario – completing the “big loop” as this great adventure is described in boating circles.