President Barack Obama has also recommended that Bender be promoted to the rank of lieutenant general, the Defense Department said Tuesday.
Bender has previously served as commander of the U.S. Air Force Expeditionary Center at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in New Jersey.
He was the director of warfighter systems integration within the office of information dominance from August 2009 to October 2010.
Prior to that, he held commander roles for the 86th Airlift Wing at Ramstein Air Base and Kaiserslautern Military Community in Germany from December 2007 to July 2009.