A Shining Star in the Space Force 

Written by Diane Krieger | Photographed by Michael Neveux

United States Space Force Col. Mia Walsh (neé Tsutsumi) is living proof the American dream is real. Three of her grandparents came from Japan seeking a better life in Hawaii. Her grandfather toiled in the sugarcane fields on the Big Island so his children wouldn’t have to.

And they succeeded. The Tsutsumis are all professionals. Walsh’s father is a computer engineer in her hometown of Hilo. Her mother is a retired high school librarian. Her sisters are executives in public education and banking.

But Walsh, 48, is the top gun in the Tsutsumi family. She’s commander of Space Base Delta 3 in El Segundo—leading the five squadrons and 11 staff agencies at the Los Angeles Air Force Base. The 100-acre garrison is headquarters to more than 7,000 airmen, Guardians, civilians and contractors.

It’s a big job keeping this tech-dense, $1 billion microcity running, and Walsh executes her duties with relaxed, cheerful efficiency. The office dress code is camouflage fatigues. (“Formal blues are for delivering speeches,” she says, breaking into a smile.) Her easygoing demeanor and petite build defy Jack Nicholson memes about steely-eyed base commanders.

But don’t let this commander’s Aloha spirit fool you. Walsh’s career started in the silo at F.E. Warren AFB in Wyoming, one of three strategic-missile bases where the nation’s nuclear arsenal is kept. If the president had called for a nuclear strike after 9/11, it would have been Walsh’s finger on the launch button.

She received her commission in 1998 as an Air Force ROTC graduate from the University of Hawaii with a degree in math. As she branched out from intercontinental ballistic missile launch operations to space surveillance, her postings took her to Florida, Colorado, Alabama and Qatar. Along the way, she earned master’s degrees in space operations, military operations and national resource strategy. Her last assignment was at the Pentagon as chief of operations for the National Joint Operations and Intelligence Center. Before that, she commanded the 18th Space Defense Squadron at Vandenberg AFB.

As commander of Space Base Delta 3, Walsh puts in 14-hour days, starting at 6 a.m. She lives at Fort MacArthur in San Pedro, base housing for L.A. AFB personnel. Her husband, Mark, and kids, Taylor, 17, and Dylan, 14, stayed behind in Arlington, Virginia, to avoid disrupting his career and their schooling.

Walsh considers herself lucky. This is only the second time in her 24-year military career she’s been separated from her family for a long stretch. Her spouse is a retired Air Force Security Forces lieutenant colonel and five-time squadron commander who hung up his uniform eight years ago to become a civilian policymaker at the Pentagon. When Walsh’s current tour of duty ends in May, she’ll return to the Pentagon too.

For now she relies on data—beamed by the same satellites her command guards—to stay close to her kids. Walsh watches her daughter’s softball games on GameChanger and attends her son’s wrestling matches and jujitsu competitions via FaceTime. They talk every day using digital devices.

In her downtime, Walsh hikes the South Bay’s nature trails and hangs out at the beach. She loves to cook and especially bake. On her last visit to Arlington (she flies back once a month), she was amused when her son stormed into the kitchen. “You baked bread? You made muffins?” he’d accused, in hurt disbelief. “He was cutting weight for a wrestling competition the next day,” Walsh explains with a chuckle.

Since taking up her command in 2022, Walsh has thrown herself wholeheartedly into the South Bay community. “Every leader sets their priorities differently,” she says. “For me, community outreach is a huge push.”

Less than 1% of the adult U.S. population is in uniform, she notes, which means very few Americans have firsthand knowledge of armed service. “I really believe military members have an obligation to educate our community, to tell young Americans what we do and why we do it,” she says.

She names a few South Bay institutions Space Base Delta 3 has embraced on her watch: the Battleship USS Iowa in San Pedro, the city of El Segundo and its Da Vinci charter schools, the city of Torrance’s Armed Forces Day Parade, and the Torrance Chamber of Commerce’s Military Affairs Council. She’s also connected with Torrance Memorial to push mental health initiatives.

Walsh especially enjoys giving school presentations on space domain awareness—her technical specialty. All told, some 400 STEM classrooms received visits from Walsh and other Guardians last year. Field trips brought students on base, where they could touch a SpaceX rocket and see a vintage, detonation-detecting Vela satellite, which was deployed in the 1960s to ensure Soviet compliance with nuclear test bans.

But Walsh’s favorite outreach activity is El Camino College’s annual Onizuka Space Science Day. The learning event pays homage to the first Asian American astronaut to fly in space, Ellison Onizuka, who tragically died in the 1986 space shuttle Challenger disaster. Onizuka was the reason Walsh joined the Air Force.

“He came to my school when I was 8 years old,” she recalls. “He was such a big deal.” Walsh made up her mind that very day to follow in Onizuka’s footsteps. His school outreach shaped her life. “Who knows what I would be doing today if he hadn’t come to my school? Think about it: That’s just one touchpoint!”

Walsh encourages all Space Force personnel to be that touchpoint in the lives of South Bay community members by seizing opportunities to share their stories of service.